Through the establishment of a new state-of-the-art paint manufacturing facility, Dulux wanted to employ a culturally diverse team and create a unique culture of engagement, inclusiveness, accountability, commitment and supportiveness at the Merrifield site.

Dulux Group are Australia’s largest manufacturer of Paints, Specialty Coatings & Adhesives, with almost $2 billion dollars in global sales each year. Dulux Group employ approximately 4,000 staff across 22 Manufacturing Sites, 19 Distribution Centres and approximately 120 company owned trade outlets.

In 2017 Dulux Group commissioned a brand new $165m state of the art paint manufacturing facility at Merrifield in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. Once completed, the new site will employ around 60 full time staff, with the majority of staff being employed in operational roles.

Due to the highly automated nature of the new site, the operational roles at Merrifield will be completely different to those at Dulux’s other manufacturing facilities and there will be increased emphasis on cross skilling and workforce flexibility.

In addition to the required technical skills, Dulux wanted to employ a culturally diverse team and create a unique culture of Engagement, Inclusiveness, Accountability, Commitment and Supportiveness at the Merrifield site.

“As a greenfield site, it provided us with a unique oppotunity to create a culturally and gender diverse workforce, representative of the community that we operate in.”

Dulux realised that to achieve the above stated objectives, they would need to heavily alter their current recruitment process. As such, Dulux Group engaged Testgrid to:

• Design a Recruitment Strategy that would meet the above objectives
• Execute the Recruitment Strategy

Recruitment Strategy Design

Testgrid’s consultants worked with Dulux’s Management, HR & Operational Teams to design a comprehensive Recruitment Strategy for the new Merrifield site. The Recruitment Strategy included:

• The development of an ‘Ideal Candidate Profile’.
• The development of a ‘Merrifield Operator’ Behavioural Competency Framework.
• A comprehensive Recruitment Process.
• Cognitive Ability and Situational Safety Awareness benchmarks.
• A detailed Candidate Attraction Strategy – utilising 17 different channels.
• A Communication Guide – including communication templates for all steps of the Recruitment Process.

Recruitment Strategy Execution

Testgrid, with support from Dulux’s HR & Operational Teams, managed the execution of the Recruitment Strategy, including:

• Candidate Communications
• Candidate Management
• Candidate Attraction
• Cognitive Ability, Safety and Behavioural Assessment of Candidates
• Video Interviewing, including video review and scoring
• Assessment Centre Facilitation

As a result of executing the Recruitment Strategy that Testgrid designed for the Merrifield Site. Dulux Group was able to offer roles to an outstanding group of candidates that met all of their requirements.

“The team built a recruiting process that minimised bias and tapped into diverse talent pools.

• We tapped into non-traditional talent pools by understanding the intrinsic qualities required for the role and recruiting for those (rather than experience in paint manufacturing or operator work).
• We attracted diverse applicants by: engaging directly with community groups and residents including the local council careers teams and the Hume Council Immigrant Women’s Association; and showcased women and culturally diverse employees on the Dulux Merrifield website, billboards, and in other recruitment material.
• The recruitment process had a strong focus on removing unconscious bias by utilising extensive objective, online testing and assessment centres, rather than a standard CV and interview.

This resulted in a diverse team with a range of cultural backgrounds and experience, as well as a large percentage of women.”