In the area of business that I specialize in I have been researching the RPO movement. Recruitment Process Outsourcing, is about removing the recruitment and staffing function from inside the company and having an outside vendor manage, execute and deliver people on an as needed basis.
Some user reports say this is the most efficient way for a National or Global organization to staff, others say their quality of hires has declined, unwanted turnover has increased and candidates are left with an ill feeling about the companies employment brand.
What I have learned for sure is that RPO is not for every company; a company has to have certain staffing objectives that make an RPO offering appealing.
Just because RPO might not be the right answer for your company does not mean that there is not work to do to create an efficient, effective and highly successful recruitment function within your organization. After all, your company is only as good as the people inside and an ineffective, inefficient recruitment process is a barrier between you and your next level of talent.
Over 10 years ago, when I owned Alliance HR Network, one of my mentors asked me for our operational quality ratio of interviews to hires. I did not have the number. He then asked me how many candidates we had to talk to, to generate a live interview, I did not have that number either. I began to see that my lack of managing those important numbers was in the way of me running an efficient recruiting operation and that was costing me money.
Efficiency
The journey was a painful one, back then we were interviewing 10 people to place 1 and we had to talk to 100 to interview 10. That meant that 90% of our time did not result in generating revenue. I began to understand more and more about lean manufacturing, operational excellence and performance ratios. I chose to enroll in a certification program in organizational development and in that 12 month program I learned a great deal about why companies lay so many people off in recessionary times.
I decided to go to work on my own company looking for ways to bring operational excellence, improve productivity, lower costs and continue to deliver a high quality of service. What I learned and implemented was the impetus for the making of KeenHire.My team and I went to work on our business processes, we analyzed performance ratios in each of our core functions and worked on eliminating tasks that were irrelevant to effectiveness. We incorporated time saving technology that allowed team members to focus on high impact functions. We created a system for candidate intake that dropped our ratio from 10:1 to 3:1.
Effectiveness
Considering quality was what my company was known for I knew I had to find a way to stand behind that claim beyond in words. This is what lead me to implementing behavioral interviewing and 'fit' assessments into our hiring and selection process. This not only aided us in the validation of the candidates we submitted, it save us thousands of man hours. It became much easier to select the best and eliminate the rest and was instrumental in my ability to quickly ramp up new hires. Our recruiters were making placements within 2 weeks on a desk, because I was hiring the right people and giving them a great process to follow.
Our customers were delighted with the amount of data we had on each candidate we were representing. The real benefit was when our customers requested we manage the complete staffing of entire department, leadership and launch teams. The implementation of this conscious-hiring process not only saved us money and time, it was directly responsible for an uptick in work, sales and profitability.
Whether your company chooses to run recruitment from the inside or the outside it is up to you to manage performance in 3 key areas. In no particular order, ensuring high quality hires, managing efficient recruitment processes and delivering a high quality of service to all of the stakeholders is critical to maximizing your return on your people investment and imperative to being an Employer of Choice.
