We started working with Anaëlle via a classic recruitment assignment, with a defined rate. We were looking for an IT profile that wasn't in the core business of our usual partners. The assignment went very well. Anaëlle provided us with excellent support from start to finish, including the salary proposal.
At that point, we had just come out of the covid period, when recruitment had come to a complete halt. So we had also stopped working with the recruiters. So we had to get things back on track.
Safran was starting to grow again and we felt that recruitment requests were going to increase. So we were thinking about solutions and Mélanie told us about this RPO system. At the same time, we had decided to take on a payroll recruiter. We started by looking at the volume of recruitment and very quickly came to the conclusion that RPO could be a good solution.
The solution was therefore to have a consultant on site, but this began with full support from Profile Group. We started by carrying out an audit of the way recruitment was carried out, with the support of Profile Group. Mélanie and Anaëlle accompanied us to meet the main departments that were recruiting. It was the right time to do it, because with covid, the market had changed and internal recruitment needs had evolved considerably.
What's more, as we had put recruitment on hold, when we started up again some teams were already suffering. So we had to move very quickly, which is not easy in recruitment.
So we tried to implement a few changes, which progressed little by little. A Safran Aero Boosters method was quickly built up, but taken care of by Profile Group, and that's what I liked from the start. It's not an external solution that can be applied as is. It's a combination of SAB's culture, our internal operations and Profile Group's recruitment expertise.
What's more, RPO is a flexible solution. The team has evolved gradually and cautiously. Recruitment predictions at the start of 2023 were around 90, and in the end we completed 195 recruitments in 2023. At the beginning of the year, we couldn't have anticipated the needs. But Profile Group was very responsive and was able to supply us with new consultants to keep up with the workload.
We started with Anaëlle, who wasn't full-time. She quickly became full-time, and then we needed a second person, until today we have a team of 5 Profile Group consultants. So we've gone from one part-time to five full-time in the space of a year.
The most telling result is clearly the 195 new hires. It's a figure we've never achieved before. Especially as these 195 new recruits include a large proportion of engineers and technicians, who are often harder to find. We're also in a post-covid period where the market is highly volatile, with candidates increasingly mobile. And finally, we don't take on employees from our sister companies. So there were a lot of difficulties in achieving this figure of 195 recruitments.
Over and above the figures, there has also been an improvement in manager satisfaction. In the past, due to various factors, they felt a little discouraged about having to recruit. But now, overall, they feel well supported by the Profile Group team. Because the team is on site, there's greater proximity and better contact with all the managers. It's easy to see each other. This feeling of being supported is a big advantage. Although external agencies do it well too, the fact that we're in-house makes it easier to keep in touch.
We've also been working on other projects. We've increased our communication and visibility. Profile Group has also been able to contribute to a number of internal and external events: participation in job days, organisation of an evening to present SAB and recruitment training for managers.
It's also important to mention that with RPO, we can benefit from the best of both worlds. We can rely on recruitment professionals, while at the same time using SAB's brand image, which is very good.