The last time I watched the movie, I made a correlation between the film and RPO. The values the main character, Lightning McQueen, acquires as he launches his racing career reminded me of the values required to deliver successful RPO support.

Lightning McQueen is a race car. In his own words, he is speed. The film follows him as he attempts to win the Piston Cup. Winning the championship will mean sponsorship, endorsements, and celebrity status. Who wouldn’t want the flash, the thrill, and the promises of a successful future?

Our society tends to be obsessed with size and speed. The bigger and faster, the better. Similarly, McQueen feels that fixation. He wants to be champion so that he can be the ultimate representation of those characteristics. He takes this so far that he abandons all thought of cost or risk. In this clip, McQueen is so determined to win the race that he forgoes a vital pit stop and ends up blowing a tire.

As the movie progresses, McQueen gets stranded in a tiny town called Radiator Springs. In the time he spends out of the fast lane he has to work hard and create genuine friendship. Ultimately, McQueen develops strong values and becomes a true winner.

Likewise, RPO delivery should be centered on a methodical value-based approach. For example, at Yoh our motto is, “We do what we say.” In other words, we draw strength from our values and make them part of everything we do. The three main objectives of our service delivery model are:

1. Transparency. Transparency helps build our reputation as a values-based company and industry leader.
2. Sustainability. Leading a sustainable organization means knowing when to slow down and take the time to help clients achieve stability. This also entails guiding clients with recommendations rich in high-level principles and best practices.
3. Responsibility. Responsibility begins with a clear understanding of the value we intend to provide. That value is demonstrated in many forms, including customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, and our company culture.

In a deserted town off old Route 66, Lightning McQueen humbly discovers that the journey to winning starts with finding out what truly matters. Based on our experience in RPO delivery, we completely agree.

Meanwhile, researchers at the London School of Economics and Harvard Business School are taking a similar approach to examine how CEOs spend most of their time. The Executive Time Use Project is an ongoing initiative, but some initial findings were released last week. The results indicate that out of a 55-hour workweek, CEOs average 18 hours in meetings, more than three hours on calls, and five hours in business meals.

This is not completely surprising, given that CEOs’ main responsibilities include managing employees and interacting with customers. Robert Steven Kaplan, a professor of management practice at Harvard Business School, observed that when top executives compare their top priorities to how they actually spend their time, “they are usually surprised about the mismatch.”

Kaplan’s observation made me wonder: Is workforce management one of the priorities that is not given enough attention because of this time crunch?

Human capital management (HCM) technology is considered a potential solution to this disparity. And as ReadWriteWeb reported last week, the HR software sector continues to ramp up its offerings to meet demand for efficient workforce management tools. It’s important to remember that technology is not a stand-alone solution for talent acquisition or employee engagement. HCM can induce positive change, but it takes a human touch to make sure you have the right processes and skills in place to integrate and manage the technology.

Finally, extreme interviewing practices have been in the limelight lately. Los Angeles Times’ Tiffany Hsu reports that this trend could be an effective way for hiring managers to weed through large applicant pools and test for skills that are difficult to measure in traditional meetings. Extreme practices include brain teasers, surprise meetings with competing candidates, and interviews conducted on Twitter.

These interviewing practices might not be right for your employer brand, but the article is a reminder that interview methods should be strategic. They should aim to uncover what you need to know about the interviewee upfront. After all, a bad hire can equate to a loss of money and productivity — not to mention the time spent finding the right replacement.







Is that the right bet? Probably, since it’s clear that skilled workers will become harder to find in the not-so-distant future.

However, there are still many hurdles that companies must overcome to get the most out of their investments in human capital management (HCM) and related technologies. Here are two examples of such obstacles:

1. Cultural issues and employment branding. How can you be considered a company that values people when much of the interaction occurs online or through technology? How do you fine tune an applicant tracking system (ATS) to effectively weed out the applications that you don’t want without losing the ones that you do? Where are the humans going to be in human resources?

2. The pull of social media. While you are trying to organize your internal talent database, the web is creating multiple talent communities that need attention, development, and nurturing. And whether it’s intentional or not, each of those communities is trying to cultivate relationships with your employees, potentially giving other companies access to your base of talent and skills. How will your company be heard? How will you attract skilled workers from other companies while retaining your own talent?

