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Morrisons Case Study
Building a Future Leaders Programme for Morrisons
The Background
With a workforce of around 97,000 – serving 11 million customers each week – Morrisons is committed to finding and nurturing future leaders with tailor-made programmes.
They offer 10 graduate schemes including Technology, Finance, Manufacturing and People, alongside our better known Retail and Supply Chain programmes. Degree Apprentices can join the award winning programmes via Manufacturing, Corporate, Logistics, Retail and Food Tech.
Our Objective
Amberjack and Morrisons have developed a long partnership, consistently innovating to provide a seamless process from attraction activity to final round interviews, each year we identify improvements to be made and take action across the entire recruitment process.
With the main goal of supporting students and young people and educating them about the opportunities on their doorstep, the objectives of this partnership were to create an immersive and interactive recruitment process which prioritises candidate experience and emulates life at Morrisons.
Candidates are at the heart of Morrisons’ process, ensuring candidates are provided with a best-in-class experience, contributing to the fulfilment of critical roles and the success of future leaders. The aim is to create a strong and diverse emerging talent pipeline for succession to senior roles, including our directors.
Our Solution
From the very beginning of the recruitment process, Amberjack and Morrisons work together to prioritise an effective attraction strategy. On-scheme graduates and apprentices support this activity with their own authentic stories and experiences, as well as directly engaging with potential candidates at university events within our target areas, including successful upskilling training sessions. The hard work put in to the process with the help of existing graduates and apprentices, contributes to the foundation of unique and authentic digital content, also including videos and stories from diverse early careers colleagues, allowing candidates to gain a real insight into the organisation and picture themselves as a team member.
The recruitment process is a seamless continuation from our attraction activity, and is designed to be immersive and interactive. Together, we made the process more efficient, improving candidate experience. The four stage process includes a short application form, immersive blended assessment, assessment centre and final round interview, with assessment materials built based on advice, industry research and feedback from both successful and unsuccessful candidates. At the assessment centre, case studies, group exercises and role plays are designed to emulate life at Morrisons and tailor made for the scheme.
Morrisons schemes are two years minimum and have a clearly defined structure and carefully designed with Morrisons’ ‘opportunity to succeed’ people ambition at its core. Individuals have a roadmap of placements designed to provide the right experience so they roll off scheme into an early managerial role. Individual learning journeys and targeted learning interventions are scheme specific, and individuals are supported to obtain relevant professional qualifications.
Graduates and degree apprentices have ‘real’ role experience – their placements are in existing important roles and include real business projects. They have a Leadership team member as a mentor and buddy from the previous year’s cohort, with line managers selected on their ability to care for and develop our graduates and degree apprentices. The candidates have exposure to, and interaction with, the Exec committee throughout their programme ensuring they have the opportunity to demonstrate their potential to become one of our future leaders.
The Journey
Amberjack and Morrisons collaborate on a comprehensive recruitment strategy, leveraging authentic stories and engagement from on-scheme graduates and apprentices. The process seamlessly transitions into an immersive, four-stage journey, including tailored assessments and exposure to real-life scenarios. With structured schemes and mentorship, candidates develop into future leaders within Morrisons.
Step 1.
Insight and Research
50 business leaders interviewed to define core role behaviors, shaping Morrison’s attraction and recruitment strategies.
Step 2.
Attraction Strategy
Digitally driven attraction strategy transformed Morrisons website with authentic, resonant content for students, parents, and teachers.
Step 3.
Blended Assessment
Innovative recruitment process: short registration, Situational Judgement Test, video interview with program-specific case studies for realism.
Step 4.
Assessment Centre
Pre-pandemic, assessment centers were on-site with bespoke exercises, real colleagues, including senior management. Now adapted to virtual due to restrictions.
The Impact
From September 2017, to September 2023, Morrisons hit the milestone of over 1000 Early Careers hires, and achieved standout results…
Academic achievement of Morrisons degree
Graduates schemes has grown from 7 to 10
70% of Early Careers hires remaining in the business
As a result of the emerging talent strategy employed by Morrisons with the help of Amberjack, the population of early careers colleagues live on scheme, and alumni in the Centre, has risen from 5% of the total population in 2017, to 20% as of April 2023. This emerging talent pipeline is fulfilling critical roles, pre and post scheme, in business areas such as Wholesale, Property, Finance, Technology, Buying and Marketing.
