Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/65226
RPO "The key finding is that both are valid—the thing is that you've got to be very cognisant of which approach you are taking," Marsden explains. "If you are outsourcing broken processes, you've got to be aware of the additional investment costs and the time it's going to take in order to fix those processes to achieve your outcome." The majority of clients reported they conduct a robust comparison of the benefits of outsourcing versus keeping recruiting functions in-house. That's smart, Marsden says, as outsourcing isn't right for every company. However, it is a viable option in many cases. Here are a few reasons why. Build or Buy? Expertise. Practitioners report a driving factor is what expertise they can leverage from an RPO programme. Organisations with HR generalists typically don't have the time to take on the type of recruitment programme that can be delivered from a third- party. When Lend Lease considered moving towards leveraging outsourcing, it commissioned an independent audit to gauge their internal recruitment performance and compared that to their future objectives. "They started to look at the flexibility, direct hire, new technology and strong branding [of RPO providers] and they just didn't feel like they had the capability internally to do that," Randstad director Sebastian O'Connell reports. "So the independent audit provided them the ammunition to take internally and sell that to their stakeholders." Scale and flexiblity. Marsdeen notes that RPO providers deliver the type of scale and flexibility that many clients need. Often the choice of an RPO has to do with a change in the company's operations or strategy, including challenges around growth, or shrinking markets. As such, it is critical to have an RPO provider that has scale and can flex with an organisation as necessary. Jacques Bossonney, director and vice president of RPO sales at Kenexa, sees flexibility as a truly overriding factor in choosing an RPO provider. "Citibank said that the more volatile the market, the more they asked their RPO provider to come up with flexible and creative solutions," Bossonney says. "Lend Lease has a very cyclical business. They are in the property and construction business, so they are driven by project. When they win a big project, they certainly have a rush of hiring, which the RPO solution can provide them with." Santender also gets access to best practices and insight into what their competition is doing through their engagement, he says. "So flexibility and managing to manage the three dimensions of cost reduction, speed, and quality is important," Bossonney notes. "Quality is very important—not just in terms of quality of process—but also in terms of quality of hire." Partnership. When selecting an RPO provider, O'Connell reports that buyers are seeking a "true partnership" that can be developed by building a business case and finding a provider to meet those needs. For example, one company reports a positive experience with outsourcing within its organisation because of that business case. Developing a plan made it much easier to earn executive buy-in and reveal the specific benefits of outsourcing their recruitment processes, notes O'Connell. In choosing the right RPO solution, pratitioners say it's a matter of chemistry and shared values. "In reality, what you're asking from an RPO is to become the doorway into your organisation," O'Connell says. "You're relying on the RPO provider to provide that candidate experience that you're looking for—to provide that face to the external market. [So a provider] that lives your culture and values is absolutely critical to making it work." The key to a successful implementation of an RPO solution is to make sure it fits the client's culture, O'Connell notes. "Don't ever think that you can just say, 'Okay I've got a new solution, the company will buy it, because they won't,'" he says. "What you really need to think about when you're picking your partner is how you're going to integrate them into your HR department. What's the best place for them to sit? Who are the best people to sponsor them through the process?" Avoid Pitfalls "Another key message that came out was that cost savings as a primary driver could be quite risky," O'Connell says. "A global pharmaceutical company said, 'Don't focus on it being a cheap option, or you're going to get a cheap service [which would] be purely around basic talent acquisition and not necessarily about the quality of strategic input you want from an RPO.' " And don't jump the gun. Debbie Reeves-Malvagni, head of resourcing, Europe at Santander, recommends that firms should not be overly ambitious when implementing an RPO solution. The company had implemented a prior solution in a very aggressive 12-week period, but had encountered problems when the rest of the company couldn't adapt that quickly. "So actually adding an extra month or two to the implementation process, while not being potentially the shortest timeframe you could have done, is certainly the better timeframe," O'Connell explains. Overall, companies need to decide whether their recruitment processes are core or noncore functions that they could comfortably outsource, he says. "Recruitment is a difficult function and outsourcing candidates is a challenging thing to do," Bossonney says. "At the end of the day, it has a direct impact on the client's bottom line, and that's why I think all of us RPO providers strive for delivering quality of hire." [36] HRO TODAY GLOBAL | WINTER 2012