Travel company TUI Travel UK & Ireland has revitalised its candidate experience programme after bringing together and streamlining the recruitment operations of subsidiaries First Choice and Thomson.

Speaking at talent management software firm StepStone’s customer conference, Sue Chatfield, head of HR services and resourcing, said that the internal ‘Be Special’ initiative, launched in November 2008, had contributed to an increase in the uptake of employment offers by 10% and reduction in cost per hire by 50%. The time from offer to contract has dropped from three weeks to 48 hours, she said.

TUI Travel UK & Ireland is also working to streamline its employment contracts across its organisations from more than 180 to 40. It aims to develop talent pooling capability and rework role profiles that will improve the percentage of appropriate placements of new employees in the right type of customer-facing positions.

TUI Travel UK & Ireland used StepStone’s i-GRasp software to introduce many of the innovations.