Case Study
Building a digital healthcare innovation department from scratch, whist defining recruitment practices to enable growth within a competitive and niche candidate market.
Hires
Account Director, Principal Talent Partner and Talent Partner
Design, Research, Product Management and Service Ownership
The Situation
Genomics England Ltd (GEL) is owned by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and was set up to deliver the 100,000 Genomes Project. This project would see GEL sequence the entire genomes of 100,000 NHS patients suffering from rare diseases and multiple forms of cancer.
The project was a huge success and positioned GEL at the forefront of the UK’s genomics industry. Following its completion in 2018, DHSC announced further plans to integrate genomics medicine into the NHS, to enable new preventative healthcare measures, targeted treatments and faster diagnoses for patients with rare conditions.
To make this happen, GEL needed to transition to a service-led model and start creating data-driven digital products and services. But without an existing digital team in place, GEL engaged SyncD to build a complete department from the ground up, capable of delivering their roadmap.
- Co-design the hiring strategy with senior stakeholders
- Own full cycle recruitment for digital roles.
- Shape hiring processes that balance rigour and pace
- Provide expert sourcing expertise to help GEL hire the best talent in a competitive and niche talent market
Our Approach
We met with key stakeholders to gather requirements and develop a sourcing strategy. Then through the deployment of embedded talent team, we commenced candidate outreach, with an initial focus on senior hires, before working with those individuals to subsequently build out their respective chapters.
Our talent partners managed digital recruitment end-to-end, with candidate experience and DEI considerations at the forefront of our approach. Furthermore, we partnered with GEL’s digital leadership team to define an equitable hiring process that could enable the department to hire quickly and maintain consistency as they scaled.
As fully integrated members of GEL’s Talent Acquisition team, we attended all internal meetings, had full access to their ATS, and produced weekly reports to help their People/HR team track digital hiring progress.
Our Results
- 77 roles filled in total
- 72 permanent & FTC hires spanning Product Management, Service Design, Service Ownership, Product Design, Content Design, Design Research, Agile roles.
- Digital recruitment best practice embedded, with processes optimised to deliver hires in a competitive market
- Increased GEL’s brand awareness across the digital candidate market
- Equipped Talent Acquisition Team with the skills and knowledge to independently manage future digital hiring
Öznur Özkurt
Director of Design & Research
SyncD worked with me to recruit a whole design and research team of 25+ from scratch at Genomics England and they’ve been an absolute pleasure to work with. They took care and attention to understand the shape of the role for every single hire, the context they would be operating in and the different skills that would help the candidates succeed in this role. They took a similar approach with our candidates as well, in understanding their skills, motivations and goals to make sure there was a good fit between the role and the person. SyncD kept us and the candidates informed and involved throughout the hiring process, and ensured a seamless transition from sourcing to interviewing to hiring to onboarding
Contact Us
Chris Chapman
Address
About
Information
Follow us
SyncD – A Futureheads Company | Registered in England and Wales under the company registration number: 06981893 | Member of APSCo 102390