5 Paths to Boosting RPO Success in 2022

RPO Success in 2022

5 Paths to Boosting RPO Success in 2022

RPO Success in 2022

“The key to success is to start before you are ready.” – Marie Forleo, American entrepreneur

Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) companies that want to succeed in 2022 need to go the extra mile when they provide their services. Not only will they have to deal with competition in their industry but also tackle the issue of talent shortages. All this needs to be handled while keeping the costs down. To attain RPO success going further into this year, firms will need to innovate. They will need to pivot their plans to work with a more hybrid model of sorts. However, issues like rising levels of inflation, the threat of another pandemic, talent scarcity are all obstacles that will have to be overcome as well.

In this blog, we will talk about a few different solutions that RPO agencies can adopt to overcome the aforementioned challenges. It should be noted that these solutions are geared towards attaining RPO success as we go into this year. Keep in mind that the facts and numbers in this article stem from a research report / webinar done by the Everest Group titled, “5 Success-driving Actions GBS Organizations Need in 2022”.

5 Paths to Attaining RPO Success in 2022

We still have a long way to go with this year. Yet, even now several issues have already begun to plague the recruitment industry. One of the major issues is talent scarcity and the struggles with upskilling. Not to mention rising competition levels which further exacerbate the issues at hand. While RPO companies are well-equipped to deal with a wide variety of situations, even they need to think outside the box. Having said that, here are a few different ways to reach RPO success.

Path #1: Pivot to a Hybrid Work Model

The hybrid work model has rapidly gained popularity over the last couple of years. For one, it is convenient, especially considering the whole situation with the ongoing pandemic. On the other hand, companies and organization leaders are still a little hesitant towards it. This is because the model itself is rather new and that leaves room for uncertainty. However, despite hesitations, the research reported that about 70% of the teams that they included in their servers were more likely to work within the hybrid model.

Global inflation has played a significant role in the rise of labour costs and operational expenses.

Inflation is a major obstacle to RPO success

Path #2: Change Expectations for Cost and Profits

In the last two years, the global inflation levels have drastically changed, with 2022 being no different it would seem. Before the pandemic, the labour costs were on the rise as the overall operational costs were relatively lower. Now, both labour costs and operational expenses are rising. As a result, RPO partners won’t be able to provide their clients with the level of financial benefits that they have come to expect.

Rohitashwa Aggarwal, the Vice President of Global Sourcing at Everest Group, suggested a few key areas to focus on. This is where the upper management can control the costs somewhat. Specifically, he mentioned talent acquisition and retention. While there is a talent shortage in the job market, retention tactics act as a counter-balance to help even things out. 

Another way to go about controlling cost and achieving RPO success is by being more selective of the services provided to clients. When an RPO partner gives a client a more traditional outsourcing service, it can help add value beyond the profit margin.

“Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts. – Winston S. Churchill, Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Path #3: Create Value Beyond Profit

Sakshi Garg, the Vice President of Global Sourcing, at Everest Group made an interesting observation in the research. It was noted that organizations that focused on creating value above profit attained a significant level of RPO success in the form of client impact. She recommended that companies should start with the use of centers of excellence (COE).

The purpose of COEs is to bolster the client’s agenda, which can sometimes go beyond the aforementioned traditional recruitment process outsourcing services. COEs can be created by doing a few things. For one, the organization could speed up the client’s digital presence and operations, give them better talent management solutions and even upskill their existing talent.

Revitalize your talent strategy for RPO success

Changing your overall talent strategy or just a core aspect of it can have amazing ripple effects on the rest of your RPO efforts.

Path #4: Renovate the Talent Strategy

Improving the company’s overall talent strategy would be a huge move, but at the same time, it brings a lot of benefits to the table. The first thing that could be done is that the leadership could look internally to evaluate where their existing talent might fit into different roles.

Another thing that could be done is to ramp up recruitment on college campuses. The key is to realize the massive potential that universities have to offer in terms of their student talent pool. Tap into that by partnering with other companies in your industry, come up with strategies that can work at the university level to leverage efficient recruitment of these recent grads into your ranks.

Path #5: Give Importance to Employee Experience

To achieve RPO success, RPO providers should seriously consider giving importance to their employees’ experience. For one, it was noted in the Everest Group’s research that the COEs that were created around employee experience significantly saw improvement in the clients’ customer experience.

