Category: Talent Acquisition Strategy

First Nations Candidates: Creating More Opportunities in the Workplace

Posted on by akessler

At PeopleScout APAC we are committed to providing you with information to help guide you on your D&I journey. We aim to cover a wide range of D&I topics, including issues regarding BIPOC, the LGBTQ+ community, gender gaps, people with disabilities and more. In this article, we cover the history and importance of NAIDOC Week and offer advice and recommendations for employers looking to build more inclusive workplaces for First Nations peoples.

Each year in Australia, NAIDOC Week is observed in July to recognise the contributions of the First Nations and Torres Strait Islander communities to history and achievements of Australia. It’s an occasion to celebrate the oldest, continuous living cultures on Earth.

NAIDOC Week takes its name from the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee. The annual celebration stems from The Day of Mourning, which was first held as a protest to Australia Day on 26 January 1938, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet, marking the beginning of the colonisation of Australia. Aboriginal Australian were protesting the mistreatment of their ancestors and the seizure of land and resources from the First Nations peoples. It became an annual tradition and evolved into a week-long event in 1975 resulting in NAIDOC Week.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a rich and ancient history, and each person brings their unique views and experiences to the workforce. Creating career opportunities for First Nations peoples in integral to a workplace diversity and inclusion (D&I) program. In this article, we’ll provide an overview of the First Nations peoples, discuss the challenges these Australians are facing in the workplace and share actionable strategies your organisation can leverage to create opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers.

Who are First Nations Australians?

“First Nations Australians”, is a general term that includes two distinct cultural groups—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Within these groups sits a wide array nations, islands, tribes, clans and communities, each with their own culture, language and beliefs.

Australia’s First Peoples cultures developed over 70,000 years on the continent now known as Australia, making them the world’s oldest living cultures. Aboriginal peoples come from all regions of Australia. Torres Strait Islanders originate from a group of 200 islands off the northern tip of Queensland, south of Papua New Guinea. Each Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person will have their own specific culture and ancestral homeland with which they identify.

A Brief History of Oppression of Australia’s First Peoples

Australia was originally founded as a penal colony for Britain. On 26 January 1788, a fleet of 11 British ships carrying 700 convicts arrived at the colony to establish an agricultural work camp.

Aboriginal populations were subjected to forced labour and eventually segregated. As recently as the 1970s, Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families by Australian Federal and State agencies and put into institutions or placed with white families in a misguided attempt to assimilate them into white society. In addition to abuse and neglect, these children were deprived of learning their oral culture as parents were unable to pass down their traditions to these Stolen Generations—and much has been lost.

In 1967, Aboriginal peoples were granted citizenship, which started a journey of slow progress towards reconciliation in Australia. With unanimous support from Parliament, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was established in 1991 to raise awareness of the history of the treatment of First Nations peoples in Australia. Today, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) have set out ambitious targets to remedy the disadvantages they now face as a result historical harm.

First Nations Peoples in the Workplace

The Closing the Gap strategy was created 2008 to address six major areas of improvement relating to health, education and employment. The 2020 Closing the Gap report, shows big strides made around education. While still lower than non-Indigenous Australians, 66% of First Nations Australians aged 20-24 years have completed a Year 12 level of education or higher—up 21% from a decade ago.

However, despite educational advancements, First Nations people remain largely underrepresented in the workplace. In 2018, the employment rate of Aboriginal and Torres Islander peoples was around 49% compared to around 75% for non-Indigenous Australians. Unfortunately, not much improvement has been made over the last 10 years with just 0.9% growth in the employment rate for Indigenous Australians.

To counteract these concerning trends, many organisations are now executing against a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), which sets out how they will contribute to reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and creating meaningful opportunities for them. An important part of a successful RAP is a dedicated strategy for recruitment of First Nations peoples.

“Reconciliation isn’t a single moment or place in time. It’s lots of small, consistent steps, some big strides, and sometimes unfortunate backwards steps …”

Karen Mundine, Chief Executive Officer, Reconciliation Australia

Strategies for Improving First Nations Talent Acquisition Outcomes

Although a small talent pool, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers can add huge value to your organisation. Increasing the number of Indigenous Australians in your workforce will help you reflect your community and increase your understanding of your cross-cultural customer base. Focusing on Indigenous employment can open up additional business opportunities—including government contracts—and aid in the expansion your revenue potential. 

