Update on Shared Services and HRO

I am on the Human Resources Outsourcing Association (HROA) Publications and Practices Committee and for the November meeting our hot topic was an update on shared services and HRO.

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

Value Delivered

All three guest speakers agreed that HR shared services organizations (SSO) remain one of the core transformation trends in HR. Colin Brennan, Aon Hewitt product management and strategy VP, sees that the movement to SSOs and HRO is focusing more on value delivered and less on pure cost.  Clients want to improve both the cost and quality of services like talent management, recruiting, and learning. Clients also want to measure and manage HR issues across the enterprise, whether it is various operating divisions or regions of the world.

Tech Talks

Maribeth Sivak, a principal consultant with ISG, also sees an uptick in interest in SSOs and HRO, but as a follow on to HR technology decisions.  Many companies are facing major and costly upgrades in core HR technology systems, which create the opportunity to consider consolidation into shared services including HRO. Cost is a key driver, of course, but so is a desire to improve the employee experience with mobile and social capabilities as well as improve HR with access to more HR analytics.

Major technology costs also open the door for considering new vendor-provided systems and even SaaS. As SaaS offerings move “up stack” there is and will be a call for BPO service support.

The Chicken or the Egg

What comes first, shared services or HRO? Some start with HRO and others create SSOs first. Either way, clients usually want to get their arms around what they can do first and then look to optimize and increase velocity, often ending up with a blend of both.

At KellyOCG, Kathleen Bienkowski, global shared services VP, sees some organizations that start with shared services continue to evolve into multi-functional general business services as they mature. KellyOCG has its own showcase that demonstrates many of the aspects of a mature SSO: delivery centers, transaction processing, recruitment sourcing, and a knowledge center for global mobility. The contact center is outsourced to another division, Kelly Connect.

What Doesn’t Change

Each of our speakers commented on the continued need to manage major change including:

• A strong internal sponsor / champion to drive the change
• A clear vision that articulates the benefits and defines the future state delivery model
• Change management  in transition and implementation plans
• A governance structure for performance and issues management.

As both shared services and HRO reach a level of maturity, they are reaching a level of acceptance with less perceived risk in the decision, value is balancing the focus on cost, and pent up technology needs will be opening the door to opportunity. All in all, a great update with plenty of good news!

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Employment Branding: Business, Culture, and HRO

Yesterday, I participated in a very lively online Twitter discussion about employment branding. Branding is a common topic for businesses, particularly for corporate, product, and service identities. Employment branding is important to ensure the attraction and retention of employees that can deliver the business brand experience. Meghan M. Biro’s brand humanization concept is that it is all connected: the business brand, its culture, and its ability to attract and retain talent. That connectivity is a business opportunity for HRO, think RPO and employment branding services, and it is also an issue for HRO service providers as employers.

In an earlier blog this year, I concluded that HRO will not hinder and may even help clients achieve human capital leadership, using leadership and best place to work awards as evidence. Diversity award lists from DiversityInc.com and Diversity MBA magazine have just come out for 2012 and again we see recognition of HRO service providers including Accenture, ADP, and IBM, as well as many companies that use HRO. Here are examples from the world of RPO:

• Alexander Mann Solutions: Citi and Deloitte
• Futurestep: General Mills and Kaiser Permanente
• KellyOCG: GE
• Kenexa: Verizon and U.S. Navy
• ManpowerGroup Solutions: Wells Fargo
• Randstad SourceRight: AT&T and Capital One
• The RightThing, an ADP Company: Kellogg and WellPoint.

As part of my long running theme on talent management, I believe strongly that HRO vendors can and should be leaders in creating the agile workforces of the future. Part of being a leader is practicing what you preach, which is largely what corporate and employment branding is about.

In HRO service providers often need to scale up and scale down quickly, while still ensuring a full slate of experienced subject matter experts. On top of that, many HRO service providers base client care centers and processing centers in talent competitive markets, which often stimulates high turnover and brings together workforces from very different cultures. This is the second challenge of employment branding for HRO, as employers, each service provide needs to build a differentiated employment brand and corporate culture to attract and retain the talent needed to fulfill its business brand.