So, when a recruitment process outsourcing agency does the same, it creates a good experience for their employees, which in turn boosts talent strategies. It also improves the experiences of the talent they recruit, the suppliers and even customers. Think of it as a ripple effect with the employee experience at the core of it all.

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RPO Trends to Keep an Eye on in 2022

RPO Trends in 2022

RPO Trends to Keep an Eye on in 2022

RPO Trends in 2022

“The future belongs to those who prepare for it.” – Jim Moran, Former United States Representative

Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) trends often dictate how the job market is performing and how it might change down the road. There are a multitude of factors to consider at any point in time, both internal and external. However, that is part of what makes an RPO agency so necessary as a concept. As market experts, they are ready for these sudden changes and have the capabilities to combat challenges. In recent years, the pandemic has been one of the biggest influencers of such trends in the job markets around the world.

Businesses were forced to enforce survival plans with the shutdowns affecting nearly every industry across the world. With the arrival of vaccines and the mass movements towards more adaptive work modes, the world is somewhat back on track. This has many economic experts thinking that we are indeed on our way to recovery. Having said all that, let’s have a look at some of these RPO trends that might likely take place as we go further into 2022.

RPO Trends in 2022

It is important to know the RPO trends for both the RPO agency as well as the client. Both sides need to be reasonably aware of the ongoing phenomenon in their respective industry’s job markets to make the most informed decision. This list should help you gain insight into what you might face later on this year and maybe even give you an upper hand thanks to your foresight.

1) The Prominence of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion

(DEI) Recruiters who work under RPO companies know the importance of DEI in the workplace. The pandemic had a unique way of highlighting several underlying issues in business processes and company cultures. It was a time when many employees and employers alike began to realize the importance of a healthy workplace. This may be considered as beyond just an RPO trend and you know what? It is more than that.  As we go forward into this year, DEI will play an ever-increasing role in company cultures. More and more companies will need to build their employment policies and workplace standards around these expectations to survive and thrive.

Finding top talent is becoming increasingly difficult due to rising competition in the job markets.

Rising competition is one of the prevalent RPO trends of 2022

2) Targeted Upskilling is Necessary

It would be a fair assessment to say that the market is getting more competitive in terms of skilled individuals. It is becoming harder to find the right people with the right skills. Even if you do, there is a high level of competition for these individuals. RPO companies should be able to identify the skill gaps that need to be addressed to strengthen a company’s workforce. This trend indicates that companies will have to turn to RPO agencies and their data to develop targeted upskilling strategies going forward.

3) Next-Gen Technology

Another one of the interesting RPO trends that have emerged recently is the prominence of recruitment technologies in the industry. With the arrival of SaaS companies all over the place, RPO companies have been taking advantage of emerging technologies as well as some of the classics. This includes technologies such as applicant tracking systems (ATS), job boards, social media platforms, automated reference checking and so on. Remember the previous point about the targeted upskilling strategies and the race to find the top talent? Well, this is a core factor in companies winning said race.

“It’s better to be prepared than to get ready. – Will Smith, American Actor

4) Remote Hiring/Onboarding

Ever since the Covid-19 outbreak in 2019, nothing has been the same. One of the things that changed and remains so is online hiring and onboarding. It has been the norm in many companies for a few years now and doesn’t look like this is about to change any time soon. With many recruiters, RPO or otherwise, jumping on this bandwagon to cater to the demand for more employees ensures the longevity of this trend. Online hiring and onboarding is an RPO trend that is here to stay. Especially with so many companies adapting the hybrid work model for their day-to-day business operations.

5) Remote-Work Candidates Only

If you are a hiring manager or a recruiter with an RPO firm, you might have noticed the large volume of candidates in recent days that have been on the lookout for remote working opportunities. This trend started just as the lockdowns happened. People realized the convenience of working remotely. With so many companies adopting the hybrid work model and remote work models to accommodate these candidates, this is a trend that will stay for a long time.

RPO trends indicate having an RPO partner is beneficial

In the long run having an RPO agency on your side is one of the best things for your business.

6) Candidate Care

Candidate care is one of the more significant RPO trends to have emerged in recent times. Basically what this refers to is how recruiters work with candidates and past hires. While most recruiters, be it in-house hiring managers or RPO recruiters, work very closely with candidates. However, not all do. This is slowly changing given the importance of having a positive employer image in the eyes of the candidate. The more the candidate feels cared for during the recruitment process, the better your employer branding. Ultimately this means your path to securing top talent is that much easier.

