“This was SAATI’s first time approaching a digital recruiting tool, and experimenting with it yielded great results right away. So we got off to a flying start with everything the software made possible for us to do.”
Roberta Catignano
HR Specialist
Established in Appiano Gentile in 1935, SAATI is a chemical-textile company that produces technical fabrics for industrial use.
Its products are aimed at the filtration, textile and screen printing and ballistic protection markets. Its filters, in particular, have a wide range of applications: from automotive to purification systems, from household appliances (including the famous Dyson vacuum cleaners) to telephony, from medical diagnostics to the food sector.
In Italy, SAATI has a staff of 450 employees spread over 4 locations (three in the province of Como and one in the province of Milan). Its international character is evidenced by its presence in many countries, with offices and plants in France, Germany, Spain, United States, Korea and China, a join venture in India and a representative office in Russia. It employs around 930 people worldwide.
SAATI stands for the wise combination of tradition and innovation that has made Italian entrepreneurship great.
“We are not the traditional Como weaving mill renowned for clothing or furniture. Our winning move was to diversify and focus on a niche sector that has become the company’s core business: filtration.”
The HR department
SAATI’s HR Department, consisting of 6 people headed by a Global HR Director, is quite lean. Accordingly, all its members have the opportunity to work on a variety of processes, from recruiting to training, from the design of career paths to compensation and benefit plans.
Each member of the HR Department is also responsible for one of the plants in Italy, in order to be closer to the people who work in production and at the branch offices and to provide quicker responses to the questions and needs of employees and managers.
SAATI’s HR department includes Roberta Catignano, who joined the company in 2014 with the aim of developing welfare policies at the company, and Davide Maria Bollini, who in the last year has dealt mainly with recruiting.
The challenge
In 2014, just a few months after Roberta joined the company, SAATI was faced with the challenge of having to manage a spike in new recruitment to accomodate an impending generational change at the company.
Until then, thanks to its strong territorial presence and the social role it plays, the company had maintained a low turnover and found its employees via word of mouth, recruitment agencies and by “welcoming” whole families.
However, the many impending retirements called for the recruitment of a large number of new staff, who would have to undertake a long process of internal training.
More modern tools and processes were needed to attract and hire the younger generation, who were more comfortable with modern application methods.
The solution
To meet this challenge, SAATI’s HR department looked for a digital tool that would help them give visibility to the company outside the usual circuits.
The choice fell on ATS Altamira Recruiting, and their use of it has been very successful since the beginning.
The first step was to create the Careers section on SAATI’s corporate website. Connected to a digital database, it ensures that all job applications flow into a single repository equipped with advanced search and selection tools.
Thanks to multiposting, which automatically posts job ads on a large number of specialized sites and social networks simultaneously, the ads posted received a consistently satisfactory response.
To further increase the number and quality of applications received, SAATI also took advantage of the many partnerships Altamira has established over time with companies like Indeed and LinkedIn, buying credits to give greater visibility to its vacancies and launching more structured sponsored campaigns.
In addition to facilitating the search for candidates, Altamira Recruiting allowed them to build and segment a large pool of candidates that they can draw on when a position opens up. This has reduced recruitment time and dependence on staffing firms. By signing contracts directly with employees, the company has improved employee engagement and reduced costs.
“There were so many experiments, which in the end confirmed the reliability of the tool and its potential.”
Davide, who has been at the forefront of using the tool over the last year, successfully finalizing more than 50 recruitment processes, confirmed the usefulness of the tool in terms of adapting to the new habits of candidates, who are no longer used to sending or delivering paper CVs but applying online.
The visibility guaranteed by Altamira Recruiting was sufficient for most of the positions they were looking for – typically blue collar workers – and there was no need to tap into other databases that are often focused on more senior positions.
“Even during a period of heavy use of the platform, there was never a need to call on support. This is an absolutely positive aspect.”
Davide Maria Bollini
HR Specialist
Support
The software configuration phase was accompanied by a long discussion between SAATI’s staff and Altamira’s support team. The platform was thoroughly customized and every ticket resolved in a very short time.
Thanks to the training and support manual provided by Altamira, SAATI’s HR team – who are young and tech-savvy – quickly mastered the tool. Since then, they have almost never needed to use the Customer Success service.
During the following years, their contacts with Altamira were mainly related to the activation of partner services. Their dedicated Altamira sales representative has always been available, organizing meetings with suppliers and taking part in them even when her presence was not indispensable.
Finally, thanks to the monthly service newsletter, the HR team is kept up to date with the latest product news.
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