Because needs vary, solutions must vary, while always
being characterized by a set of common denominators. Some of the
characteristics that distinguish our services are:
Reduction
in overall recruitment costs
High-volume
and high-quality resume flow
Improved
quality of service delivery
Standardization
of internal and external best practices
Improved
compliance with diversity goals
Enhanced
reporting for better decision making
Retention
of strategic role of HR
Ability
to accelerate organizational change
Improved
stakeholder satisfaction and productivity, including senior management,
Human Resources function, hiring managers, and applicants
Keeping your hands on the wheel with Hybrid
RPO
As the RPO industry matures and begins to consolidate
the fact remains one size really does not fit all. Each service
provider has its own unique strengths and weaknesses with the
largest providers rebranding themselves as full service delivery
organizations.
Who is steering the ship, you or the RPO?
As you search for online RPO literature and companies you will
find a number of full service RPO organizations that emphasize
end to end service delivery. These companies have been commonly
referred to as Tier One service providers basically reflecting
the large number of annual hires they can provide to an organization.
As an example let’s assume you are a large national property
management company with extremely high turnover rates and you
have an on going need to hire thousands of lower paid groundskeepers
and service technicians in multiple locations across the company.
A Tier One provider may be the right type of RPO delivery organization
for you, because they typically will have a large number of clerical
personnel in retail staffing outlets across the country or the
world that can accomplish high volume staffing requirements with
competitive volume pricing.
One thing you may not read about the full-service providers –
and even medium sized providers with agency roots -- is the fixed
term binding contracts from 2-to-5 years you may be offered on
the back end of your negotiations. There will also be lengthy
implementation cycles as well as the wholesale replacement of
your informed and experienced corporate recruiting staff. You
will then have to make way for a completely new group of outsourcers
that will be on a steep learning curve with regards to your company’s
processes, requirements and culture.
What are the risks of this all or nothing approach? How will
the wholesale departure of your trained and qualified team members
impact your relations with your strategic internal management
clients? How will your VP of Sales feel about involuntarily losing
his or her trusted and informed senior recruiters for an unknown?
What are the risks to your organization and your career as owner
of the RPO vendor relationship? As you analyze your vendors and
get to the short list, be sure you have a very thorough understanding
of the contractual terms and conditions that you will be expected
to meet on your new engagement.
Even many of the medium sized providers are prone to imposing
restrictive terms and conditions on their clients, and are also
reluctant to partner with members of your internal recruiting
departments. Like an agency that will often seek a direct line
to the hiring manager and sponsoring VP - bypassing all HR and
recruitment function involvement - these providers typically have
their own agenda. In their view they know what is best for you,
and the provider is always right and they do this all for a hefty
price as well.
Flexibility of the Hybrid RPO
As you continue your search a third group of RPO organizations
will soon come into view. This group realizes the importance of
flexible client partnerships while emphasizing the importance
of retaining key corporate recruiters (your trusted business advisors),
fluid on-demand delivery options, and scalability (up or down)
allowing you to know your fixed or variable costs.
So instead of starting with a new group of eager outsourcers that
will be phased in over a typically long implementation cycle,
this group of Hybrid RPO providers prefers to establish an evolutionary
partnership that will escalate the operational synergies between
your retained internal business advisors and the new outsourced
support teams. Your client VP retains his trusted business advisor
that he has developed a trusting and working relationship with
over the years, but in the “engine room” of your recruiting
department a new “crew” will be stoking the boiler
to power your “ship” to its destination.
“Hybrid RPO is quickly gaining popularity because it
is seamless, easy to implement, completely scalable in either
direction, cost effective and risk free”
Miguel Terrizzano, CEO Pierpoint International
Let’s say you are a global designer of the latest generation
of mobile phones and PDA´s and you require a combination
of financial project managers, a mixed basket of radio frequency,
test, mechanical, and optical electronics engineers - you might
consider partnering with one of the more flexible Hybrid RPO providers
that are experienced in sourcing and screening for your particular
types of human capital requirements.
Under this Hybrid RPO model you would not have to layoff your
entire recruitment team. Instead you could carefully select and
retain your key senior recruiters who have a depth of knowledge
about your particular corporate culture as well as their hard-earned
trusted business advisor status within the management teams in
your various business units.