7) Global Recruiting Experience

As far as RPO trends go, the RPO agencies that operate on a global scale or handle global recruitment have a growing edge over the domestic recruiters. Operating on such a large scale means that they not only have access to a wide variety of talent and diversity, but they also need to be well-versed in labour laws and hiring practices of different countries. This gives them an edge over local head-hunters. Therefore, companies that hire RPO companies with global recruitment experience will also have that edge on their side.

8) RPO as a Long-Term Recruitment Solution

Regardless of the scale of the business, a good RPO solution is good for almost every company’s growth and hiring needs. Look, technology is showing no signs of slowing down and policies change every day. This makes RPO agencies the ideal solution to lead the charge to help companies remain relevant in the long run.

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Talent Solutions: A Paradigm Shift in the Industry

Talent Solutions has seen a massive paradigm shift in the industry

Talent Solutions: A Paradigm Shift in the Industry

Talent Solutions has seen a massive paradigm shift in the industry

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin, Naturalist

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution states that evolution in itself happens through natural selection. Changes happen over a period of time to help the subject adapt to the environment or extinguish it completely for the sake of the environment. If there is one thing that we can say for certain, especially over the past 3 years, it is that the job market has seen massive changes, regardless of geography. With the onslaught of wave after wave of Covid-19 across the globe, the world essentially got frozen into place economically speaking. 

Here’s the thing with evolution though, if you don’t keep moving forward, you begin to regress, and isn’t that exactly what happened with our economies? If we take Canada for instance, in recent times the country has seen a huge demand for skilled workers since things started opening up again. This presented an issue though. Although there was a demand for roles to be filled and even though there were candidates to fill said roles, the two did not always meet in the middle. It isn’t necessarily the best fit, not until you consider RPO agencies and the talent solutions that come with it.

Time Has Changed the Way Talent Solutions Work

If you speak to a hiring manager that has worked in the same company for the past 20 years, chances are that they will recommend outdated methods of hiring. They might suggest job boards, newspaper advertisements, and so on. The thing we often tend to forget as recruitment experts is that there is a whole sphere of people who do not know that there are better ways to hire. As experts we take for granted the high-flying, fast-paced, streamlined operations that we have going on these days. We only know about the latest trends because we are recruitment natives.

Having said that, the challenge nowadays has become one of adaptation. Each year there are more and more conditions, expectations, and measures tagged onto talent acquisition. This leaves the process far less transactional than it once was. It is not all about quality control, while still adhering to the standards of globalisation.

Technology and Globalisation played an important role in how far talent solutions have come as a concept.

Globalisation affects how talent solutions have evolved

Talent Solutions in the Face of Globalisation

Speaking of globalisation, you have to consider how much harder the recruitment process has become for companies that have their businesses rooted in one location. Let’s say you’re a company based in North America for instance. You would have to deal with the complexity of hiring in smaller volumes across different countries.

Other factors include the growth of AI-automation processes in recruitment operations and gig-economy for example. They drive how organisations have to engage with talent. They also determine how they manage the process and still run the business. In a way, recruitment is a business in itself. This brings us to the core of this article- the seeking out of talent solution partnerships.

“Evolution is the secret for the next step – Karl Lagerfeld, German Director

Talent Solutions is more holistic these days

Talent solutions have become a more holistic approach to managing the recruitment process beyond just hiring.

Talent Solutions Today: The Modern Conundrum

All the previously discussed points bring us to one final thing and that is, how much recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) has changed over the years. This is especially true for those ‘pure’ RPO service providers who don’t conform to legacy recruitment agency values. RPO and talent solutions as a whole are no longer just a way to manage recruitment but rather a means by which clients can leverage services that go beyond hiring.

While the total talent solutions options are the goal for many organisations, more often than not, we see that there is a need for customised solutions. Organisations are choosing to hire fewer people of specialised backgrounds or just short-term hires. In such scenarios, RPO providers need to be able to scale up and scale down the operations of their teams at a moment’s notice.

In Conclusion

Hiring will always be a part of the talent solution process. However, these days there is more to it. Different factors like client needs, employee needs, globalization, the rise in recruitment technology, and so on, come together to make for a complex situation. Modern talent solutions require that the internal teams have a highly sophisticated recruitment process. At the same time companies should outsource scalability, market expertise, and employer branding to the RPOs.

