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Is Recruitment Process Outsourcing Right for Your Organization?
Is Recruitment Process Outsourcing Right for Your Organization?
Successful outsourcing relationships are based on having a clear understanding of the costs and internal shortcomings relative to the recruiting function. Once you have clarity on this, you then have the ability to begin the process of understanding what you’ll need to know to effectively manage a Project-Oriented Recruitment process as well as to set proper expectations with your internal human resources, hiring managers and your executive team. This is a critical first step. Gaining full understanding of what your company’s issues are will set the stage for creating measurable objectives and areas of focus for a successful and collaborative relationship.
What root problems will outsourcing solve or not solve?
Many organizations look at cost reduction as their number one reason for considering going with an RPO type model. As they proceed down this path, they do so with the primary objective of looking for a cheaper way to meet their recruitment needs. However, it is important to understand that RPO or Project-Based Recruitment is not a commodity. Successful project-oriented recruiting programs are highly dependent upon a consultative partnership with a broad array of differences in structure, focus, technology and cost. Every company is different. Your company culture may require more hand holding of your hiring managers or your hiring needs may go through periods of intense demands and then sharp declines which require your recruiting partner to be able to scale their resources accordingly.
Most organizations that seek a project-oriented type of solution are driven by the need to improve candidate quality, enhance elements of the recruitment process and lower costs. Lowering cost is usually the most popular concern due to the fact that it is one of the only metrics that is best known by the company. Not having more essential metrics and understanding the value that they play is something that needs to be considered. It would be unrealistic to expect the project focused process to solve your current problems with the same or even less resources than you currently have allocated to the recruiting process. If you are aware that your problem is tied to recruiting metrics, then you will be better off focusing your efforts on achieving quantifiable improvements to those metrics. Once you better understand the impact of improving those metrics, then you should be able to find opportunities to reduce costs in other areas of the recruitment process. A properly focused project-oriented process should result in securing and retaining managers and employees that create competitive advantage and enhance your bottom line.
If you have no prior experience with working with a project-oriented process, it is encouraged that you approach the process with a relatively open mind. You should be prepared to set aside some of your traditional approaches to recruiting that will not work in your current situation. One of the biggest obstacles to efficient collaboration that we have seen in the past is clients that want to demand or define how the RPO should work even when they have no prior experience with such a ramp up. We also have seen the client human resources team being committed to the project-oriented process but then find other elements of the company’s executive team that want to dictate process that is not aligned to recruiting best practices – and therein you have another problem… This type of situation can be likened to hiring an architect to design the new building for the start-up operation and then allowing your employees to dictate to the architect what kind of materials he can use in his design.
If you see that the challenges you currently have in your recruitment process are centered around the need for improved processes, better use of technology and the need for greater expertise in all areas of the recruiting process – then a project-oriented service delivery model will most likely be your best choice. However, if your recruiting issues are more tied to hiring managers not being accountable or your executive management having unrealistic expectations of the recruiting process – then you will need to do some work on building internal consensus in order to have the impact you are looking for.
Most organizations that seek an RPO solution are driven by the need to improve candidate quality, enhance elements of the recruitment process and lower costs. Lowering cost is usually the most popular concern due to the fact that it is one of the only metrics that is best known by the company. Not having more essential metrics and understanding the value that they play is something that needs to be considered. It would be unrealistic to expect the RPO process to solve your current problems with the same or even less resources than you currently have allocated to the recruiting process. If you are aware that your problem is tied to recruiting metrics, then you will be better off focusing your efforts on achieving quantifiable improvements to those metrics. Once you better understand the impact of improving those metrics, then you should be able to find opportunities to reduce costs in other areas of the RPO process. A properly focused RPO process should result in securing and retaining managers and employees that create competitive advantage and enhance your bottom line.
If you have no prior experience with working with an RPO type process, it is encouraged that you approach the process with a relatively open mind. You should be prepared to set aside some of your traditional approaches to recruiting that will not work in your current situation. One of the biggest obstacles to efficient collaboration that we have seen in the past, is clients that want to demand or define how the RPO should work even when they have no prior experience with such a ramp up. We also have seen the client human resources team being committed to the RPO process but then find other elements of the company’s executive team that want to dictate process that is not aligned to recruiting best practices – and therein you have another problem… This type of situation can be likened to hiring an architect to design the new building for the start-up operation and then allowing your employees to tell the architect what kind of materials he can use in his design.
If you see that the challenges you currently have in your recruitment process centering around the need for improved processes, better use of technology and the need for greater expertise in all areas of the recruiting process – then an RPO service delivery model will most likely be your best choice. However, if your recruiting issues are more tied to hiring managers not being accountable or your executive management having unrealistic expectations – then the RPO model is not likely to have the impact it should.