The majority of Australians (59%) say they would like to work with a First Nations person, and 66% say they would employ an Indigenous Australian given the opportunity. So how can employers attract, hire and create more opportunities for First Nations peoples?

At PeopleScout, we have developed this five-pillar approach to a First Nations resourcing strategy:

1. Labour Market Insights

Your strategy should start with developing a deep understanding of your First Nations target audience. Conduct labour market research in all regions in which you’re hiring to understand the size of the talent pool and gain insight into current employers and role types and common skills.

Working with a First Nations resourcing consultant can help you understand the drivers and motivators of your First Nations audiences. Combine this with demographic data to create a talent persona that informs your recruitment marketing messages so they resonate with First Nations talent.

2. Community & Stakeholder Engagement

Start by communicating with indigenous leaders and educating your recruitment partners—to drive accountability and positive outcomes for any Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) you have in place and how talent acquisition fits in. This is also a good time to ensure all your sourcers and recruiters have completed cultural awareness training. You should also share the labour market insights you gathered so they have a clear understanding of the skill sets that exist within the First Nations communities and how they map to your business.

Once you’ve informed your internal stakeholders, it’s time to identify groups within you’re the First Nations community and start establishing relationships. These could include schools and universities (and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student groups), community groups, social media groups and more. This will help build awareness of your organisation and lay the foundation for referrals to your roles.

3. Attraction

Start by reviewing your existing employer value proposition (EVP) to ensure it’s relevant to a First Nations audience. It’s important at this stage to have a feedback session with your existing First Nations employees or consultants to further develop your employer brand messaging to understand cultural sensitivities in a respectful way that values indigenous knowledge and practices.

Then, update your careers page and any recruitment marketing assets and creative, if needed. You may also consider creating a dedicated First Nations career page. Using these materials, you can actively promote your positions to the community groups with which you’ve been engaging.

4. Assessment & Selection

This pillar is all about ensuring more First Nations candidates progress through each stage of the recruitment process to ultimately increase hires. 

It’s crucial to partner with your hiring managers to ensure they’re aligned with your diversity hiring targets and how your organisation’s RAP might impact their business unit. You should also present them with your labour market insights which will be the basis of an important conversation around required skills within the available talent pool. Your recruiters and hiring managers should agree on where there is flexibility within the technical capabilities for each role—what can be developed on the job versus what skills they need to have from the start in order to be successful. Then, when reviewing candidates and applicants, you can view them through the lens of transferrable skills that an individual can bring to the role—not strictly for exact experience.

The assessment and selection stage of the recruitment process can often be where most roadblocks lurk for First Nations candidates, so it’s important to assess your candidate experience to root out anything that may negatively impact Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander candidates. Document any recruitment process changes and present these guidelines to hiring managers.

As they move through your recruitment process, it’s important to gather feedback from First Nations candidates. Candidate NPS is a good way to gauge the experience of Indigenous candidates versus non-Indigenous and uncover any areas for improvement. Share this data amongst recruiters and hiring managers and adjust as needed to ensure ongoing success.

5. Reporting & Analytics

No First Nations talent acquisition strategy or RAP will be successful without measurement and regular reporting on progress.

The first step here is to define your success measures. These may include:

  • Level of interest / number of applicants from First Nations peoples
  • Candidate source (can help you determine if certain community relationships need more attention and inform your recruitment marketing campaigns)
  • Candidate quality
  • Pipeline data showing the number First Nations candidates at each stage of the recruitment process
  • Number of First Nations people hired
  • Retention rates

The ability to report on these metrics may require you to evaluate your recruitment analytics technology and upgrade your tech stack if needed. Look for a tool that lets you build an RAP dashboard that included modules that show data specific to your First Nations recruitment process.

As you build your dashboards and determine what to include, think about which stakeholders within your business should see the data and what they should see. Your C-suite, talent acquisition teams and hiring managers will all have different needs and concerns. Regularly analysing this data and trends over time will go a long way to ensure you achieve your First Nations recruitment outcomes.

First Nations Peoples & Workplace Diversity

To stay competitive in today’s challenging recruitment landscape, diversity and inclusion must be at the core of your talent strategy. When candidates and customers see diversity within your business—including First Nations employees—they’re more likely to invest their time and resource in your organisation. By celebrating the cultures of First Nations peoples and creating opportunities for them to thrive, you can foster long-term reconciliation and respect for this diverse talent pool—for NAIDOC Week and beyond.

