The recent downturn led many organizations to scale back their workforce, but as things turn around, now they are looking to hire. As a result, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is on the rise.

The current economic climate calls for a new talent acquisition model; one that is scalable, flexible and more cost-effective than the internal recruiting departments of yore. RPO is a compelling departure from traditional methods, making it a logical choice for growth-oriented businesses large and small.

What Is RPO?

The Recruitment Process Outsourcing Association (RPOA) defines RPO as “a form of business process outsourcing where an employer transfers all or part of its recruitment processes to an external provider.”

RPO firms essentially serve as an extension of a company’s human resources department and can manage all or specific parts of the recruiting process. Their solutions are customizable depending on need and available resources, and they typically offer services ranging from job profiling to the on-boarding of new hires.

RPO services differ from those offered by staffing companies and contingent or retained search providers in that RPOs assume ownership of the design and management of recruiting processes and responsibility for the results. In addition, RPO firms promote the client company’s brand rather than their own.

Is RPO Right For You?

In the hands of a skilled provider, RPO can offer a lot of benefits, including improved hiring time, increased quality of candidates and the provision of verifiable metrics for the recruiting process. In today’s competitive marketplace, these factors can give businesses a significant competitive edge.

Whether you need a little bit of help with hiring or would prefer to outsource the entire process, there are a few things you should consider when evaluating an RPO solution for your company:

1. Why your company needs help with recruiting.

It is important to understand your company’s need for hiring assistance before seeking outside help. Doing so will set the stage for the selection and management of a suitable RPO, as well as expectations for your internal human resource, management and executive teams. Begin by exploring specific reasons and rank them in order of priority. Examples include:

• Internal resources are over-taxed.
• You foresee an increase in hiring activity.
• Your management team wants a more accountable and/or consistent option than traditional internal recruiters, contract recruiters and agencies.
• Metrics related to recruiting quality, speed and cost are unknown.

2. The type of assistance you require.

RPOs typically provide three levels of service: project outsourcing, program outsourcing and total outsourcing.

If you need help hiring a few salespeople, that’s project outsourcing. If you just inked a government contract and need 200 people immediately, that’s project outsourcing. If your entire HR department needs support, that’s total outsourcing. Identifying the type of assistance you require will help determine if RPO is right for you, and will go a long way in helping you select a provider who can fulfill your specific needs.

3. The specific problems an RPO can and cannot solve.

Although cost savings is an eventual advantage of outsourcing your recruiting function, it should not be your primary reason for considering this type of arrangement. RPO is a highly consultative function with vast differences in structure, focus, technology and cost.

Where RPO firms excel is in their ability to improve candidate quality, increase recruitment responsiveness and implement a best-in-class recruitment process to carry your company forward. They cannot, however, be expected to solve your existing problems with fewer resources than you are currently allocating.

If your company has inefficient processes and infrastructure in place, focus on the end results you desire, rather than your immediate need to cut costs. In the end, hiring employees who perform at a high level and retaining them will dramatically improve your company’s bottom line.

How Do You Select An RPO Provider?

After deciding whether or not RPO is the best solution for your company, you will need to evaluate your options. Here are a few things to consider when choosing an RPO provider:

1. Size of the RPO firm: Depending on your needs, you can choose between a small, mid-sized or large RPO provider. Small providers are regionally based and may recruit nationally, but tend to be focused on a few specialties. Mid-sized providers are regionally or nationally based, recruit globally, and cover a broader spectrum of industries. Large providers are similar to mid-sized firms, except they are often owned by a professional employer organization (PEO) and can provide other HR outsourcing services beyond RPO.
2. Service structure: The recruiting industry is advancing at a rapid pace, and RPO providers differ greatly in the technologies, processes and staff they employ. Some RPOs will refine your current processes and work with your existing infrastructure and staff, whereas others prefer to implement a more complete end-to-end solution. Ask questions, explain your desired outcomes and evaluate service agreements closely to determine which provider will best meet your needs.
3. Company background: You should ensure that any RPO you’re considering is established and has a track record of quality customer service. It is wise to ask for references from other clients, preferably those in your industry or geographic area.
4. Cultural fit: It is important to choose an RPO provider whose staff you like and work well with. The RPO will serve as an extension of your HR team, so trust and likability are key to a successful long-term relationship.
5. Cost: Depending on your recruiting needs, the initial cost of partnering with an RPO may be more costly than doing the hiring yourself. However, the long-term benefits that come with strategic recruitment processes—including improved quality of candidates, increased retention, and consistency in employment branding and hiring practices—can equate to significant savings in the long run. In addition, your company will be spared the high overhead costs of implementing new methodologies or technologies in-house and will further benefit from the scalability an RPO can provide. Both you and your staff will be free to focus on core business tasks while your recruiting needs are handled by a dedicated team of professionals.
6. Commitment: RPO is not a “set-it-and-forget-it” solution. Your relationship with the provider you select will require an investment of time, especially in the early days of implementation. You should also be prepared to give your RPO six months to a year to achieve results.

