Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall
Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is one of the younger HRO service lines and it is both growing and maturing quickly. The March issue of HRO Today recognizes the emergence of RPO 2.0. NelsonHall’s RPO specialist, Gary Bragar, would certainly agree. Gary’s October 2012 Targeting Recruitment Process Outsourcing market analysis highlighted many of the same developments in this rapidly growing HRO segment.
What is New in RPO 2.0?
The rapid growth and incorporation of social media for recruiting is a big part RPO 2.0, one that keeps pushing RPO to the leading edge of innovation in the HRO space.
RPO services are rapidly moving up the value chain, and changing client expectations is the key. While reducing the cost of service provision is always on the table, it is no longer the number one issue. Flexibility and scalability will always remain important as well, given how quickly hiring needs can change.
Today’s RPO 2.0 clients are looking for more value:
- Improved quality of hires
- The latest tools and technologies for social and mobile
- Expertise in accessing talent pools and passive hires
- Greater focus on candidate experience
- Analytics and insights, in addition to metrics and reports
- Improved retention
- Access to advanced services including employment branding, talent management, talent engagement, and integration with workforce planning.
Clients Simply No Longer Want To Do It
In the last few years, many buyers reduced internal recruiting staff in line with the reduced volume of hires, and they do not want to rebuild and reinvest in the rapidly evolving technologies and advanced skill sets it takes to succeed in today’s competitive, social, mobile, and global recruitment process market.
Buyer Choice is Broad
For every large staffing company that does RPO including Adecco, Kelly, Manpower, and Randstad, there are smaller vendors that specialize in RPO such as Ochre House and Pinstripe. Most leading RPO vendors of all sizes can offer services in most of the regions of the world as they have partnered and made acquisitions to make their footprints global.
Not long ago, major multi-process HRO (MPHRO) providers either did not provide end-to-end RPO or saw it taken out of contracts. Now, more MPHRO providers have full RPO services strong enough to be offered as standalone services including ADP, Aon Hewitt, Infosys, and IBM.
With RPO 2.0 You Can Have It All
While having it all may still be a bit aspirational for most of us, we are finding evidence that successful client / provider RPO partnerships can improve process efficiencies (e.g., reduce time to hire 20% to 50%), reduce the total cost of hire (often 20% to 30% or more), along with increasing hiring manager and candidate satisfaction.
Imagine what we can achieve with RPO 2.0!
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