[On-Demand] How to Build a Compelling Talent Attraction Strategy

Posted on by akessler

[On-Demand] How to Build a Compelling Talent Attraction Strategy

As employers compete to attract the best people, talent acquisition specialists need to use everything at their disposal to ensure their efforts are efficient and successful.

The days of “post and pray” are behind us; HR and recruitment professionals are facing an increasingly complex recruitment market that means they have to do much more than simply advertise their vacancies.

This Personnel Today webinar, in association with PeopleScout, helps you build a stronger employer brand, underpinned by a clear employee value proposition, to enable your organisation to nurture a reliable talent pipeline where the best candidates seek you out.

Personnel Today editor Rob Moss is joined by Robert Peasnell, deputy managing director of PeopleScout, and Paula Simmons, director of employer brand and communications strategy at TMP Worldwide, together with an expert panel of talent acquisition professionals.

Watch now to learn:

  • How to create innovative attraction campaigns that work

  • Strategies for HR and recruitment in a candidate led-market

  • How to maintain goals around diversity in a challenging labour market

  • The best ways to encourage candidate advocacy, and

  • How to accurately portray your organisation to the right audience

The Cow Behind the Pig: Why Economic Slowdown May Not Reduce the Need to Invest in Talent

Posted on by akessler

By Joe Mongon, Head of Recruitment Delivery, EMEA

I’ve tried to hide from the inevitable and deeply wanted to write about anything other than the ONS’s recent UK Labour Market overview for fear of adding to the pervading gloom of economic news. But as a recruitment professional, and as a worker, the findings are too stark and too significant to ignore.

The main impact is for employees, not employers, with a grim picture of pay in real terms falling at its fastest rate in over a decade as the cost-of-living crisis bites. This might lead to churn as those in work seek higher paying opportunities to maintain, not improve, their lifestyles. And they might well have choice—a record number of job vacancies have been recorded (again) in the UK. It is certainly a challenge to businesses that, while “pay is growing strongly as companies seek to attract people to work for them,” salaries are still falling well behind rates of inflation, putting ever more pressure on investment.

Higher Salaries Won’t Fix the UK’s Talent Shortages

It will be very difficult to use salaries alone to mitigate against the lack of supply the UK jobs market is seeing. The current position is indeed incredibly tight and exacerbated by ever increasing levels of economic inactivity: a “missing million” from the workforce. I’ve been guilty of viewing this as being driven by a positive choice to work less for lifestyle reasons (which does happen), so the view here of (rising, long term) ill-health keeping people from work was especially sobering.

This all adds up to something no one in my network will be surprised to hear—recruitment is harder now than in 2019.

Talent Acquisition in an Economic Slowdown

What’s next? Follow the long-term graphs, and you’ll see repeatedly that economic slowdown = reduction in job vacancies.

It seems obvious that we can expect that again—an overall cooling of the job market as businesses reduce spend towards the end of the year. Does that mean recruitment will get easier? In some cases, yes: but the longer-term picture also shows critical talent shortages sticking around, driven by economic and demographic factors. Without an emphasis on connecting more people with work through education, training, and flexible support, recruitment efforts (and economic growth) will fall short.

This is what Peter Bendor-Samuel of Everest Group calls, “the cow behind the pig”: the bigger long-term challenge that can’t be ignored while digesting the smaller, short term one (for this analogy to work you have to imagine you are a python—or just read Peter’s blog it’s very good).

White knuckling the short-term in the hope that fewer people will be needed is a complacent talent strategy, where a winning one means a continued focus and investment in finding and keeping outstanding talent. Smart organisations must hold that course as much as possible in the face of slowdown, recession, stagflation and other economic headwinds.

Quality of Hire: The Gap from Good to Great is Bigger Than it First Appears

Posted on by akessler

By Vanessa Hawes, Senior Employer Brand & Communications Strategist

So, a company has accidentally hired the wrong person or made a rushed hire due to business needs. Does quality of hire matter in the long run?

Yes. Bad hires are expensive for a whole host of reasons. They are likely to generate less revenue than good employees, or even cost an organisation money due to their errors or complacency. Plus, it’s contagious since they impact the productivity and morale of the employees around them.

Further, the employer may have to invest over the odds in additional training or performance management. If and when the employee does leave, the employer will likely need to invest more in finding an urgent replacement. It’s clear that hiring the wrong people can cost a company a lot of money.