Conclusion

As the business landscape continues to evolve at a rapid pace, it is important for your company to stay abreast of new talent acquisition models and recruitment processes to maintain a competitive edge. An RPO can provide consistency, scalability and quality in hiring practices that your internal team may be unable to achieve. Most importantly, an RPO can help you find people who are a better fit in a fraction of the time.

Just because a new employee doesn’t understand your instructions doesn’t mean he can’t be taught. It just means that he may have a different learning style than you’re used to. No two people learn effectively in exactly the same way, so it’s up to you to employ different methods of teaching to accommodate your audience.

Regardless of the level of training, it’s important to put yourself in the other person’s shoes, says Laurent Duperval, president of Duperval Consulting in Montreal, Canada.

“Speak to them at their level,” he says.

According to the “Index of Learning Styles” developed by Richard Felder and Linda Silverman in the late 1980s, there are four dimensions of learning, each of which exists across a spectrum:

• Sensory to Intuitive: Sensory learners prefer concrete, practical facts, while intuitive learners look for the meaning.
• Visual to Verbal: Visual learners like graphs, pictures and diagrams, while verbal learners like to hear or read information.
• Active to Reflective: The active learner likes to learn by doing, while the reflective learner prefers to learn through analysis.
• Sequential to Global: Sequential learners like orderly, linear details, while the global learner wants the big picture first.

Ideally, learning styles fall somewhere in the middle of one of the spectrums, otherwise comprehension can suffer. But when you’re teaching others, there is no guarantee that you are working with balanced learning styles, or even those that fall on the same spectrum. The best approach is to offer a variety of training programs.

• For the sensory/intuitive spectrum, focus on both hard facts and general concepts.
• For visual/verbal, you’ll want to provide both visual and verbal aids.
• For the active/reflective learners, offer experiential learning, as well as time for analysis.
• With the sequential/global spectrum, you’ll need to provide the big picture as well as structure.

Duperval suggests using different types of learning materials—including audio, video and books—and letting individuals select the approach that works best for them.

“Another option, which is especially useful in formal training, is to include all three major learning styles [visual, audio and kinesthetic] in the training session,” Duperval says. “For example, when presenting a new concept, show it on a screen, talk about it simultaneously and have people write it down. They are then seeing, hearing and ‘doing’ simultaneously, which helps them learn it faster.”

If possible, Duperval says, let the person discover the concepts by themselves.

“For example, use exercises to illustrate a concept, debrief, explain the concept, then, let them use the concept again in a different exercise,” he says.

You also need to make sure your own personal learning style doesn’t become a hindrance, says Duperval.

“If you are detail-oriented, you have to get away from the details and present the big picture. It’s your job, if you are the person providing the information,” he says.

The stage at which the learner is on the Conscious Competence Ladder is also important. Identifying where she stands on the matrix equips you with how to approach her.

• Unconscious Incompetence: At this stage, you may need to gently remind the learner of how much they have to learn.
• Conscious Incompetence: At this point, lots of encouragement and allowances for mistakes are needed, with the goal of helping the learner improve.
• Conscious Competence: Now the learner needs to stay focused on effective performance. Give her lots of opportunities to practice.
• Unconscious Competence: While this is optimal for effectiveness, watch out for complacency.

