HRO Carrying On Despite Slow, Decelerating Economy

Amy L. Gurchensky, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

For those of you who are not aware, NelsonHall assesses the confidence in the HRO market on a quarterly basis. The report involves surveying HRO suppliers from all disciplines to get a pulse on the market.

 From time to time, my colleagues and I will blog about these results. I thought I would take a step back and re-examine HRO supplier confidence levels since the report began.

 As the name suggests, the supplier confidence level measures how confident HRO suppliers are in the future market with a level of 100 representing no change in confidence.

Since the report began, the index has constantly shown a healthy level, despite some fluctuations in between. The following chart graphs HRO service provider confidence levels since its inception.

HRO Supplier Confidence Chart

2011 shows a major turning point in HRO vendor optimism, revealing a downward trend line that coincides with the Employment Situation report produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

There is no need to panic though. It appears that supplier expectations are now more accurately aligned to pipeline activity, which showed a slight weakening in Q1 2012. Again, the most important thing to remember is that the indices are still at a healthy level.

Despite the headwinds from the economic recovery, business for HRO has carried on as evidenced in the following contract activity:

• ADP: awarded a multi-country payroll contract by HP covering ~130,000 employees in 40 countries across Asia Pacific (excluding India), Europe, and the Americas (excluding the U.S.)
• Fidelity: awarded a DC administration contract by the University of Washington for ~31,000 employees; it is now the sole recordkeeping provider for the university
• Talent2: awarded a three year RPO contract by Bankwest in Australia providing full RPO services from job requisition through onboarding including employment branding, establishing an innovation program for sourcing, and more
• IBM: awarded a learning services contract by a government entity in South Africa including content development and delivery of learning
• Aon Hewitt: renews and expands its multi-process HR outsourcing contract with BMO Financial Group for payroll, workforce administration, H&W administration, recruitment services, and compensation administration covering 46,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada for eight years.

There will likely be continued challenges from clients such as stalled decision-making or demands for lower pricing, and some service lines will fare better than others in this slow economy that is decelerating.

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Asia Pacific, Talent2, and HRO

Asia Pacific is the emerging market of the most interest to HRO service providers, especially RPO vendors. Most of the big names in HRO/RPO are building or expanding scale there to take advantage of the higher than average growth rates. ADP and NorthgateArinso are well-established in the region, and Futurestep, GP, Kenexa, ManpowerGroup, Mercer, and Towers Watson have all made recent acquisitions in China, Hong Kong, India, and Australia as the fastest way to get more feet on the ground in this expanding market.

Still considered an emerging market, some Asia Pacific countries are already mature including Australia and Japan, while others are truly experiencing the first rush of growth. Each country has different needs and challenges and HRO service providers need to bring a lot of service line experience and local knowledge to the table. While one industry needs a high volume of entry-level employees to meet demand, another, a bit further on the maturity scale, needs management-level employees with the experience to manage and continue growth of a more complex enterprise.

Newer entrants should not forget that there are regional providers already on the ground; one of the largest is Talent2, which covers the entire area and a bit beyond. Talent2 has continued its solid pace of contract wins across the Asia Pacific region. An example from the public sector is contractor procurement and management for 13 agencies of the Queensland government. In the private sector, contract wins included payroll, RPO, and learning, and cover Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, and even the Middle East.

With ~1,700 employees, Talent2 supports 30 countries in 30 languages from its 46 offices and service centers located across 19 countries. With its scale and services it should be no surprise to find that Talent2 is, according to NelsonHall, the HRO leader in Asia Pacific.

Perhaps it is reasonable then that Talent2 has attracted interest from investors wanting to take it private. Morgan & Banks Investments (MBI) and Allegis Group have entered into an agreement to acquire the company, which will remain operationally as Talent2 if the deal is successful. MBI represents current major stakeholders and Allegis is already a Talent2 RPO partner. It will be interesting to see if privatization allows Talent2 to fuel even more growth in and outside of the Asia Pacific region.

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

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Social Media in HRO Needs to be NICE

To work my way into the topic of social media, I am going to start outside of HRO. IBM recently launched a Social Media Boot Camp for its small- and mid-market business partners and clients.

The social media boot camp is globally available for qualified candidates, including those from emerging markets such as China, Australia, and Saudi Arabia. It is designed to develop the skills and ideas that will enable participants to sharpen their social networking capabilities and build stronger and more interactive ties with their clients. The online course includes an eight-week session with live coaching. It is produced in conjunction with Profitecture and is available for up to 75 participants each quarter. The Q2 2012 classes are already full, and enrollment has started for Q3 2012.