Quality-of-Hire Boosts the Bottom Line

Getting great people rather than good people into an organisation is not just nice to have—it has a profound impact on business performance. Great employees are valuable in themselves, but they also drive wider team performance, inspire others and make recruiting other great people easier.

McKinsey completed a study of more than 600,000 researchers, entertainers, politicians, and athletes, and found that high performers were 400% more productive than average performers. In highly complex occupations such as software development, high performers were found to be an astounding 800% more productive.

Roles described as having low complexity, such as a packing job at a large distributor—unfortunately, the kind of work that for many organisations does not merit special focus in terms of recruitment—demonstrate a productivity gap of 50% between average performers and high performers. The impact on productivity increases as the complexity of the role grows, with an extraordinary jump between high and very high complexity roles.

Clearly, employers would do well to actively recognise and retain top employees, especially when the cost of replacing them is so great.

Quality-of-Hire: What to Look for

Organisations looking to drive the best results and value from employees would be wise to consider the economies of scale that come from an improved selection process for low complexity roles as well as reaping the benefits from hiring the most able candidates for highly complex jobs.

So, what does this mean in reality? A great hire will be highly motivated, and they go above and beyond to do their work. Poor performers go through the motions, are not proactive and may encourage colleagues to adjust to these lower standards. After all, if everyone is being paid the same, why go the extra mile?

As such, using an assessment process that is able to identify (and ideally excite) great candidates at all levels of the organisation is well worth the investment.

Winning the New Talent Game

Posted on by akessler

By Joe Mongon, Head of Recruitment Delivery, EMEA

The workforce that won’t come back is not purely a U.S. phenomenon. In the UK, vacancies are 50% above pre-pandemic levels while the number of people of working-age who are neither in work nor seeking employment is 400,000 higher. Shortages of people and skills will continue to challenge employers, and their capacity through 2022. Plus, the cost of living crisis compounds this through wage pressures.

For job seekers this is often good news. There are more roles available, with higher salaries and greater flexibility (especially in relation to remote working), plus there’s an emphasis on training, upskilling and creating a great working culture. Candidates can sit back and take their pick—after all, they are the ones in demand. What employers need is more job seekers—and it’s entirely possible that they can proactively increase that supply.

Talent Acquisition Has New Rules

McKinsey calls this the “New Talent Game.” Employers are now competing not just with each other, but with the wider array of work experiences on offer—not to mention locations. I’m based in Bristol, and for half a decade all my people were too. Now I am nabbing talent from other regions of the UK. Plus, people are increasingly making the (often temporary) decision not to work at all—to, as George Michael would have worn it, CHOOSE LIFE.

How do you win in that context? Organisations must redefine their attraction and recruitment strategies and build an employer value proposition (EVP) that takes employees’ whole lives into account and makes work a more positive choice. What is clear is those candidates are only coming back on their terms: workplace flexibility, adequate compensation and reasonable expectations about performance.

Winning with RPO on Your Side

As a leading, global talent partner for a diverse range of businesses, PeopleScout’s RPO solutions have long been designed to amplify employer brands with a recruitment approach that focuses on an enhanced candidate experience. The missing talent can be won by placing the employee experience at the heart of your talent strategy, and I’m proud to say in Q1 2022 we are re-delivering hundreds of employees each month into the consumer and retail sectors for our client partners in the UK, with fulfilment trending positively each month.

It hasn’t been easy – but we are playing the New Talent Game to win.

Post-Pandemic Workforce: Think ‘Great Reflection’, Rather Than ‘Great Resignation’

Posted on by akessler

By Robert Peasnell, Head of Growth, EMEA

We all love a pithy phrase. But whilst the ‘great resignation’ neatly captures what all employers are experiencing currently—1.3 million vacancies in the UK, 33% of employees allegedly planning to look for a new job in 2022 and 26% having already called recruiters or shared their CVs online—it explains the symptom, not the cause.

At PeopleScout, we’re seeing a fundamental shift happening in how people are reflecting on their lives and work as the COVID-19 pandemic endures into 2022. Conversations with employees across all ages and sectors indicate that people have developed a new sense of awareness and worth for themselves and the world around them. This is prompting them to demand more personal value and purpose from both life and work. 

Changing Employee Expectations

In one study, 65% of participants said the pandemic had made them rethink the place that work should have in their life, and 56% said it made them want to contribute more to society. 

Smart employers will acknowledge this truth and respond with a more human and purpose-driven employment offers.