“If you teach things that are too advanced, many of the less knowledgeable will be in over their heads and will not learn much,” says Duperval. “If it is too basic, the more knowledgeable will be bored and stop listening—and might even disrupt [the lesson]. You need strategies to address these situations. Prepare different learning exercises for different levels of knowledge, and mix and match veterans and rookies so the former can use their experience and expertise to help the latter.”

What types of learning styles have you identified in your office? How have you modified your training style to accommodate them?

Yahoo announced yesterday that CEO Scott Thompson had resigned amid controversy surrounding his academic credentials. A mere two months into his tenure with the company, it was discovered that Thompson does not hold the computer science degree that’s been listed in numerous biographies and securities filings.

Surprisingly, Thompson is not the only high-profile executive to have been caught in this type of scandal. RadioShack CEO David Edmondson resigned in 2006 after the Fort Worth Star-Telegram discovered that he hadn’t earned the two degrees he claimed. And Kenneth Lonchar, CFO of Veritas Software, resigned in 2002 after the company found out he didn’t hold the MBA listed on his CV.

According to statistics, resume fraud is not uncommon. Further, it seems to be quite easy to get away with it. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, just under half of companies check to see if job applicants have the degrees they claim to hold. An even smaller percentage verifies that job-seekers actually went to the schools they say they attended.

The problem lies not in the fact that obtaining this information is difficult—we live in an age of unprecedented connectivity. The simple truth is that the majority of businesses lack a comprehensive employment screening process, which allows such exaggerations and fabrications to go undetected.

As the Yahoo scandal shows, failure to vet new hires can result in tremendous embarrassment and damage to both a company’s brand and bottom line. Regardless of size, every organization should screen its candidates thoroughly, with best practices pointing to partnership with a reputable employment screening agency. By trusting your verification processes to professionals, you will increase the quality of your employees and management pool, and decrease potential resume fraud and its far-reaching consequences.

A poll conducted by Gallup and Healthways found that in 2011, 44.6 percent of employees were enrolled in their employer’s health insurance plan. While that percentage has been steadily dropping since the poll began in 2008, the newest finding is the lowest yet.

So why are fewer workers taking advantage of employee health benefits?

Gallup suggests that because unemployment and underemployment have increased since 2008, fewer employees have had access to an employer-sponsored plan.

But those already in the workforce are also becoming less likely to take advantage of health insurance plans. The Gallup Poll identifies two major contributing factors for opting out of employee health benefits.

First is that employers cannot absorb the expense of offering employees health benefits and reducing their health insurance offerings. The other factor is that employees simply cannot afford the rising cost of health care with its higher premiums, higher deductibles and higher out-of-pocket expenses.

Who is Opting In?

Gallup found that among those with health insurance who didn’t work for the government and weren’t eligible for government plans, 57.1 percent still received their health care benefits from employers.

Higher earners are much more likely to be enrolled in an employer’s plan than are lower earners.

Young adults and Hispanics are the least likely to be enrolled in their employer’s health care plan, according to the findings of the Gallup poll.

Who is Opting Out?

As the number of workers opting for company health care benefits falls, the number of uninsured Americans continues to rise. Gallup found that 17.1 percent of Americans are uninsured. That is the highest percentage of uninsured since the inaugural survey in 2008.

Small businesses may soon be on the hook to fill this gap in coverage. The Affordable Health Care Act contains something called the individual mandate, which will require most Americans to purchase health insurance by the year 2014. The businesses themselves may have to adjust to higher health care costs as they share in the expense of adding employees to the company plan.

The experts at Gallup believe that until that point in 2014, the number of workers enrolling in company health insurance plans will continue to fall and the number of uninsured people will continue to rise.

The U.S. Supreme Court isn’t expected to release a ruling until sometime in June. If the Court upholds the mandate, more employers will be required to offer benefits that include employee health insurance plans and more employees may look to their employers for health care coverage.

Fewer people are signing on for company-sponsored health care coverage and more people than ever before are simply uninsured. What remains to be seen is if the Affordable Care Act changes those trends. If Americans are required to buy health insurance or face penalties, will more of them look once again to their employers for health care coverage? And is your small business ready to absorb the costs?