Part of developing an employment brand is determining what attributes make a particular employer a good place to work and developing programs to ensure those elements are in the workplace and recognized by current and prospective employees and are aligned with business outcomes. Sounds simple, but it surely isn’t.

Buyers, ask your HRO service providers about their workforce practices to see if they practice what they sell. Service providers, in addition to client testimonials, engage and leverage your own employees as brand ambassadors.

Linda Merritt, HRO Research Analyst, NelsonHall

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HRO Today Forum In Vogue

I found my attendance at last week’s HRO Today Forum to be very worthwhile. I presented my newly published research on the “State of the Learning BPO Marketplace,” including the emergence of social learning. While there, I took full advantage of attending many of the other sessions and meeting with several companies including: The Good Jobs, KellyOCG, Pinstripe, Randstad Sourceright, Kenexa, Aon Hewitt, Raytheon Professional Services, NorthgateArinso, Seven Step Recruitment, and Hays. Here are some of the highlights from the forum.

The Good Jobs: The Good Jobs is an online service that allows job seekers and employers an innovative way to find each other. Employers not only advertise job opportunities, but also their employment brand, culture, and corporate values to candidates. Job seekers can identify their life and work style priorities, and target those employers who meet their needs. Matching talent desired to employer desired will lead to employee engagement and retention in addition to business results, including increased productivity and lower cost by reduced attrition. No surprise The Good Jobs won the iTalent competition.

Where do Jobs Come From Panel: This panel was led by Prudential HR SVP Sharon Taylor and included Brink Lindsey from the Kauffman Foundation; Scott Case, CEO of Startup America; and John Haltiwanger from the University of Maryland. A few interesting data points from this session included the following:

• 90% of companies are small, but 65% of employees work for large companies
• 2003 – 2007 saw high job growth averaging 200,000 hires per month but it was not as strong as the 1990s
• From ~1977 – 2003, there were only 5 years that job growth exceeded layoffs for non-start-up companies, i.e. a net creation in jobs
• I missed the time period, but the point was that more jobs have been created in startups (3.5m) vs. established private sector companies (2.5m)
• The fastest growing businesses are also the most profitable.

Is Outsourcing Good for America Debate: Interesting points from the pro side included:

• 90% of outsourcing serves companies outside of the U.S.
• 95% of world consumers are outside of the U.S.
• 90% of what is made abroad gets sold abroad
• Foreign companies invest more in the U.S. (e.g. Honda, Nissan, BMW) than the U.S. invests abroad (it’s a 2 way street)
• The U.S. tax rate is one of the highest in the world adding to why some companies shift a portion of their business and jobs offshore.

Congratulations to all Bakers Dozen MSP winners led by Randstad Sourceright, Staff Management, Allegis Group Services, Adecco Solutions Group, The Bartech Group, Guidant Group, Advantage xPO, KellyOCG, Hyphen, Agile 1, Yoh, Hays Plc, and WorkforceLogic.

Congratulations to HRO Award recipients including providers NorthgateArinso, Pinstripe, Aon Hewitt, KellyOCG, and Evolv, Inc.; provider executives Cynthia Crose of IBM and Mike Ettling of NorthgateArinso; and buyer executive Chris Payton of Bank of America.

Gary Bragar, HRO Research Director, 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.

Does HRO Help or Hurt in Achieving Human Capital Leadership?

Can employers be recognized as leadership development advocates and a great place to work and still take advantage of HRO services? Yes—and recent “best companies” announcements provide plenty of examples.

Fortune’s annual 100 Best Companies to Work For list includes a number of companies known to use HRO services. RPO examples include: American Express (Hays RPO), Edward Jones and Intuit (Manpower Group), Microsoft and Novartis (Alexander Mann Solutions), and SAS and Telefonica (Ochre House). Accenture, which provides HRO services, is on the list as an employer.

HRO clients are also among the recognized companies in the 2011 Top Companies for Leaders, another recent Fortune study in association with Aon Hewitt. PepsiCo (Aon Hewitt) and Unilever (Accenture, IBM) are among the multinationals taking the lead in developing leaders. Again we see RPO as a common talent management service selection; Eli Lily and Novartis AG (The Right Thing, An ADP Company), GE and Siemens AG (KellyOCG), and Whirlpool (Kenexa). IBM, another major HRO player, is recognized, as is Wipro. Accenture is noted on the U.S. list and Infosys is on the Asia Pacific list. ADP is included in the 2012 list of 10 Best  Companies for Leaders rankings by the Chief Executive.

