What does RPO success look like?

Arindam Dan, General Manager – HR, Strategic Planning and Operations, APAC, Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation

I was working with an Automotive Company three years back and there was a huge gap in the end-to-end recruitment process, and it was a mess. HRBP organization was completely involved in Talent Acquisition, Business always used to push back the Talent Acquisition team and there wasn’t any documented JD, approval process, and defined responsibility, no visibility of the metrics and we were paying a hefty amount to the Vendors (~75 percent of the total cost). And above all high attrition in the first two months to one-year time frame. HRBP Org was influential, and it was a big challenge to make a clean slate, so I started thinking about RPO and the primary plan was to bring the RPO Company for two years, make the process clean and then take it back in-house—why?

What is RPO?

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is when a company transfers all or part of its permanent recruitment to an external provider. An RPO provider can act as an extension of a company’s HR or Resourcing function, sitting on-site with the client providing a holistic hiring solution. An RPO provider can deliver the necessary staff, technology, and methodology needed to fulfill a client’s recruitment requirements. So basically, another company will manage your end-to-end recruitment solutions.

To put into a very simple format to create a business case whether you need an RPO or In-House or you would like to go Hybrid, consider the below key areas, and ask questions—able to deliver the defined KPIs? VOC/Business is happy or dissatisfied? What does success look like?

Your current situation:

● Hiring volume

● Cost per hire

● Employer Branding

● Time to hire

● Quality of hire

● Consistency of process/ Policy

● Reporting/Metrics

● Technology

● Employee Experience and even onboarding

When you get these answers and you think for RPO, please consider below a few factors predominantly that you need to count in your business case/ proposal:

● Cost-Benefit Analysis: Your existing cost (i.e., your labor cost, vendor cost, other related cost) and your final annual cost to the RPO provider (Including staffing, technology, on-site infra, travel and other related cost).

● Do an analysis for the contract period with estimated cost comparison -example 2 years to 5 years or so on.

● Your Scope- existing versus to be in-scope with the external company: Talent Acquisition, Executive Search, Professional Search, Project Recruitment

● Delivery Model: Full outsourcing, Blended/Hybrid/ Co-sourced, Project Recruitment, Off- Shore or On Shore

● Contract Duration - planning for Insourcing?

Please understand it comes in many shapes and sizes and not only do you need it when your hiring volume is very high. There are some of the very positive areas of RPO like- Positive candidate experience, creating a Recruitment Business Partnership, Better candidates, Meaningful insights, Cutting edge technologies (interfaces). But at the same time think about whether the external company can understand and absorb your organization culture?

Automotive

Recruitment Process Outsourcing