What’s Inside Your RPO Program?

  

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I was recently reading an article about how the Fairfax County (VA) Public School system has decided to phase out the 26-ingredient burger served in the cafeteria. I knew that this staple of school lunches was probably not 100% ground beef, but I was absolutely shocked that the component count was over 2 dozen.

I couldn’t help but wonder:

“How does something as simple as a hamburger become so complex?”

Over the past 12 months, I have had the opportunity to look at several companies with non-Pinstripe RPO programs that are considering changing service providers. As part of our due diligence, we are able to peek behind the curtain and see how things are working.

Like the Fairfax County Public School burger situation, I am amazed at how cluttered and convoluted some of these outsourced relationships have gotten. These programs have become derailed, in part, because the service providers have forgotten about the 3 basic ingredients of a solid RPO program: People, Process and Technology. 

• People - There is no real governance overseeing the program strategy. Sure there might be a RPO client services director watching over the day-to-day recruitment team but there is almost no engagement and guidance at the executive level from the RPO service provider.
• Process - The most efficient path between two points is a straight line. The same is true with recruitment and, yet, these unwieldy programs zigzag and twist without real reason or purpose.
• Technology - Many of these troubled programs lack technology. Simple tasks are manual versus automated. Recruitment technology, including social media, has flourished over the past ½ decade yet many of these legacy programs haven’t been updated since the initial implementation.

I fully acknowledge that making observations is much easier than making changes; however, the 1^st step towards making improvements, whether it is a school lunch hamburger or an RPO program, is recognizing you have a problem.

Post contributed by Barry Diamond. Follow me on Twitter @bddiamond