Finance

How Westpac benefit from Xref’s tailored service

Westpac reviews Xref's online reference checking software and discusses the improvements they have seen in turnaround time, costs and headcount efficiency.

"We've reduced reference turnaround time to an average of 22 hours."

22 hrs

It takes, on average, just 22 hours to turnaround references

44%

Of references are completed outside traditional business hours

300

Westpac references now include, on average, 300 words per report

As Australia’s first bank and oldest company, Westpac has played an important role in the economic and social fabric of Australia. They’ve seen a lot over their 200 years, including a recent improvement in their human resources operations, thanks to Xref.

Take a look at Westpac’s Customer Story and admire their journey to improved headcount efficiency, reduced costs, reduced turnaround time and more.

Westpac is one of four major banking organisations in Australia and one of the largest banks in New Zealand. As they can be dealing with the life savings of some of their customers, it is imperative that they hire people they can trust.

With over 40,000 employees, systematic improvements in reference checking practices are highly valued by the organisation.

Hiring Challenges Faced by Westpac

Prior to introducing Xref, Westpac were experiencing several pain points that were hampering the effectiveness of their human resources departments.

They included:

‍Time wasting: Reference checking was consuming too much of the company’s time when it could have been focused on more pertinent areas.
Cost: As a result of the consumption in time, reference checking had become an expensive exercise.
Risk: Without a centralised and streamlined platform, there were obvious risks associated with obtaining certified references.‍
Inefficiency: There was significant room for improvement in Westpac’s headcount efficiency.

Since adopting Xref in 2012, Westpac has systematically improved the effectiveness of their human resources functionality.

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The Results

There has been a:

Dramatic reduction in the time taken to complete reference checks.
Improved individual efficiency.
Overall cost reduction for referencing across the business.
Significant improvement in headcount efficiency.
Risk reduction by centralising the reference checking process.

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The Xref solution has also given Westpac a legally binding approval and consent process - offering significant reassurance to the organisation.

Adam Buxton, Talent Acquisition Strategy Manager at Westpac, has seen first-hand the benefits from Xref’s tailored service and was more than happy to participate in their Customer Story.

“Xref is a single platform that enables the end-to-end facilitation of referencing online,” Adam said.

“For me, the most impressive piece of this tool is the time that it’s saving, it really is turning reference checks from days into hours.

“The first time we used Xref we had 20 applicants that we were going to be making offers to. We put the references in for all those applicants on the Friday and when we came in on the Monday morning, to our surprise, all the references had been done which was just amazing.