A recent ReadWriteWeb article by Marshall Kirkpatrick got me thinking about this last point. The article contends that the war for talent is now the war for skills, and a quote in the article notes that companies will now have to fight for key skills with their competitors. This implies that passive candidates will be the new battleground for talent.

We’re already seeing this recruiting method at Facebook, Google, and other larger companies. Many people believe that talent poaching is just a Silicon Valley practice or a high-tech thing. In reality, this practice will likely infiltrate many IT areas, as well as the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines.

The rise of large, integrated HR systems (illustrated by the Oracle acquisition mentioned above) provides a good example of what HR will face in the future.

The technology in play, namely ATSs, HR information systems (HRIS), and Enterprise Resources Programs (ERPs) all require people to develop, maintain, and run the software. You’ll need talent that can maintain existing systems or integrate them into new systems. That means you will be competing with big software companies, your competitors, and everyone else to get the right workers into your company.

This is a simple illustration of how the skills that your company needs will change and how the competition for these specific, rising skills will continue to heat up. But at the same time, you’ll also need to find and keep employees with legacy skills.

Will new HR software help you navigate this challenge? Maybe, but it’s going to take some pretty smart humans to point the technology in the right direction.







That’s the bottom line of our recent workforce planning survey. If you haven’t read it, I recommend that you do. It will tell you what top executives at some of the largest U.S. companies think about the state of hiring and recruiting. The issues they’re facing are probably familiar, as you’re likely facing the same issues at your company.

The keys to building certainty into your workforce are planning and using a variety of staffing solutions to create an agile and flexible talent acquisition process. But how do you do this?

Our newest eBook, “Choosing the Right Staffing Solutions,” concisely covers the major staffing solutions available today. In addition to reviewing your options, you’ll also learn about some of the reasons these staffing solutions fail and tips for creating a successful program.

The details are in the eBook, but here are five high-level tips to apply to the next series of staffing solutions for your company:

Prepare your business. Have you laid the groundwork for bringing in a staffing solution? Does it fit your culture? If you are changing providers or solutions, assess what occurred in the past and identify what you would like to change. In addition, clarify program ownership.

Prepare your executives. Speaking of ownership, your executives should understand and share in the ownership of the program. Many executives are only aware of staffing solutions as a budget line-item, while others are entirely unaware how much money is spent on temporary labor or other staffing solutions. The more executives know about how the chosen staffing solutions impact their ability to service customers or improve production, the better.

Buy quickly and with change in mind. If we learned one thing during the Great Recession, it was that a lot can change in a short period of time. Expect things to change almost as soon as you have a new solution in place. Avoid making the change cycle so long that your solution no longer fits your situation. Be scalable (up and down) and be quick.

Keep your options open. There are many great staffing solutions for both short-term and long-term needs. Temporary staffing is a catch-all, but solutions such as recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and using a managed staffing provider (MSP) are also tools for creating more certainty in your workforce. You don’t have to choose just one.

Don’t rely on what you’ve always done. If you haven’t heard it enough already, the world is a different place now. We are not driving around in flying cars (yet), but it certainly hasn’t gotten any easier to find or hire the right people. You must change and you must change now.

I encourage you to check out the eBook for more information on making the right staffing solutions decisions. Your future and the future of your company might just depend on it.

Today, the people we hire, those with whom we work, and the leaders of our companies all have incredible impact on our lives and the success of our business. And it starts with recruiting, or more specifically, excellence in recruiting.

In addition to recruiting, a successful workforce requires excellence in a few areas. But don’t take my word for it. Today’s Movieclips Monday, on this excellent Presidents Day, features President Lincoln bestowing some very sage advice to a crowd of high school students.

OK, so Mr. Lincoln’s message was short and sweet, but it still holds true today. I don’t know what you heard, but here’s what I took away from those moving words:

• Have excellent recruiting resources. Measure your recruiting efforts constantly and look for a variety of resources, both internal and external, that will help you find the right people.
• Be an excellent employer. You’ll attract and keep more people if your company is a great place to work.
• Be an excellent boss. Engage your employees and recognize their contributions often.