Today’s REC/KPMG report on UK jobs, highlights the ongoing pressure on salaries with wage inflation at it’s highest for mover 20 plus years. However, rather than just paying staff more, employers need to develop a more human employer value proposition (EVP).

The era of the employment contract, in which a worker provided services purely in exchange for monetary compensation, is over. Employees want organisations to recognise their value and provide value back to them on a human level. Monetary compensation is important for surviving, but deeper relationships, a strong sense of community and purpose-driven work are essential to thriving. 

This is the value that employees expect their employers to provide.  

Is your EVP based on legacy conditions and thinking? Or does it deliver the personal value and sense of purpose demanded by a post-pandemic workforce? 

Strategic Workforce Planning: New Talent Acquisition in Modern Workplace

Posted on by akessler

In an unprecedented development, the number of open positions now exceeds the number of people looking for work in many parts of the world. In the U.S., job openings numbered at over 11 million in February 2022—five million more vacancies than available workers. It’s a similar situation in the UK, with vacancies outnumbering unemployed people for the first time ever. In the face of these labor shortages, it’s imperative for employers to tap into new talent pools to fill their vacancies and remain competitive.

As employees seek greater workplace flexibility and opportunities to work from home are in greater demand, organizations can now access a new talent pool. Geographic borders are blurred, and many organizations are expanding their recruitment reach by engaging with globally dispersed talent. Enterprises still using a siloed, regional approach to talent acquisition will struggle to reach their recruitment goals in today’s talent landscape. A global talent acquisition strategy will not only help you to compete locally but also win to top talent on a global scale.

Embracing Global Workforce Planning as a Talent Acquisition Strategy

In the U.S., 60% of employees say they enjoy working remotely. In fact, between January 2020 and March 2022, U.S. job postings for remote work went up 319%, with searches exceeding that 458%. Meanwhile, in the UK, remote job postings have increased by 329%, whilst the number of searches has skyrocketed by 790%. So clearly, candidates seeking remote work outweigh the remote opportunities offered.

Some enterprises have been embracing a borderless workforce for many years. Yet, many are still resisting remote employees even though it offers them a number of opportunities, including expanding access to talent, boosting diversity, and increasing brand presence in new markets.

By embracing a location-flexible approach to your workforce planning, you give yourself a greater chance of winning the competition for talent. For example, before the rise of remote work, you may have been looking for 30 roles in your offices in France and Belgium. But now, if you think about it as simply 30 French-speaking roles, you can widen your search area (i.e., French ex-pats living in the UK) and access new remote talent you didn’t consider before. In today’s ultra-competitive talent landscape, dropping geographic limits means reduced time-to-fill, cost-to-fill and ultimately, productivity loss from positions remaining open.

Plus, it can also eliminate the need to open a legal entity in new countries to remain compliant. In our French-speakers example, rather than going through the effort and expense to open an office in France or Belgium to gain French language skills, you could look for French speakers in the countries where you’re already established.

Where Talent Acquisition Strategies Fall Short

Traditionally, companies recruiting in numerous countries or continents have multiple talent acquisition teams, each focused on particular geographies. Even if an organization is leveraging recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), this typically means using multiple vendors to achieve global coverage. For example, they may use one RPO provider in North America and a different one in Europe.

Whether through different regional talent acquisition teams or regional RPO providers, these disparate teams can lead to disjointed processes, candidate experiences and technology systems—and a lack of visibility into your recruitment program across countries or regions. As the pandemic recovery accelerates and talent continues to become more decentralized, a siloed recruitment model won’t keep up with the future of work and an increasingly geographically disparate workforce that is unattached to traditional offices.

How a Talent Acquisition Program Benefits from the Global RPO Model

According to Everest Group, a growing number of multi-national companies are embracing a global recruitment process outsourcing model, in which one RPO partner takes responsibility for fulfilling positions—or augments your in-house teams—in any country where the company has multiple openings. This helps organizations to gain better insight and control, obtain the best talent at the global level and achieve efficiencies that come from standardization and centralization.

Often organizations are unprepared for global recruitment. In fact, 30% of business leaders say their organization’s top management team lack knowledge of hiring for international markets. Global RPO partners can help you create a recruitment process that is consistent but can still be flexed to account for the cultures and candidate expectations in each market. Leading RPO providers offer global delivery centers that help you expand your geographic reach and hours. Plus, some even offer proprietary technology to support virtual interviews for remote candidates.

