Like many suppliers, London-based Origin HR handles the end-to-end recruitment process for the client — attracting candidates directly by making sure the brand is as visible on the marketplace as possible.
Ruth Fripp, associate director, uses the term “managed vendor” to describe Origin’s services, which cover both temporary and permanent recruitment, and include branding guidance, consulting on the sourcing of candidates, advice on the client’s intranet and help with graduate and internship recruitment.
Fripp says Origin will guide the client on exactly what it needs within timescales and available budgets. She says: “It is a process of discovering what those recruitment needs are. It may be that some of those are already covered. We are very happy to tailor the service — there can’t be one rule for everyone.”
Financial and human capital consultancy Watson Wyatt Worldwide outsources elements of its graduate recruitment process to graduate specialists GradWeb. In an effort to improve the company’s graduate recruitment programme, graduate recruitment advisor Sophie Best first chose to outsource just the interview process to GradWeb.
But as the relationship progressed, she outsourced additional responsibilities such as screening, candidate communications, candidate management, assessment centre scheduling and reporting to her GRPO partner — which allows her to spend more time on the all-important campus visits.
“Any discreet element can be outsourced,”
says Katrina Rostrup, GradWeb director. “It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.”
Scottish Widows Investment Partnership (SWIP) started using a pared-down RPO model a few years ago that has now expanded. Andrea Rodgers, HR business partner at SWIP, explains: “We started with a basic contingency recruitment, involving permanent and temporary staff, going through agencies.”
SWIP then looked at how it could incorporate other RPO services such as induction, interview training, advertising and psychometric testing. It also worked on building up an in-house search database, allowing it to directly head-hunt candidates at both junior and senior ends of the scale. The rationale was to reduce costs as much as possible.
SWIP now has two Origin consultants in its own in-house HR divisions. The recruitment firm acts as the client’s on-site recruiters, using a preferred supplier list of agencies.
While cost-cutting benefits are possible, Rodgers says the main driver is to add value to services and create a complete, high-spec package. The supplier is 100% focused on the job in hand, freeing up the in-house team to concentrate on other areas of the business.
There is also the advantage of a far more efficient operation. “One of the key drivers initially was to streamline the processes — we had three people running three recruitment processes with three suppliers. When we brought in Origin, resources became shared,”
says Rodgers.
When Telford-based Resourcebank first started working with personal care and cleaning product manufacturer Kimberly Clark, the remit was just to handle the client’s IT recruitment. However, the area of responsibility soon spread to sales and continued to expand.
Richard Pearson, Resourcebank’s managing director, explains: “We will operate the company’s intranet, ensure its website is geared towards recruitment (with live links to sites such as totaljobs), and energise referral schemes.”
Pearson prefers the term ‘RP’, or ‘resourcing partnership’. “Our model is full service,”
he says. “It’s all about working alongside the client — we can gear up or gear down, depending on requirements. If a company wants to recruit 100 people in a month or five, that’s our problem.”
Although RPO providers agree there is virtually no end to the recruitment responsibilities they can take on for their clients, GradWeb’s Katrina Rostrup warns there is one area where the buck should stop. “Don’t outsource decisions out of the office,”
she advises. “If you do, you’ll have no buy-in from your hiring managers.”