In short, I think Mr. Lincoln was trying to say that if we are excellent, our companies and our employees will thrive. And then we can all party on.

If you have already decided to deploy a managed staffing program and have chosen to use a third party to run it, it’s time to perform an evaluation of possible staffing partners. A crucial element of this evaluation will be to look closely at the recruiting model used by the managed staffing partner. The way in which talent is sourced and brought into the organization has an impact on both the quality and the cost.

In order to properly evaluate the recruiting models that professional staffing partners will bring to the table, you must first understand your own organization’s talent needs and processes.

The managed staffing partners’ recruiting model should fit with your current process culture and also help advance your organization’s desire to continuously shape and improve talent acquisition processes. Ultimately, the recruiting method selected should enable your company to better engage the candidate marketplace in the skill areas that matter most.

Here are the most common models of recruiting found across managed staffing programs.

Provider discrete. This recruiting method is completely at the discretion of each professional staffing provider participating in the managed staffing program. 

Pros:

• Allows for evaluation of quality against various models
• Gives hiring managers the ability to establish preferences that suit their needs

Cons:

• Difficult to control cost and quality, regardless of what type of managed staffing approach is in place
• Prone to leaving gaps in coverage (geographically or by skill type) due to potential inability of any single or combination of partners to fill specific recruiting needs

Branch coverage. This recruiting model typically leverages the individual branch offices of a specific staffing provider participating in the managed staffing program.

Pros:

• Offers physical presence of recruiters to a company’s regional offices
• Individual offices typically operate their own P&L, which may naturally incentivize their performance

Cons:

• At the mercy of individual offices of the same parent company, which could result in a frustrating level of inconsistency
• Physical presence might not translate to good coverage ability. That is, the local office might focus on different skill sets than the managed staffing program requires.
• Limited ability to scale beyond individual branch capabilities

Centralized branch coverage. Regional branch offices of participating staffing providers are centrally managed by either the managed staffing provider or by a participating supplier’s parent company.

Pros:

• Increases accountability and control over quality and cost
• Collaborative recruiting across multiple offices of participating staffing providers

Cons:

• Consistency and quality between participating staffing providers might vary
• Performance reporting, even when using technology, can potentially be inaccurate

Dedicated hub. This recruiting method involves remote recruiting by a team dedicated to a specific client or focused only on similar managed staffing clients.

Pros:

• Typically advanced methods that maximize the value of social media recruiting outlets
• Increased ability to source ahead of talent demand
• Better communication of client position, employment brand, and skill needs to candidate marketplace
• Improves cost of delivery

Cons:

• No physical presence
• Virtual on-boarding might not align with current client processes
• Managed staffing provider running project must support dedicated hub methods
• Hub recruiting resources might be better at handling volume than handling hard-to-find and discrete skill sets

Hybrid hub and branch. In this recruiting model, coverage is handled by both locally connected branch offices and a centralized, remote recruiting hub.

Pros:

• Provides ability to handle both generic volume and specific, hard-to-source skill sets
• Greater ability to develop talent community with shared ownership
• Local and national representation
• Better communication of client employment brand to candidate marketplace
• Improves cost of delivery
• Greater ability to scale with client needs

Cons:

• Physical presence varies
• On-boarding experience might be inconsistent
• Hub coverage might vary depending on sourcing volume and shared recruiting resources
• Participating MSP must have ability to deploy the hybrid recruiting model

It is possible that a selected managed staffing program will utilize more than one model. It is important to understand the model that will dominate and to examine the provider’s success with this approach.

It is also advisable to avoid making cost be the determining factor in selection. Such an approach invariably leads to questionable coverage and poor supplier performance. Seek out alternatives that naturally improve the cost efficiency of delivery while ensuring that the right level of focus is given in the correct proportions to hard-to-find skill sourcing and covering expected volume.

Unfortunately, many companies today find that their talent acquisition strategies lag in their ability to respond to these immediate needs. In fact, our recent workforce trends study revealed that many organizations are simply not updating their talent acquisition strategies often enough.

What does growth have to do with a company’s culture? It’s a shock to the system, literally.

