Lebara is one of Europe’s fastest growing mobile telecom companies, with five million active customers, 1,000 employees worldwide and operations spanning eight countries. With a unique vision to bring happiness to migrant communities, Lebara sought to expand to Chennai, India.
Setting out to open a services center in Chennai, India, Lebara needed to overcome several challenges. Obstacles included hiring a large, skilled local workforce in just six months, while navigating unfamiliar hiring practices in a market where its brand was not known. Additionally, Lebara had to manage everything from a main office 8,000+ kilometers away.
Time
Hiring a skilled local workforce in just six months
Distance
An intensive hiring push from 8,000+ km away
Culture
Unfamiliar hiring practices in a new market
Limitations
Attracting top talent with an unknown brand
Understanding that expertise in Chennai’s local market was essential to finding, recruiting and onboarding strong talent, Lebara and its dedicated strategic talent management partner, RTM, sought a partner that specialized in complex global talent acquisition needs. Recognizing 247Hire’s ability to both architect and execute solutions in a close partnership, Lebara selected 247Hire to spearhead expansion into Chennai.
With a focus on collaboration and business advisory, 247Hire put a cross-cultural approach in motion to ensure both London and Chennai and all stakeholders received the support and information they needed. Together with Lebara’s HR team and RTM, 247Hire:
Reflecting on 247Hire’s approach, Lisa Kelly, Head of Talent and Resourcing at Lebara, says, “What stood out about 247Hire was that despite their extensive experience mobilizing recruiting solutions in locations across the globe, their first order of business was consulting and collaborating in person with us and with RTM to understand our unique hiring opportunities and challenges in Chennai. The open and collaborative discussions we had among our hiring managers in London, RTM’s recruitment experts and the Lebara team are what set us up for success and ensured the recruitment strategy was carefully aligned with our needs.”
Over the course of a concentrated nine-month hiring push, the 247Hire team filled a wide range of hard-to-fill professional and technical roles, engaging local talent and managing nuances within a complex job market. Roles included:
247Hire’s efforts resulted in 356 carefully vetted candidates, 98 interviews, 40 job offers and 30 new hires, successfully achieving Lebara’s goals.
“It’s not an exaggeration at all to say we could not have succeeded in building our talented Chennai team without the global recruitment guidance and expertise of 247Hire. It was a tremendous business and cross-cultural challenge for us and an essential opportunity for growth that has made us a bigger, better business.”
Head of Talent and Resourcing, Lebara