As experienced members of your internal recruitment team your
proven and trusted business advisors are in a unique position
to partner with your new Hybrid RPO by not only offloading the
more tedious requirements of your recruiting functions such as
passive sourcing, sifting and sorting through the large number
of applicants, internal and external referrals, job board and
corporate career site applications and perhaps even the process
of conducting early stage selection testing. They could also do
reference checking or even coordinating the background screening
process from your own background company
Now that your senior recruiters no longer have to deal with all
this administrivia they will have the time for higher value and
more strategic activities. They will be able to focus on more
workforce planning initiatives with their departmental or regional
Vice President, as well as fine tuning their own talent acquisition
delivery programs to meet the needs of staffing forecasts within
your organization.
Most importantly, the senior recruiter will now be able to function
as the manager and supervisor of the new team of outsourcers and
coordinators that will be providing an on going qualified pipeline
of candidates to meet the strategic requirements of their department.
A great example of how this works is probably already happening
in your own legal department. Do they outsource their entire operation
or do they retain a key legal team to manage contracts with a
larger legal vendor who they can use for specialized legal expertise?
Your in-house corporate lawyer probably wears two hats. They are
the trusted business advisor to the management team, and the vendor
liaison as well.
A recent confidential memo from one global firm lists the keys
to success in its Hybrid RPO partnership:
The
vendor does not compete with the internal recruitment team…they
form a hierarchical partnership functioning as one team across
organizational boundaries.
The
internal recruiter serves as an officer on the “ship”
and is responsible for coaching, mentoring, motivating the RPO
“deckhands”.
The
RPO “deckhands” remain invisible to the company’s
management team who engage directly with the internal recruiters.
There
is one candidate attraction strategy encompassing job boards,
a corporate career site, all manner of passive sourcing by the
vendor, employee referrals, email blasts and video advertisements.
Early
stage applicant screening and qualification from all sources is
handled by the “deckhands”, who also scour the company
ATS to update potentially relevant candidates for open roles.
The
screens are vetted by the internal recruiter and emailed to internal
hiring managers for their review.
The
candidate management and thanks-no thanks messaging is handled
by the “deckhands”.
Standard
searches are handled by the “deckhands”, and niche
hard to fill or executive roles by the internal recruiter.
Extremely
hard to fill roles are given to agencies for a fee between 20-30%
of base salary yet should never represent more than 5% of overall
hires.
Now that the internal recruitment “officer” is no
longer vetting CVs, performing telephone screens and reference
checks he or she has more free time to engage in meaningful value
added activities on behalf of business management as you –
the client – see fit.
Corporate Captain and RPO Deckhands
In this model all concerned parties are working together to get
their “ship” to a common destination. All remain accountable
to the internal client – not the vendor. A few trusted business
partners manage the daily operational interface between the vendor
and the firm’s business units. The RPO “deckhands”
become a variable cost instead of fixed cost for the host organization,
freeing headcount which can be now utilized in more strategic
areas of the organization such as research and development or
sales. Sixty percent of the fixed costs in your internal staffing
organization are now applied to administrative tasks that are
now handled outside your firm by variable cost resources. Keeping
this process internal becomes an ineffective use of your staffing
budget. Your senior corporate recruiters should be doing much
more than just administering your talent acquisition program.
They should actually be well on their way to being human capital
consultants to your business units.
The one size fits all approach of the full-service RPO organizations
may be perfect to manage the hiring of your receptionists, administrative
assistants or plant workers for your multinational firm in the
US, Canada, and the UK - perhaps even across Europe.
Your sales and marketing group will have different requirements.
They will require a robust and qualified pool of experienced Channel,
Enterprise and Public Sector Account Managers, and a team of System
Engineers across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific. And you
will probably have a hard time finding many of these candidates
on the job boards. You will need some experienced passive sourcing
expertise to meet the demand for these positions. (at least 20
profiles per job requisition to obtain three interested and relevant
candidates). It is highly unlikely that a staffing organization
can deliver effectively on this requirement.
And how would this vendor be able to source candidates for you
in Latin America or Eastern Europe? Do they have anyone on their
staff that speaks Spanish, French, German, Dutch, or Russian?
Do they have experience in these international zones and do they
have a database populated with relevant candidates? These are
just some of the operational complexities which make it very desirable
to consider a multi-vendor Hybrid RPO approach.
So in the end, one size does not fit all. Certain providers may
be suitable for administrative hiring, while others are adept
at professional recruitment. Others are experienced in multilingual
international recruitment while others are biased toward North
American or North Atlantic recruitment in specific professions.
And the costs savings are compelling when considering a Hybrid
RPO engagement. You can cut 30 to 50% with a Hybrid RPO so the
savings can have a true impact to your budget’s bottom line.
When you consider an operational change of this magnitude be
very cautious when asked to give up your power to an outside vendor
for extended contractual periods at hefty rates. Explore your
options and consider the risks and rewards for your organization.