Business Today has just released its 11th annual “Best Companies to Work for” in India and top companies include HRO providers such as Accenture, IBM, Infosys, Wipro, and TCS. Honeywell International (SourceRight Solutions) also made the list and is on the U.S. list for Leaders as well.

The lists go on and on and you will find companies that use HRO as well as HRO providers among the best of the best. You can be a pioneer in leadership development and use HRO in critical talent management areas. You can achieve greatness in any region of the world. You can even look to some of the HRO providers to share their own expertise as a “best company” in the human capital leadership arena.

Will HRO automatically make you the best company? No. However, HRO will not slow you down and may even provide a committed partner in accelerating your success.

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.

HRO Total Contract Value Jumps 38 Percent in 1H10 – Where are the Gains Coming From?

During our Quarterly BPO Index webinar last week, NelsonHall CEO John Willmott reported that HRO total contract value (TCV) revenue increased 38 percent in 1H10 in a year-over-year comparison to 1H09. While HRO’s gains weren’t as great billions of dollars-wise as other BPO segments such as multi-process or industry-specific BPO, it is good to see the start of an upturn.

So where are these gains coming from? Forty-five percent of the contracts were signed with North American organizations, 43 percent were awarded to European enterprises (of which two-thirds were based in U.K.), and organizations in Asia Pacific accounted for the remaining 10 percent. And by service type:

• Recruiting – 32 percent of deals – including contract wins by Hays, Manpower, Kenexa, OchreHouse, Pinstripe, CPH Consulting, Alexander Mann Solutions, The RightThing, KellyOCG and PeopleScout

• Payroll – 22 percent of deals – including contract wins by Capita, MidlandHR, Raet, NorthgateArinso, ADP, TDS and Ceridian

• Benefits Administration – 20 percent of deals – including contract wins by Workscape, Aon, Secova, Mercer, Convergys and Xafinity

• Multi-process HRO (MPHRO) – 14 percent of deals – including contract wins by Accenture, Ceridian, ADP, Xchanging and Hewitt

• Learning – Eight percent of deals – including contract wins by Edvantage Group and General Physics

• Other HR – Four percent of deals – including talent management-related contract wins by Kenexa

Overall, I was not surpised with the above breakdowns as they were very consistent with the predictions in our June 2010 quarterly HRO Confidence Index.

Digressing a bit here to add to the buzz about Aon’s acquisition of Hewitt…while much written and water-cooler discussed has been about benefits administration, a sizeable amount of Hewitt’s revenue comes from MPHRO. A good example of this is Hewitt’s five-year contract renewal with International Paper, announced in April 2010.The renewal will support 40,000 International Paper employees with payroll, workforce administration, health and welfare administration, recruiting support, SAP application support and help desk, call center and HR manager support, learning administration and flex staffing management services. Given the amount of revenue coming from Hewitt’s MPHRO client base, I believe Aon will not only happily want to continue to support these existing clients, but also want to continue to grow the MPHRO business.

Although most new MPHRO contacts will likely not be the mega deals of yesteryear, reducing the number of suppliers in the outsourcing portfolio continues to grow in appeal among buyers. If buyers are satisfied with their MPHRO deals, they will continue, albeit in smaller fashion, to benefit both buyers and providers.

Gary Bragar, Senior HR Outsourcing Analyst, NelsonHall

“What a Difference a Day (plus 364) Makes” for Staffing and RPO

As I read Kelly Services’ Q1 2010 financial results yesterday, the song “What a Difference a Day Makes” popped into my mind. Add 364 more days (although for service providers it likely felt more like 2548 in dog days) and in year-over-year financials comparisons, staffing and RPO providers are finally seeing some rays of sunshine. And these rays – even though they don’t yet call for sun block with a 30 SFP – indicate a strengthening economy and thus good news for everyone.