Culture shock can ensue when a company has a great influx of new employees or even large numbers of temporary employees, consultants, or independent contractors. Further, companies that choose to sit back and rely on static or outdated strategies for sourcing and recruiting talent risk compounding the effects of the shock.

Recently, a few articles highlighted the issues surrounding culture and change. Most notably, an article at The Hiring Site highlighted how difficult avoiding culture shock can be when a company grows and expands, sometimes at an unexpectedly fast pace.

Interestingly, the article doesn’t touch on talent acquisition strategies or the various staffing solutions a company should use in tandem with expansion. I think that’s an important starting point.

How did you address the need to add workers, skills, and recruiting resources in the first place? The method can have a great impact on the amount of culture shock your company endures.

Here are three tips for reducing the initial culture shock that might accompany the need to hire large numbers of workers.

1. Align talent acquisition and recruiting strategies with your culture. Don’t try to fit a square-peg outsourcing strategy into a round-hole company, especially if your organization is very internally focused or hierarchical. A recent Wall Street Journal article shed light on four types of company cultures. The breakdown is based on how an organization functions internally, including communication, decision making, and its methods for promotions. Think about the values that fuel your culture as you look for the most fitting solution.
2. Forecast and plan for what is likely to occur. Get your resources in line and online before you need them. Most programs, especially large MSP or RPO programs, take a few months to ramp up. If you take a few months to decide you need to do something, then another six months to choose a provider, you’re already set back almost a year.
3. Build agility into your talent acquisition strategies. Once you have all your options ready to go, be willing to change from one solution to the next if needed. For example, you might need to move from temporary staffing to permanent or vice versa. Identify which areas can benefit from specific types of staffing solutions. Then set the expectation that you might have to make adjustments as conditions change.

Even the best companies have to deal with culture crises from time to time. Based on the results of our workforce study, it seems that some crises can be avoided if a company successfully factors company culture into the workforce equation. Organizations need to align and prepare their company’s talent acquisition strategies and staffing solutions to fit their culture.

Last week, the show focused on Mr. Rooter® Plumbing and its parent company The Dwyer Group, Inc. The Dywer Group’s CEO and Chairwoman, Dina Dwyer-Owens, went undercover to assure Mr. Rooter and its sister companies were demonstrating the company’s code of values. The code includes the themes of Respect, Integrity, Customer focus, and Having fun in the process (RICH).

Many times throughout the show, Dwyer-Owens referenced a 14-step customer service guide that every technician is expected to follow. This is a white-glove approach that begins with Mr. Rooter employees putting on shoe covers before entering a customer’s home. The 14-step guide is rooted in the company’s appreciation for the little details, the idea being that attention to minor details will differentiate the company by its exceptional customer experience.

While watching the show, I kept thinking, “How can I apply this philosophy to my job?” I’ve always prided myself on providing top-notch customer service, whether working with candidates or companies. However, perhaps a 14-step customer service guide could help differentiate my services even more.

Therefore, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks focusing on the extra touches in recruiting services that help create the ultimate customer experience. For example, last week I coordinated a number of interviews for two hiring managers. I met each interviewee in the lobby prior to the interview, introduced them to the hiring managers, and followed up with both sides directly after each meeting. Not only did this yield multiple hires, but it also gained several remarks from the candidates and the companies regarding Yoh’s quality and customer service.

Although small, these gestures demonstrated a big level of commitment and care to both parties. I can’t be certain that it was these extra touches that yielded the results, but based on the positive feedback, it is apparent that our competition isn’t doing the same thing. These are the types of gestures that clients will remember the next time they have a position to fill.

We often think that there isn’t enough time in the day to see to these extra details. However, incorporating the white-glove approach into your day-to-day processes will create a memorable and effective customer experience that sets your services apart from the rest.

Well, in case you missed the viral videos and news segments, a purple squirrel was captured by a Pennsylvania couple last week. Perhaps this squirrel’s sudden appearance can remind recruiters that reducing time to fill is not an impossible task. In fact, teaming with hiring managers to create a strong and proactive recruiting strategy is the key to success. Here are seven strategies to help you.