The IBM-led conversation on social media provides a broader view in using new media channels. According to Ed Abrams, IBM vice president of mid-market marketing and strategy, “…remember that social media is all about conversation. You don’t want to use this forum for press releases, or collateral- type materials. You need to remember that social media is very much like a face-to-face conversation. People want to engage, they want the chance to participate.”

Starfire Technologies is one of the early business partners to complete the boot camp. Mary Spurlock, Starfire’s Vice President of Marketing, says that social media is a 2-way street and that while it is important to publish, share, and deliver value when using social media, it is also important to listen, read, and follow what your customers are doing with social media.

There are very practical aspects as well. In RPO it is already critical for a service provider to be on the leading edge of leveraging the latest social media trends, functionalities, and tools. For now, let’s stay with the broader view.

The use of social media in HRO needs to be NICE.

• New: Use social channels to offer something of unique value. Don’t simply repeat the same content offered elsewhere, and keep it fresh—update, update, update! Offer something unique (or at least a unique take) in the content.
• Interactive: Offer multiple ways and levels of interaction. Providing a “comments” section is not even table stakes today. People know how to find your corporate website. If they are on Facebook, they are looking for new ways to connect with you. Be creative.
• Connective: Take advantage of the opportunity to interact with the intended audience to continue, extend, and expand the conversations and weave connections across multiple channels into a whole. Each media channel should have a specialized point, purpose, and voice.
• Engaging: Social media provides a unique opportunity to bring your brand attributes to life in ways that create enriched longer-lasting relationships. Here, “engagement” does not mean “interactive”; it means being invested in a mutually beneficial relationship.

How NICE is your use of social media?

Linda Merritt, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by emailing amy.gurchensky@nelson-hall.com with “HRO Insight” as the subject.

Moorepay and NGA get even more SaaSy in the U.K.

The one question that I always have after acquisitions is, “How does it work out over time?” Some M&As put emphasis on “synergy” (i.e., consolidation and cost recovery). Others focus on skills and footprint in new geographies. NorthgateArinso (NGA) is one of the HRO service providers that use acquisitions in new markets as one type of growth strategies. Moorepay is a payroll and employment service provider in the U.K. with over 10,000 clients and it is one of those NGA acquisitions.

Growth through accretion of revenues and clients in new geographies – along with the access to in-country knowledge to service MNC clients – is a good rationale for M&A. But does the overall vendor system become stronger? Are new capabilities leveraged across opportunity areas? I have lived the life of trying to create change, fighting against the not-invented-here syndrome in the corporate world. This is one of the more subtle reasons for using HRO—to circumvent this internal tug of war.

Now back to Moorepay and NGA. Moorepay just released its newest service on March 12th, a SaaS HR and payroll platform that it will use for the small-employer market. I asked if the underlying technology was based on SAP or Oracle. The answer is “neither”; it is based on Preceda, a proprietary NGA system stemming from the 2010 acquisition of Neller in Australia. Preceda is already in use for ~4,000 clients and 500,000 participants in Australia, Philippines, and New Zealand, and now it is expanding to the U.K. Yeah, synergy, re-use, and leverage to improve capabilities and services for the underserved small-business market halfway around the world!

HRO SaaS is a proven cost-effective alternative to fully customized systems. Its very nature lends itself to offering needed benefits to the small and midsized employers (SME). SaaS brings the illusion of customization through configuration at an affordable cost. These are important attributes, especially important for the employer with less than 500 employees.

Moorepay is fully using the benefit of configuration to launch the new service with four pricing levels from the most basic HR and payroll that gives the option to easily turn on additional services like time and attendance, recruiting, and learning modules.

HR and payroll platforms also bring self-service for employees and streamlined HR processing for managers. According to Ann Fitzpatrick, Moorepay managing director, existing and prospective SME clients are asking for the same level of services that have been in the market for years for the large-employer market.

If the launch goes well, and Moorepay turns the rising demand and its first-mover advantage in the U.K. SME market into new and profitable growth, expect to see new NGA Preceda-based SaaS HRO offerings pop up elsewhere around the world.

Linda Merritt, Research Analyst, HRO, NelsonHall

Interested in reading the latest HRO news from NelsonHall? Subscribe to our newsletter by emailing amy.gurchensky@nelson-hall.com with “HRO Insight” as the subject.