While wider HRO results were mostly flat in Q1 2010, staffing and RPO provider revenues were mostly up. For example, in year-over-year comparisons, providers including SeatonCorp, Manpower, Kelly Services, SFN Group, Adecco and Kenexa all reported positive growth, with overall revenue growth ranging from single digits to a high of mid 20 percent. And specifically in the RPO space, KellyOCG’s revenue was up 13.5 percent and SourceRight Solutions’ was up 13.4 percent.

However, not all providers saw positive growth. For example, Netherlands-based Randstad’s revenues were nearly flat (down 0.5 percent) in Q1 2010 and Q1 2009 comparisons. But the company did experience strong year-over-year improvement, as its revenues decreased 28 percent in Q1 2009. Randstad’s results, as well as those from some other providers which experienced overall revenue increases in Q1 2010, indicate that staffing growth has not yet returned across Europe. Yet similar to other staffing providers, Randstad saw growth return in the U.S., Latin America and Australia.

The providers’ Q1 financial results confirm the findings of NelsonHall’s recently-released HRO Confidence Index, referenced in my April 22 blog, in which providers cited RPO revenue growth of 4.6 and 4.4 pipeline growth on a 1-5 scale.

Q2 2010 is also off to a good start. For example, KellyOCG was awarded a multi-year RPO contract by Novartis Pharma France on April 21, and Manpower and Vietnam’s Techcombank entered into a two-year end-to-end (including job profiling, on-boarding and staff development) RPO contract.

While I don’t believe we will see pre-recession hiring levels in 2010, I feel that the tide has turned and we will continue to see quarterly year-on-year growth in staffing and RPO for the remainder of 2010.

Gary Bragar, Lead HRO Analyst, NelsonHall

Temporary Staffing Boon to Workers, Employers, HRO Buyers and “Smart” HRO Providers

I read with interest several recent articles, including from USA Today, which focused on hiring temporary workers. In one of these pieces, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that temporary staffing agencies found slots for 52,000 additional temporary workers in November 2009, the most since 2004. In another, experts predict that temporary workers could constitute up to a quarter of the workforce in a few years. While I think we’d be hard pressed to find 25 percent of our workforce comprised of contingent labor, as companies must build their core with loyal employees who feel they have a stake in the business, rather than just a paycheck for an unknown period of time, there is very real value for all parties in the temporary staffing equation.

Temporary workers are given the opportunity to showcase their talents, capabilities, drive and commitment to employers, which may lead to permanent employment status as economic fears ease.

Employers that leverage temporary workers – factory workers, office personnel and even professionals such as engineers and physicians – can reduce their hiring risk by gaining access to staff when and as needed, and for only as long as needed.

Temporary staff are typically placed by temporary staffing agencies, and their volume of placements is increasing, per the article cited above. But smart HRO and pure-play RPO providers can gain a piece of this pie, and assist their clients – existing and prospective – by offering temporary staffing services. A prime example is that of the Contingent Workforce Outsourcing Group of KellyOCG, which on November 18 was awarded by BP a multi-year global outsourced managed service provider contract. While specific details were not released, it is expected to be one of the largest such contracts in terms of size, scope and geographic reach for temporary labor.

I do believe the volume of available temporary jobs will grow for the short-term, and continue to be a portion of the overall staffing model. But I also believe that once businesses improve their balance sheets, hiring of permanent workers will return to at least somewhat “normal” levels. Thus, my recommendation for HRO and pure-play RPO providers who do not currently offer temporary staffing services is, re-think your strategy now! Doing so will not only help enhance your bottom line, but enable you to deliver a highly important additional service to existing and prospective clients.

Gary Bragar, Lead HRO Analyst, NelsonHall

Back to School Time for Recruiters

As you begin packing up your kid’s bag lunches for another school year, you may want to stock up your pantry to pack others (perhaps skipping the peanut butter and jelly) for your in-house or outsourced recruiting staff. Why? Talent acquisition remains the top issue faced by today’s HR organizations, despite the recession. And the advent of advanced recruiting technologies and explosion of social media sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook demands recruiters be trained on how to best leverage these new opportunities for both active and passive recruiting or get lost in the old school dust.