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How RPO Service Partners Can Help You Gear up for the Great Rehiring

RPO service partners

How RPO Service Partners Can Help You Gear up for the Great Rehiring

RPO service partners

“Hiring the best is your most important task.”Steve Jobs, Apple Co-Founder

In every business and every industry, there is bound to be a period that brings with it a huge wave of demand. This high level of demand needs to be met if a company wants to stay in business. However, meeting these demands, especially on short notice can be a difficult task. Keep in mind that this is just one scenario where large-scale rehiring initiatives are important. It also applies if you’re looking to expand your business, refresh your company’s skill base, or several other factors. In today’s article, we won’t be talking about the ‘why’ of it all. Rather, we will be talking about how RPO service partners can help you during the great rehiring.

To start things off, let’s quickly take a look at what an RPO is. An RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) service is essentially a staffing service where an employer transfers a part or all of its recruitment needs to a third-party service provider, as the name suggests. Leveraging such services can bring your organization many benefits, which is what we will have a look at next!

#1 Scalability

Scalability is by far the most obvious point on this list. It is also the end goal of organizations that are looking to grow. Now, scalability is a rather good problem to have- it means business is good. However, you do need ample staff to tackle the rise in business demand if you want the business to keep afloat. This is where RPO service partners come in. 

RPO service partners can help companies meet their hiring deadlines without giving up quality in terms of productivity. The flow of your business would be the best indicator as to when and how you engage with your service provider. Having said that, whether it is filling a few specific niche roles or large-scale general hiring, the RPO is the way to go!

#2 Customizable

If you are looking to hire another 200 employees of a specialized skill set, you need to ask yourself a few important questions. Is your internal talent acquisition team equipped to handle this large-scale initiative? Do they have the market knowledge to understand what is required for a person of this speciality to work effectively? You need to have a fair idea of if the internal recruitment team is capable and if they know what to look for. More often than not, you will have to train them up, invest in technology, and so on. With RPO service partners, you get to customize the hiring process to align with your needs.

The RPO route is a relatively cost-effective one when you think of the big picture.

RPO service partners

#3 Highly Cost-Effective

You may think that services this good might be just that- too good to be true. On the contrary, businesses that have RPO service partners on their side save a lot of money. Things like the hiring lifecycle, time-to-hire, and even the cost-per-hire go down over time. The reason that this is the case is because of the streamlined nature of RPO services.

The recruitment efforts become more targeted, which generates a higher quality of hires, which ultimately drives up the positive impact of the operations. At the same time, it drives down the turnover rate. It should also be noted that RPOs offer employers cost-effective hiring models, for high-volume placements. These models can be tailored to decrease the overall hiring cost of your company.

#4 Latest in Technology

Recruiting methods today are not what they used to be 20 years ago. These days the industry professionals use advanced tools and technology to ensure quality candidates. Examples of such technology can range from highly-integrated applicant tracking systems to AI-based recruiting platforms. While these technologies are available, most organizations don’t have the ongoing volume of job openings to justify having said tech on hand. Hence, these platforms and methods are usually employed by RPO service partners when they offer you their recruitment packages. Fair to say that you will benefit from them.

“The secret to successful hiring is this: look for people who want to change the world. – Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com

RPO service partners

RPO service partners act as extensions of your internal recruitment team.

#5 Good Support

Now we come to the last point on the list. If you are reading this article, chances are you are already considering the move to loop in an RPO service provider. It might also stand to reason that you find your internal recruitment team is stretched pretty thin. Well not to worry, this is one of the main reasons that RPO service partners exist in the first place.

The whole premise of outsourcing your recruitment is to ensure that the internal team has the breathing room to redirect and focus on their work. At the same time, the RPO steps in to take care of the bulk of the work. In essence, RPO partners act as an extension of your company and even your brand. You can have them focus on the niche hires, while the internal talent acquisition team works on the bulk hires, or vice versa. It all depends on your business’s needs.

So, there you have it. These are some of the main ways in which RPOs can help you maximize your efforts during the great rehiring. They carry everything from the latest in recruitment methods to the best tech to execute the said initiative. All you need to do is make sure that the approach suits your current business needs and proceed accordingly.

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