Are you a cricket fan?
I am sure most of us are . For most of us then RPO shall refer to Runs Per Over.It’s a significant correlation to think about too as “RPO” the much spoken about recruitment terminology has a similarity with RPO cricket basics.
In cricket RPO measures the productivity & efficiency of the player. In the RPO also it has a lots of correlations to do with productivity of the stake holders and efficiency of the recruitment process.
In a highly dynamic global economy ,its also very very important to understand the trend and the change in expectations from the clients perspective when they look for a third party service provider to take over recruitment and process . The basic fundamental question we have to ask our self as a RPO third party Sales/Project Owners is ,is the suspect/prospect/client looking at RPO as ” Recruitment Production Outsourcing “ or “ Recruitment Process Optimizing”.
I see there is a lots of fundamental difference in the way a solution has to be proposed and executed in both the understanding ” Outsourcing or Optimizing” scenario.
- In an outsourcing scenario the client party’s involvement may not be be very high as they may look at us one other vendor and look at measuring only results /production .The reason is predominantly that they would have outsourced as its not their core competency. However in an optimizing scenario clients shall involve much on day to day basis in the process and production as they would look at efficiency .process improvements and correlation to the production results.
- In an Outsourcing scenario simple output/production SLAs /metric may do the needful however in an optimizing scenario more defined process KRAs and impact on output SLAs shall be tracked and analysed .
- In an Outsourcing scenario may be a simple technology or excel macros shall fit however in an Optimizing Scenario the need for proper ATS is critical at the beginning to track data more scientifically and analyse and report the trend.
- In an Outsourcing Scenario recruitment production is given more importance however in an optimizing scenario process and its impact on production is given more importance.
- In an Outsourcing Scenario the client shall look at us as mere vendor and in an optimizing scenario the client shall look at us strategic partners and demand for knowledge quotient shall be very high .
- Planning is very critical in the Optimizing scenario for the desired quality output and proper planning time and understanding of the suspect,prospect,client becomes very crucial.
- In optimizing scenario training and orientation of recruiters/production resources /hiring managers to look at RPO as process optimization and the need and benefit of data driven approach should be educated at the beginning and KRAs and targets shall be set accordingly.
- In Optimizing scenario proper governance shall be clearly defined and no deviations shall be entertained for better impact of resources and time management.
- Production shall lead an Outsourcing scenario whereas the process improvements and its impact of better production shall lead the Optimizing scenario.
- In Optimizing scenario the client expects the partner to go beyond “Cost Savings” as value add and be or become a knowledge strategic partner.
With India and Asia Pacific market being the key focus for major global RPO service providers its very important to understand the key driving factors of a suspect/prospect/client from the above angle and define/redefine /orient our sales and implementation solutions.I personally foresee RPO in India moving from mere Outsourcing to Optimizing and even further to Strategic Knowledge Consulting Partners in the next 5 years.
Ready for Outsourcing (Past) or Optimizing (Current) or even Strategic Knowledge Partnering (Near future) ?