According to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), about 73 percent of employers conduct criminal background checks on their workforce. And while some companies are more vulnerable to the risks associated with negligent hiring—for example, those who send employees into other businesses or private homes—the benefits of background checks for all companies far outweigh the costs.

The Process

A comprehensive employment screening program will ensure that candidates have the skills, experience and personality traits required to fit within your organization. A typical screening may include a factual background check, including I-9 verification to confirm work eligibility, as well as drug and skill assessment testing. The goal is to identify the candidates who lack the necessary skills and experiences needed for the position, and also those whose work status or criminal background might make them a high-risk hire. In addition, the tests may identify candidates who have shown poor judgment or lack of responsibility in the past, which is often a fair predictor of future conduct.

The Payoff

A bad hire can do more than tarnish your company’s image. It can put your employees, customers, and the public at risk. By hiring a candidate without verifying their credentials, at the very least you risk hiring someone who can’t do the job. There is also a possibility that your company will suffer setbacks in productivity, additional training costs, and may even be forced to start the hiring process over again. A comprehensive screening process can identify discrepancies, such as when the responsibilities listed on a resume don’t match a candidate’s current salary, and much, much more.

Get With The Program

There are enough proprietary resources, public records, verification processes and testing services available for any employer to screen candidates on their own. But no company, even one with an in-house designee, should attempt to implement a nationwide program alone. With varying state and federal employment laws and candidates with records in multiple jurisdictions, compliance can become too much to handle.

The best way to mitigate corporate risk exposure and protect your company’s integrity is to work with a reputable employment screening agency. By outsourcing your screening program to professionals, you’ll gain the peace of mind that comes with making informed hiring decisions every time.

Still, it is fairly common to find that the range of merit and bonus pay in companies is more limited than would be expected given the difference in work contributions between superior (“eagle”) and mediocre (“turkey”) performers. Pay variance within jobs tends to be small, and more often reflects years of service than measureable contributions.

Feed Eagles, Starve Turkeys

If employee performance is so critical to business success, why don’t we see more companies “feeding their eagles and starving their turkeys” when it comes to pay? The reasons are twofold: Companies use inadequate methods to gauge performance, and managers are reluctant to offer variations in pay to employees in similar roles.

While managers can usually identify their eagles and turkeys, they often lack a system of measurement for charting different levels of performance. The standard five-point rating scale is too crude an instrument for performance calibration, since the rating categories are somewhat ambiguous and subject to interpretation. Consequently, the distribution of ratings in companies often becomes compressed (i.e.—mostly “threes” and “fours”) and the entire “flock” gets similar wage increases.

Why Measuring in Dollars Makes Cents

A more precise method of evaluation would be to express performance differences in dollar-valued terms. Despite the fact that the work outputs of many employees are not tangible or directly tied to the bottom line, their performance still has monetary implications. A dollar-valued measurement scale illustrates the real financial impact of employee performance on the company. Managers are asked to translate employee performance levels into estimated dollar amounts—relative to salary—across principle job activities. This in turn allows for the allocation of rewards commensurate with the dollar-valued performance of each employee, and as a share of the return on the company’s ‘investment’ (above a minimum hurdle) in their salary.

What’s the Matter? Chicken?

Why then are managers reluctant to differentiate for high performance when rewarding employee performance? Notwithstanding the hardheaded rhetoric commonly heard in companies, managers are apt to “turn chicken” when it comes to delivering different reward treatment to their eagles and turkeys. One explanation is that managers simply wish to avoid any unpleasant confrontations associated with rendering extreme evaluations. By awarding higher-than-deserved payouts to the turkeys, they preempt negative employee reactions, and by awarding lower-than-deserved payouts to the eagles, they need not justify (to their own managers) the exceptional reward treatment.

Another explanation is that managers seek to preserve group cohesiveness, even at the risk of undermining the pay-for-performance link. Among all groups of employees there will be a hierarchy with attendant status distinctions, based on relative performance. However, the high status accorded the eagles is dependent upon the turkeys’ willingness to remain at the bottom of the performance “pecking order” (i.e.—not leave the group). To maintain this group dynamic, a manager may subconsciously foster, and the eagles tacitly support, the transfer of a reward portion (“bribes”) to the turkeys to offset the indignity of low status. Thus, the payouts for turkeys may be somewhat higher, and for eagles somewhat lower, than their productive value would warrant so as to reinforce the group status quo.

