Aug 05

Variance Is Sometimes Necessary in Quality Recruiting

By Chase Wilson Global Talent Acquisition, Recruitment, Recruitment Process Outsourcing No Comments »

For those that know me and my penchant for process mapping, quality control, and all things compliance, the following blog may seem out of character. This all started after perusing an article from the Harvard Business Review, March 2009 titled, “When Should a Process Be Art, Not Science”.

Any Six Sigma professional likely knows that the enemy of process quality is variation and the push in any quality initiative is to work to identify variation in a process that results in waste, errors, or bottlenecks. However, the aforementioned article highlights another perspective in that there are many processes—namely recruiting and sales—that have an inherent element of “art” that cannot be ignored. Executors of the recruiting process wrestle with an effort to maintain consistency while at the same time addressing the nuances that come with the art of recruiting.

In a previous blog posting (http://www.sourceright.com/blog/?p=71 ), I espoused the advantages of a truly experienced recruiter in the recruiting process. Lately, I’ve been questioning the efforts of so much of the recruiting industry to standardize, standardize, standardize. More and more RPO providers are working towards a shared services center model with a strong push towards a standardized, commoditized approach to recruiting. The has been done to, ensure compliance, improve economies of scale, implement repeatable best practices, with the end goal guaranteeing process consistency. For some RPO solutions, this approach may suit the client’s specific talent acquisition needs very well. Analyzing the recruiting process and the many components that directly impact it, there are two key areas that should work towards standardization:

• ATS – Commonality of technology ensures a one-stop shop for compliance auditing and requisition tracking

• Measurements – While the individual targets may vary based on position complexity, the metrics themselves (e.g. time-to-fill, diversity of candidate pool, recruiting cost efficiency, etc.) should be the same

But should the methods and tools utilized for the Vice President of Product Development requisition differ from that of the next Customer Service call center class? Naturally, the techniques and avenues a recruiter exploits recruiting for these two categories drastically diverge. Even the people (i.e. recruiters, candidates, and hiring managers) involved in each example likely differ greatly in expectations, experience, and earnestness. Furthermore, the current job environment might impact each hiring category in very different ways, in turn, transforming the way a recruiter might approach each hiring challenge.

Going even more granular, every requisition has inherent nuances that an experienced recruiter will recognize and adjust to accordingly. I’m not suggesting that the process should evolve with each requisition nuance, but the critical to quality goal in most requisitions, is a quality hire in the shortest amount of time possible. An experienced recruiter knows where the process boundaries truly exist to maintain consistency, compliance, and client satisfaction while at the same time achieving that end goal.

Dartmouth Tuck School of Business professors’ Joseph M. Hall and M. Eric Johnson, who authored the article mentioned above, recommend some practical approaches to this Art versus Science dilemma in a business process. They conclude that each has important value development roles in many business processes. They specifically describe the role of art as “allowing for flexibility, creativity, and dynamism that a purely scientific approach cannot replicate.”

Future leading edge RPO best practices and processes will incorporate the strengths of both recruiting art and science and be measured by the appropriate customer (art) and process (science) focused metrics to determine future solution quality levels and success.

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Jun 24

Don’t Forget the Importance of Supplier Satisfaction in a Successful MSP Engagement…

By Wendy Linden Contingent Workforce Management, Managed Service Programs, Recruitment No Comments »

Recently, Staffing Industry Analysts rolled out its 2010 VMS/MSP Buyer and Supplier Satisfaction Survey, seeking a brief “Net Promoter Score (NPS)” opinion and rating of VMS/MSP solution providers like SourceRight Solutions and its competitors. Now, many will automatically focus on what the buyers thought; who had the most customer responses; and, were buyer satisfaction levels a high or low rating on the quality of services provided. After all, the customer is the most critical satisfaction perspective in any business transaction, right?

What may be a more telling result from this industry satisfaction research however is the NPS satisfaction opinion of the staffing suppliers who participate and support MSP engagements. For any participating supplier, there is certainly an advantage of having access to a known volume of customer spend with managed competition. This is true regardless of the MSP models/engagements, though admittedly, some models can provided more attractive returns than others for a supplier.

For sure, the surveyed buyers will definitely be focusing on the overall quality of their MSP program/engagement, which would include supplier delivery performance to predefined service level agreements and other metrics. But when a supplier is rating the quality of a MSP engagement, what might be the business perspective of their opinion?