Some recruiting process outsourcing (RPO) providers have already stepped up to the plate in this new recruiter training arena. For example:

•  AIRS, a The RightThing company, recently launched an online Social Sourcing Certification Class. Designed for both in-house and third-party recruiters, the class focuses on techniques to assist recruiters in sourcing passive candidates, helps participants better understand how they strategically benefit recruitment strategy and covers how social media can be leveraged to build a strong employment brand. After the class, attendees have the opportunity to earn their Certified Social Sourcing Certification through a certification exam.

•  And KellyOCG partners with industry leaders to coach and certify its recruiters in leading edge sourcing techniques, and its recruiters utilize its proprietary sourcing technology to enhance their ability to quickly connect with both active and passive candidates.

The importance of training extends beyond how to recruit using social media and advanced technologies into using metrics to prove the value and ROI of the staffing function, whether in-house or outsourced, to the business. And despite acknowledging the importance of doing so, few organizations know how to measure and consistently use the data to demonstrate improved business performance. An example of an RPO provider offering such training is The Workplace Group, which, during the past month delivered two webinars and two in-person training classes at its corporate headquarters on how to implement and use metrics to demonstrate ROI. The company also offers on-site classes at client locations.

And in an example of moving beyond a common, though important, recruitment metric of time-to-hire, Aon Consulting was able to improve the timeliness and selection process of sales professionals for a computer systems company, leading to higher close rates, equating to $120 million additional sales per quarter for the client’s company.

As the HR community, and the business community in general, views talent acquisition as a primary corporate critical success factor, the importance of upping recruiter’s skills to utilize new techniques and platforms, and how to measure their output, should not be underestimated. And while cost and lack of time are frequently cited as inhibitors to training programs, the expense involved is comparatively low and with hiring volumes down, now is a perfect time to invest in recruiting staff members.

Forward-thinking organizations are investing today in their recruiters in preparation for the hiring uptick that’s expected in 2010. Our advice? Start arming your recruiting staff now to leverage new school recruiting techniques, platforms and mediums. It’s a highly worthwhile competitive investment.

Gary Bragar, Lead HRO Analyst, NelsonHall

Partnering for Multi-Geo and Global RPO Capabilities

As we identified in our 2007 RPO market analysis and reaffirmed in our May 2009 RPO report, the ability to deliver RPO services on a global basis is a critical success factor for the provider community in order to serve the needs of buyers looking for recruiting support beyond domestic regions and to buoy their own revenue growth.

While some RPO providers have acquired others to expand their geographic delivery capability, we are also seeing a handful of partnerships forming among pure play RPO, and RPO and multi-process, providers. Examples include KellyOCG and IBM, Spherion’s RPO division and Spring Group’s RPO division – named hyphen – and Pinstripe and Ochre House.

The most recent announcement came from U.S-based The RightThing, which on July 14, 2009 announced it partnered with U.K-based Alexander Mann Solutions to enhance its global RPO delivery capability. The RightThing is immediately leveraging this new partnership by expanding its existing contract with Medlmmune, headquartered in the U.S., to provide hiring services for the company’s Cambridge and Liverpool (U.K.) and Netherlands locations.

As buyers look to reduce costs and the number of suppliers they work with, we’ll see an increasing number of global RPO RFPs. We’ll also see an expansion of existing domestic-only RPO contracts into more geographies, if buyers are happy with their existing provider and it can offer a multi-geo or global solution.

Therein lays the opportunity, and the rub, for RPO providers. To meet the increasing need for global RPO capabilities, domestic-only suppliers that want to expand will need to determine where and when to do so, and whether organically or via partnerships.

Would-be global RPO providers considering the partnership approach must carefully balance the benefits of lower start-up expenses, quickly obtaining the requisite knowledge on local laws and legislation, and insights into how to best source talent in the region with the inherent risks including how to ensure consistency and quality of services and technology integration into a virtual single platform.

We don’t anticipate seeing more than a few additional large partnerships forming in the next year. But perhaps there will be more niche partnerships, such as Kenexa’s partnering with R&J Management Consultants in April 2009 – forming Shanghai Kenexa – to extend its RPO presence in the Chinese market. In the meantime, global RPO by partnership should be explored and entered into cautiously by providers and buyers alike.

Gary Bragar, Lead HRO Analyst, NelsonHall