Explore Your Options

What, if anything, can you do to align your employees’ pay with their work contributions? One alternative is to use group incentive or team-based pay plans to compensate employees for their collective, rather than individual, performance levels. However, unless there is sufficient task interdependence or opportunity for collaborative work activity, these plans are unlikely to align reward treatment. Moreover, such plans raise the possibility of the “free rider” problem in which the turkeys share the rewards generated disproportionately from the work contributions of the eagles.

Exploring the pros and cons of “feeding the eagles and starving the turkeys” within your organization is your best bet for providing fair compensation to your employees while upholding your commitment to the pursuit of success. Employee performance has monetary implications, and properly rewarding your top workers will motivate them to remain productive and loyal to your company.

Ted Weinberger has more than 25 years of experience as a compensation professional focusing on the linkage of pay to business strategy, the development of salary administration programs, the design of annual and sales force incentive plans and competency- and team-based pay approaches. He received a B.A. in psychology from Kent State University, an M.S. in industrial relations from the University of Wisconsin and has completed course work toward a Ph.D. in industrial relations from the University of Minnesota.

In 2012, Boomers are reaching the age of 65 at a rate of over 10,000 per day. The inevitable increase in demand for health care could push America’s current health care system to its breaking point, resulting in higher inflation, higher taxes or reduced health benefits for everyone. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported that spending for Medicare, Medicaid and total health care costs accounted for 3 percent each of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2009. If a change is not implemented by 2035, spending for Medicare alone will increase to 8 percent, and by 2080, will reach an astonishing 15 percent.

Exorbitant health care costs are not the only problematic issue the U.S. will face as the Baby Boomers reach retirement age. According to a report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) entitled “Retooling for an Aging America: Building the Health Care Workforce,” aging Boomers are facing a health care system far too small and unprepared to meet their needs. Despite the rapid increase in the country’s senior population, the number of geriatricians is actually decreasing. Taking into consideration the increased life expectancy of today’s seniors, coupled with the disproportionately large utilization of health care resources by the elderly, it is not hard to see the issues America’s health care workforce stands to face in the near future.

Regarding solutions to the problems at hand, LeadingAge, an association of 5,600 not-for-profit organizations dedicated to making America a better place to grow old, predicts that a consumer-driven model will replace the current service model for aging services, with other technologies greatly improving an individual’s ability to remain independent. Prevention, rather than crisis care, will emerge as the new focus of aging services.

According to Barbara Bradshaw, CEO of Eben Ezer Lutheran Care Center, “The goal of reforming the Medicare program is based on a triple aim. Number one is better health through education and preventative strategies; second is to reduce the cost; and third is to improve the quality of health care services.”

Despite the trepidation the influx of Baby Boomers has brought the health care system, their arrival will bring with it positive effects as well. The exploding Boomer population will bring about a demand for technological innovation. According to age researcher Joseph Coughlin, speaker at a panel discussion on health care and technology sponsored by the New England Business and Technology Association, the numbers of economically wealthy older people will provide business opportunities. Grocery stores and pharmacies will have to pay more attention to the aging population than they ever have before. Companies that have never been involved in health care in the past will move into the health, wellness and vitality industry.

Also, according to Coughlin, shared access to digitally stored medical records will be necessary to enable the public to choose from the plethora of health care services available to them. Today, shared access to medical records is restrained due to competition and privacy issues. In the future, however, public reporting of information on hospitals’ physicians will allow the consumer to pick and choose, and make an educated decision on his or her healthcare services based on quality.

Now more than ever it is important for individuals and small business owners to weigh their options for affordable health care and plan for the future. Do you have any suggestions on how to control health care costs on a go-forward basis?

John Feldmann has more than 5 years of copywriting and editing experience in the advertising industry, and 5 years of recruiting and sourcing experience in such industries as real estate, construction, engineering, accounting and healthcare. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin and specializes in recruitment ad development.