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Supporting Total - Global Leader in Oil & Gas

We supported a global client, Total, to lower HR costs while increasing key efficiencies.

Headquartered in Paris, France, Total is one of the ‘Supermajor’ oil and gas companies in the world, with over 106k employees globally.

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The Challenge

As part of our client’s long-term strategy to flourish in the oil and gas sector, they enacted a head count reduction plan to lower human resource costs while maintaining existing operational capability. They identified that they could reduce costs and the inefficiencies associated with staff turnover by outsourcing their team of group personal assistants. Previously they’d struggled to find the right calibre of candidate within their budget parameters, and the length of the onboarding period (at 12-16 weeks) was not delivering an efficient return on investment.

Total oil

The Solution

SmartPA mobilised a dedicated virtual reception service with some on-site support maintained at the Paris HQ, using expertise carefully selected from our talent pool, with an emphasis on skillset and experience in the oil, gas and energy sectors. At the same time, we also provided resource for two UK subsidiaries.

We directly hired some client PAs onto our staff, ensuring that these individuals were able to continue to provide high-level secretarial, phone and other assistance to their executives with the same level of integration as before while securing confidentiality. The group dynamic was well-balanced and centrally managed through a primary point of contact with an extensive and bespoke training programme implemented prior to the start date.

The Outcome

 

  • Outsourcing delivered significant savings in cost and management time for our client, as they avoided habitual extra costs such as sick pay or annual leave. And by deploying a scalable but dedicated resource, increases in workload were delivered over time. A positive team retention rate meant that communication and service levels were consistently high.

  • As a result of SmartPA’s team learning approach, and by adopting Total’s business requirements and brand guidelines, we delivered a fully-bespoke offering, which brought precision and accuracy. Indeed, our integration into the client’s internal systems was so complete that the relationship appeared invisible to the outside world.

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