It”™s all in the timing for Karen Casey and premium pet food provider Canidae.
Having relocated its headquarters from Norco, California, to a 16,700-square-foot space at 1 Dock St. in Stamford in early 2020, Canidae hired Casey, who had been consulting for it while at an outside HR firm, as its head of people and culture in June of that year.
Yes, in the midst of a pandemic.
“I was part of its Covid response at the national level from the start,” Casey said. “And I was fixing every part of their HR team, including staffing.”
As proved to be the case with many consumer product companies, Canidae found itself in the midst of exploding demand as the suddenly working-from-home took a new interest in what their pets were eating, or went out and adopted new friends.
That led in turn to a need for additional staff, not only in Stamford but also at its manufacturing facility in Brownwood, Texas, and for its national sales team.
Enter TalentWorks.
The Boston branch of the British recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) firm was able to pick up the slack in Canidae”™s hiring process, Casey said.
“We still really had no HR infrastructure to support full-time talent acquisition,” she said. “So I was able to turn to them to facilitate the ”˜blocking and tackling”™ of bringing people onboard.”
TalentWorks assigned its U.S. head of recruitment services Trish Bromme ”” herself a relative newcomer, having joined the Boston branch in October 2019 ”” to Canidae, “and she”™s not only hired some terrific people, she”™s also served as a brand ambassador as part of the interviewing/engagement experience,” Casey said.
According to Jody Robie, senior vice president and shareholder for Talent Works North America, Canidae is a prime example of a small but growing enterprise that is using RPO to its advantage, thus allowing management and staff to focus on the day-to-day details of doing business.
“It”™s so different than it was a year ago,” Robie said. “The pandemic obviously played into that. It can be difficult for a company to find the flexibility to navigate something like this was ”” trying to set up flex schedules, furloughing people, bringing them back in. Our job is to understand from our customers”™ perspective how much support they need.”
Talent Works’ business has grown by 400% over the past year, she added.
In Canidae”™s case, that resulted in a one-year contract, which Robie said “gives confidence to both sides that we will do everything we can to help them get to where they want to be.”
Weekly calls with Casey and CEO Bret Furio to review strategy ”” and candidates ”” are the norm, Robie said.
Casey said that through Bromme and TalentWorks, Canidae ”” the name, incidentally, is Latin for the biological family that encompasses domestic dogs, wolves and foxes ”” has hired about 20 people, “which is pretty significant for a company of our size.”
All told, Canidae employs about 150, she said, estimating that it has about 15 openings across the country at the moment.
Even with the explosion of online sales, Casey said Canidae began returning its field staff to offices in March: “Face-to-face selling will always have an impact.”
“We are on a mission to make a difference to our consumers and the planet, and that starts with our people, who are the bedrock of our organization,” said Furio in a statement.
“We”™re looking forward to our biggest year ever and we”™re pleased to be working with TalentWorks. It”™s reassuring to have the right partner in place that will help us to grow as we navigate uncharted territory.”