1. Ask the right questions. Many hiring managers are so busy that creating an accurate job profile is not a priority. While I was working as a senior recruiter for a Fortune 500 company, 75 percent of the new openings that came across my desk contained a canned description for a generic position, topped off with a meaningless job title. As a long-time recruiter, I knew to reach out to the hiring manager to ask the right questions before even glancing at the talent pool. A rich job description will be your road map. Plus, creating a marketable job title will help attract the right candidates.
2. Agree on the job descriptions and requirements. Hiring managers and recruiters need to agree on which skills are preferred and which are required. Reduce your time to source by knowing your goals from the start. Again, you must be on the same page as the manager. Don’t wait 30 days after the role is posted to clarify what the ideal candidate looks like. You run the risk of having to re-scope the role.
3. Establish boundaries. An involved hiring manager will help reduce the time to source and fill, while an overly involved manager can have the opposite effect. Take control and set the tone of the process. For example, it’s common for hiring managers to want to see every resume that enters the applicant tracking system (ATS). Compromise by sending a sample resume or two for the manager’s review, and use his or her feedback as a guide.
4. Send qualified candidates for an interview as soon as possible. Candidate slates, or waiting until you have three or four candidates, can greatly impact your time to source. By waiting, you also risk losing candidates, which means you’ll have to start qualifying applicants all over again.
5. Drive the interview process. Finding the candidates to interview does not complete the process. You can reduce time to fill by influencing the interview process. For example, a hiring manager might request in-person interviews first, which can be very expensive and time intensive. Recommend that he or she conduct the first round of interviews over the phone and as soon as possible. If the hiring manager is adamant about initial in-person interviews, recommend using FaceTime, Skype, or OoVoo as a fast and free alternative. If possible, consolidate virtual interviews into one day. This way, the hiring manager can compare candidates against the job requirements more efficiently.
6. Act one step ahead of the hiring process. When the company decides to make your candidate an offer, send the appropriate paperwork when the candidate goes in for his or her next round. This shows that you are serious about the candidate, and it will also save time on the back end of the process.
7. Give a 48 to 72 hour window of offer acceptance. Hot candidates can have multiple offers from companies with a faster recruiting process. If the candidate is still weighing the offer after 72 hours, he or she is probably waiting for a competing offer. Or perhaps the candidate is not 100 percent sold on the new role or leaving his or her current position. Contact the candidate to address any concerns, or recommend that he or she speak to the hiring manager again. These actions add a personal touch and will show the candidate that the company is very interested.

Overall, developing a strong relationship with your hiring manager will make both of your jobs easier, faster, and more cost-effective. Once one position is filled, another opening will surface, and your mission continues. Therefore, keep in mind that the purple squirrel does exist, and it is possible to save your client time and money by reducing source and fill time.

Today I’m going to take the approach of someone selecting a staffing provider, and tell you that while it is important to reflect on past practices and successes, these accomplishments should not be the sole factor in your decision-making, nor should they define a business relationship.

Rather, the question, “What have you done lately?” is a better barometer of the skill, performance, and stamina of every employee, organization, and vendor.

For example, in this scene from the movie Napoleon Dynamite, Uncle Rico reminisces about his days as a high school quarterback. In the glory days, he says, he could throw the pigskin a quarter mile.

After graduation Uncle Rico was forced to move on with a life devoid of football. While it’s obvious that he just can’t let go of the past, you can be sure that the New York Giants would never draft Uncle Rico based on his high school stats alone.

Similarly, when selecting a staffing provider, be sure not to become too fixated on the company’s past wins. While previous successes can indicate a certain level of expertise, it is more important to see that the staffing provider can replicate these experiences and accomplishments. A provider must be able to demonstrate its ability to continuously innovate, improve existing skills, and yield results if it wants to be a player on your company’s team.

Evaluating a managed staffing program allows the client and the provider to recognize the individuals, methods, and underlying values that contributed to the program’s success. But do not revel in past performances for too long.

That goes for the staffing providers reading this post, too! Use a project win as a springboard to attain even higher goals. This will demonstrate your dedication to moving forward and innovating for continued success.

The true value in a staffing partnership exists in the day-to-day execution. Therefore, we need to encourage our employees to think ahead and resist becoming the Uncle Ricos of the business world.