When it comes to who should have a seat at the MSP buying table, your first thought might not be the Talent Acquisition (TA) team. But the reality is that your TA professionals deserve to be a part of your MSP decisions just as much as anyone else does.Why is this? Well, first - cost savings are usually a strong driver in starting an MSP partnership for any organization that has managed their contingent workforce in-house in the past. And in recent years, organizations' procurement teams have been behind many new MSP’s at companies whose contingent workforces have become more complex or more expensive. Procurement is often responsible for finding those cost savings and making them a valuable part of the MSP buying process and TA is an important bridge into Procurement. And that’s not the only reason why they’re a valuable part of this process.
From additional visibility to unique perspectives on talent pools - here’s 5 reasons why your Talent Acquisition team should have a seat at the MSP buying table.
Additional Visibility
Any additional visibility into both contingent workforce challenges and full time hiring needs is a major benefit. The Talent Acquisitions department has a first-eye view on the status of hiring for any organization. They will also know the current challenges and needs facing the organization, which means they can contribute on how to overcome them and assist with the overall strategy for how to best implement a solution to outsource supplier management.
RPO and MSP Collaboration
RPO is a growing solution for organizations to hire full-time talent without adding significantly to their internal recruiting staff. The most forward-thinking companies are including their MSP to find the source of that full-time talent through their channel of outsourcing partners, running those hires through the VMS and reporting on SLA’s - similarly to what MSP’s have done for other categories of work in the past. Talent Acquisition is long familiar with the benefits of an RPO solution to drive seasonal hiring, making a high volume of hires in similar roles (repeatable hires) and can also give incredibly valuable feedback on how best to leverage an MSP and RPO together to attack their hiring challenges in one solution. A combined MSP/RPO approach might be one of the newest in the marketplace but it’s quickly being adapted as a go-to approach. Talent Acquisition can most definitely be a strong voice when it comes to the value of looking at RPO in a new way.
Unique Perspective on Talent Pools
With Talent Acquisition being the bridge between hiring managers and procurement, they have a unique perspective on the current impression of their company employer brand in the marketplace. This also gives them the opportunity to see where there are gaps to do better. This can bring a lot of great insight into the challenges their organization may face in marketing themselves to the right talent. This becomes even more helpful when an organization is implementing direct sourcing into their MSP, which is showing a valuable trend towards better retention and engagement as a way to source candidates. Talent Acquisition should have a say in how a new direct sourcing strategy goes to market, and where there can be gains in attracting talent they haven’t seen before since they are the ones talking to talent on the front lines. That market insight can drive the strategy towards a fresh start in reaching talent that can be sourced more quickly and with more cost control.
The Benefit of Process Improvement
Process Improvement helps the organization as a whole that saves not only time but also money. The first group that will see day-to-day improvements is Talent Acquisition – especially whenever a new MSP program goes live or when there are major upgrades to an existing MSP. So, their impression of the “state of the union” as hiring goes today is more important than ever, because the suppliers and MSP program team put in place will change their personal productivity immensely. Having TA at the table when SLA’s and other metrics such as turnaround time, time to fill rates, quality of talent, etc. will ensure that realistic goals are being set for everyone – both suppliers and the MSP team alike. Creating more efficiency in the hiring process should be the goal of any MSP and TA can become a champion of an MSP, or a roadblock, if the end-users of the program are not involved in the planning.
Technology as an Advantage
With any MSP comes an opportunity to implement new technology – if your organization is not using a VMS right now, Talent Acquisition will be a major group of end users for that platform once the MSP goes live. If you’re in an MSP now, there are many options in the marketplace to make a change to your VMS is the TA team is not in love with what you’re using now. Whatever your current-state, Talent Acquisition will touch the VMS on a daily basis and there is a greater chance for wide adoption of a new tech tool if the end-users have input on which to procure. If they have a voice at the buying table for new technology, they are more likely to speak up in the future if there are issues or changes that need to be made. I know it might not sound like a great thing to hear issues but if your MSP buying process is procurement driven, you won’t see the results your organization needs if the TA team rejects daily use of the technology. And since the VMS is where the TA team interacts with hiring managers and their MSP program team, the better the buy-in, the better the output.
As you can see above, there are so many reasons to include Talent Acquisition at the MSP buying table. Consider the different perspectives that TA can bring as well as the important bridge that they play between procurement and hiring managers. Also, we all know that in today’s world technology is important to get right when it comes to efficiency and who better to give you input than the group who will be using it daily?
