Rolls-Royce drives global growth through agile talent sourcing and strategic partnership

Challenges

To achieve its goals, the company needed a fresh perspective on delivering innovation to support growth targets across multiple regions while modernizing processes and enhancing security protocols.

This initiative presented several complex challenges:

• Balancing a security-focused culture with the business case for revitalization
• Navigating change management across regional and business divisions
• Supporting growth without established workforce planning mechanisms
• Leading a seamless transition from a 14-year incumbent provider

Finding the right fit was crucial. Rolls-Royce needed not just an innovative partner, but one that understood both its heritage of excellence and its vision for the future. Cielo was ready — with scalable solutions aligned with Rolls-Royce’s projected business growth.

Solutions

Cielo delivered a comprehensive Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) solution as well as strategic employer branding and talent marketing services. The team designed an agile, technology-enabled solution that respected Rolls-Royce's precision engineering culture and introduced next-generation talent practices.

At the core of the approach were four strategic talent sourcing channels aligned to business needs:

• Traditional single requisition fulfillment
• Always-on talent engagement for high-demand roles
• Strategic talent pooling for future initiatives
• Executive search through a dedicated Cielo team

This approach was supported by specialized talent sourcing teams for key disciplines and an integrated technology ecosystem including Workday, Cielo TalentCloud, Paradox, Enboarder, and HireEz.

Global standardization in recruitment

Global standardization with regional flexibility became a cornerstone of the strategy. This enabled consistent processes across the organization, allowing for adaptations based on local market requirements and regional nuances.

A clear framework defined responsibilities between internal talent acquisition and Cielo, creating robust governance without burdening recruiters with administrative tasks. Throughout implementation, dedicated global program leads focused exclusively on process improvement, making sure the solution would evolve with Rolls-Royce's changing needs.

Jo Sutton, Global Head of Talent Acquisition at Rolls-Royce, shared: "A massive thank you for all the work from the Cielo team that's gone into building our new talent acquisition service. I don't think we could have got a better fit for our business, and I feel truly grateful that we have such a huge opportunity ahead of us and the best team to support us with it."

Results

In just six months, the team successfully transitioned from the incumbent RPO provider while delivering remarkable results. The transformation brought both immediate wins and sustainable improvements to Rolls-Royce's talent acquisition capabilities, supported by new globally standardized processes and comprehensive analytics.

Recruitment excellence:

• 100% acceptance rate
• 2:1 interview-to-offer ratio
• Just 1% agency usage
• 167 Cielo team members successfully integrated

Employer brand impact:

• 3.8 million impressions
• 432,390 clicks
• 23,554 campaign applications
• 26% CTR for "always on" U.K. campaign
• 50% more clicks YOY
• 13% increase in careers site visitors

These results demonstrate the strength of the Rolls-Royce employer brand and the effectiveness of the team’s strategic sourcing approach. Rolls-Royce is now positioned to successfully manage global talent needs while maintaining its high standards of compliance and efficiency well into the future.