A single global RPO partner can boost your talent acquisition strategy by:

  • Giving you more agility and allowing you to scale up or down as your hiring needs and market conditions fluctuate.
  • Expanding your hiring capacity through on- and offshore recruitment teams
  • Providing a wide variety of language capabilities
  • Helping you navigate compliance issues and cultural nuances in all countries where you’re hiring

Consolidating under a single RPO partner gives you more control over your global talent acquisition outcomes by eliminating the need for multiple relationships, raising the quality of your hires while saving time and money. The economies of scale gained through a global RPO model can help you achieve your recruitment goals in all your locations. Plus, with work-from-home models becoming more popular, a global talent acquisition program provides an opportunity for organizations to expand across borders to access new skilled talent to accelerate recovery and growth.

To learn more about how global RPO can help your organization tap into new talent, check out our ebook, The Buyer’s Guide to Global RPO.

PeopleScout Jobs Report Analysis – May 2022

Posted on by nfuqua

U.S. employers added 390,000 jobs in May. This beat analyst expectations and shows continued strength despite the concerns of some economists. The unemployment remained at 3.6%. Year-over-year wage growth decreased slightly but remains high at 5.2%.

jobs report infographic

The Numbers

390,000: Employers added 390,000 jobs to the U.S. economy in May.

3.6%: The unemployment rate remained at 3.6%.

5.2%: Wages rose 5.2% over the past year.

The Good

After 12 straight months of greater than 400,000 monthly job growth, the 390,000 number is still good news. As CNBC reports, experts surveyed by Dow Jones had predicted just 328,000 new jobs. Despite concerns over an economic slowdown due to inflation, May’s numbers suggest that the job market continues to be strong. The labor force participation rate also increased to 62.3%, though it remains below pre-pandemic levels.

The Bad

While most sectors saw job growth in May, retail was the exception, shedding 61,000 jobs. The Washington Post reports that the shift comes as consumers have started spending less on goods and more on experiences like dining out and travel. (The leisure and hospitality sector again topped job growth with 84,000 new jobs.) The job market also remains tight, creating a tough market for employers. While wage growth has cooled slightly, it remains high.

The Unknown

As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Federal Reserve is now faced with the challenge of cooling inflation without tipping the economy into a recession. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told the publication last month, “There are pathways for us to be able to moderate demand, get demand and supply back in alignment, and get inflation back down while also having a strong labor market,” he said. “You’d still have quite a strong labor market if unemployment were to move up a few ticks.”

Delivering Cost Savings and a Healthy Return on Investment for a Rural Healthcare System

Posted on by nfuqua
Delivering Cost Savings and a Healthy Return on Investment for a Rural Healthcare System

Delivering Cost Savings and a Healthy Return on Investment for a Rural Healthcare System

A major rural healthcare system turned to PeopleScout for technology-powered healthcare RPO enhanced by a recruitment marketing campaign, resulting in a $4+ million cost savings.

77 % reduction in nursing recruitment spend, totaling $4+ million in savings to date
97 % new hire retention
98 % hiring leader satisfaction score

Situation

This healthcare provider was having trouble sourcing and hiring for nursing roles in North Dakota, a rural state heavily impacted by ongoing nursing shortages, forcing the client to rely on travel nurse staffing providers to deliver talent to support rural healthcare recruitment. The reliance on these staffing providers proved expensive, with the client paying an average of $73 an hour per locum nurse in contrast to paying $34 an hour on average per full-time nurse. Traveling nurses also work on 13-week contracts, meaning that the client receives temporary talent and less value for their recruitment spend.

To improve talent acquisition costs and attract hard-to-hire candidates, the client needed a full-cycle healthcare RPO partner that could streamline the hiring process and build a strong recruitment marketing program. PeopleScout’s RPO program started with nursing hires and now spans 90% of the client’s clinical and non-clinical hiring, including aides, clerical workers, interns, leadership positions, RNs, LPNs, professional services, technical roles and therapists.

Solution

Build a Local Recruiting Team

PeopleScout built a local recruiting team balanced with virtual support. This enables PeopleScout to work directly with the client on-site with the increased efficiency of a virtual team.

Develop Improved Employer Branding and Location Branding

PeopleScout partnered with the client to understand their employer value proposition and employer brand and then built out recruitment marketing materials to showcase the strong culture and cutting-edge medical facility. The recruitment marketing campaign also included messaging on the benefits of working in the rural area, like the strong university presence, short commute, low crime and sense of community.