Opportunity. Fair Access. Participation Levels. Efficient, Managable Process. Profitability. And, equally important, a Collaborative Partnership.  An MSP program cannot succeed without the strength of some “highly satisfied” supplier partnerships that support a mutual MSP customer. Suppliers may be similar in staffing service offerings, but every organization is unique in its history, experience, capability, business operations and point of view. MSPs need to engage their staffing supplier community beyond the required SLAs and KPIs. Ideas for process and program refinement, improvement and optimization come from open lines of communication and a shared, common interest to provide the highest levels of quality services to exceed a client’s staffing needs and requirements.

So look for SIA’s announcement of their 2010 VMS MSP Buyer Satisfaction Survey results in the next month or so, but carefully review the accompanying Staffing Supplier satisfaction results to get the complete picture of industry leading MSP program/engagement performance.

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Apr 28

Not all Metrics are created equal…

By Wendy Linden Managed Service Programs No Comments »

Time to Fill. Time to Submit. Number of Submittals. Submittal to Interview. Number of Hires. Number of incomplete assignments. Contractor Performance. Hiring Manager Satisfaction….the list can go on and on and in some programs, it quite often does. I’ve seen metrics to measure a metric… And is there enough of a difference between SLAs versus KPIs to require different metric labels? Really?

Furthermore, how do you reasonably measure the “art & science” of the supplier candidate recruiting process itself?  An important article in the March 2009 edition of the Harvard Business Review suggests that “The movement to standardize processes has gone overboard.  Some require an artist’s judgment – and should be managed accordingly.”

So the question both clients and suppliers ask: What is the metrics purpose and do we need so many? The answer to that question is not a simple one, but it is a customizable one.

A set of metrics is put in place to measure performance of a supplier base and also the governing performance of the MSP solution itself. All MSP programs should implement some level of measurement. Only when you measure the actual performance of a supplier base can you actually MANAGE the performance delivered.

Supplier performance must be constantly monitored and audited because it tells the tale of a customer’s contingent workforce story.

But not metrics are created equal; they have a different purpose that reflects the story of the performance. For example, measuring a specific time period in which candidates are submitted to hiring managers for consideration (i.e. Time to Submit) tells you which of your suppliers have a recruiting engine readily engaged for a specific customer.   Time to fill can be arbitrary, depending on if you are looking for an Office Clerk or a Web Sphere Developer, but they will give suppliers visibility of the general speed in which a hiring manager brings on a resource. Hence, the benefits delivered from a solid matrix protocol are not just for the client and MSP provider alone!

In any MSP governance approach, metrics must somehow measure quality. If a supplier is submitting candidates at lighting speed, but rarely getting an interview or a hire, an MSP must look deeper at quality and the pricing of a candidate and recommend adjustment in performance.

At the end of the day, whether you have four metrics or forty, they must reflect the ideals of a high performance supplier to both the customer’s satisfaction and an MSP program’s stated objectives and goals.

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Mar 25

Bringing your report card home…

By Wendy Linden Managed Service Programs 1 Comment »

Times have changed and kids these days can get their school grades at the click of a button on the school’s website.

But most of us remember having a report card passed out at the end of the quarter by a teacher or, maybe, waiting anxiously for our postal carrier to bring us the good or bad news. Elated relief at all “A’s”; happy that your physics grade was not below average; and even a few maybe getting out a number four pencil to change that ‘D’ to a ‘B’ before one’s parents saw it.  Now-a-days one has to have an IT or hacker degree to do that sort of thing on-line!

Report cards can be really good news, really bad news or somewhere in between. But they tell the recipient many things: “Keep up the good work”, “This area needs performance improvement” or “You have to really change your approach to improve”.

The same could be said of supplier performance reviews in Managed Service Programs, many which are, and should be, based on a “report card” of performance targets, using specific metrics as a standardized measurement of expectations and success.

Now, metrics may vary, but the need for holding suppliers to a standard of performance targets is critical and necessary. Successful programs contain metrics that measure both the level of engagement/performance of the supplier base and the quality of the resources they provide to clients. Without the metrics or its review and process management tool (the report card), it could lead to a supplier list that stagnates and underperforms to the expectations of a client’s hiring community.

The MSP report card is key, giving a quarter by quarter view of strengths and weakness of a particular supplier partner, leading to dynamic and collaborative exchanges to help identify areas of change, and increased effectiveness/performance… on both the supplier and program management side, to the benefit of a mutual client. At the end of the day, the MSP report card is also a critical tool for clients in getting overall visibility to MSP and contingent workforce performance and enhancing a client’s control over their contingent staffing circumstances.

A control that is similar to not being surprised when getting an “A” on a report card because you knew how hard you worked to deserve it…no IT hacking required.

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