Case Study: Iceland Foods achieves faster, fairer hiring with Sapia.ai

How a huge grocery retailer used a Smart Interviewer to innovate during the pandemic

Iceland Foods, a top UK supermarket chain with over 25,000 employees, faced a critical hiring challenge during the pandemic. Their time-poor store managers had zero capacity for recruitment, yet the business urgently needed to hire 5,500 new team members. Their temporary, centralized hiring process was not sustainable, and they required a long-term automated solution that was fair, efficient, and aligned with their values.

Iceland Foods implemented Sapia's Smart Interviewer, a text-chat AI tool, to automate their first-round interviews. The solution was customized to their brand and values, provided a simple, mobile-friendly experience for candidates, and delivered personalized feedback. The results were significant, with the process saving 8,000 hours of screening time in four months, achieving a 5x payback on investment, and delivering a 99% positive candidate sentiment rate with zero bias detected in hiring recommendations.

Iceland Foods