Target Recent Graduates

The client partnered with PeopleScout to focus their efforts on hiring recent graduates from local universities. This helped the client get ahead of the competition and train new employees in their RN Residency Program.

Implementing Hiring Bonuses

PeopleScout advised the client to implement a $10,000 hiring bonus for new nurses to ensure their employment offers were competitive based on industry data and research.

Implementation of Affinix and Streamlining Recruiting Processes

PeopleScout implemented our proprietary total talent suite, Affinix® which helped the client streamline recruiting processes through tools that supported management of direct sourcing, panel interviewing and an expedited offer process—decreasing time-to-fill rates.

Results

Cost Savings

After implementing PeopleScout’s full-cycle healthcare talent acquisition solution, the client reduced its nursing recruitment spend by 77%, totaling $4+ million in savings to date. 

Lowest Nurse Vacancy Rate

PeopleScout helped the client achieve their lowest nurse vacancy rate ever — 1.3%. The client also achieved a 136% increase in hiring new graduate registered nurses. The client reduced its use of traveling nurses by 68%, and for the first time, was able to hire nurses willing to relocate for the position.

Process Improvement

With PeopleScout’s expertise, the client achieved 97% new hire retention and 98% hiring leader satisfaction scores for exceptional performance. The client was so impressed with PeopleScout’s results hiring nurses that the client now outsources 90% of their hiring to PeopleScout.

Enhanced Employer Branding

PeopleScout leveraged the client’s strong employer value proposition and was able to partner with the healthcare provider to create an enhanced suite of employer branding materials that feature real employees. PeopleScout also used a comprehensive approach to reach candidates, including social media, campus recruiting and paid search ads.

Client Feedback

“We are so impressed with this partnership, and it’s a significant improvement from our past recruitment practices. We feel so confident working with a partner who ‘gets it,’ and we are excited about the quality of our candidate pool.”

Client Feedback

“Out of the three nursing jobs I have obtained in the past, this was by far the most professional and friendly hiring process that I have been through. It was a pleasant change.”

New Hire Feedback

At a Glance

  • COMPANY
    Rural healthcare system
  • INDUSTRY
    Healthcare
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS
    Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory, Affinix
  • ABOUT THE CLIENT
    This American nonprofit healthcare system has served portions of the Midwest for more than 130 years. It employs over 3,500 health professionals and support staff.
Let’s Connect

Are You Ready for RPO? 3 Questions to Ask

Posted on by akessler

Shrinking talent pools, widening skills gaps and high turnover rates are driving companies across industries to look for new ways to boost their global talent acquisition program—including recruitment process outsourcing (RPO).

Whether your organization is thinking of outsourcing some, most or all parts of your recruitment, an RPO partner can help. It’s not just about outsourcing your recruiting, it’s important to find the best partner to help manage the people, process, technology and strategy behind your talent acquisition function, which touches every employee, team and department within your business.

So, how do you know if RPO is the right choice for your organization? In this article, we’ll cover three questions to ask to understand how your company can benefit from RPO.

Why RPO?

RPO is a cost-effective and scalable talent acquisition solution. Whether you’re looking for a regional solution or a multi-country partnership, RPO has been proven to boost the ability to hire at speed, manage the employer brand, streamline the candidate experience and maximize economies of scale across geographies.

Here are just a few of the benefits of RPO:

Improved Candidate Quality

Your RPO partner can help you boost your number of qualified candidates and the quality of hires. In fact, according to Aberdeen Group, 81% of best-in-class organizations say RPO helps to fill their skills gaps. This keeps hiring managers happy and helps your organization achieve its goals while also boosting retention.

Better Candidate Experience

You want your recruitment process to leave every applicant, regardless of whether they get the role, with a positive experience. Your RPO team will provide consistent and honest feedback throughout the recruitment process, so they know exactly where they stand and what comes next.

Improved Hiring Manager Experience

Your RPO team reduces the administrative burden on your hiring managers by taking over résumé and CV screening, candidate assessment administration, initial interview steps, candidate communication and feedback tasks. RPO partners prepare hiring managers for interviews, provide them with feedback and identify any candidates at risk of dropping from the process so managers can make informed decisions.

Reduced Time-to-Fill

The longer a position goes unfilled, the more likely your business is to experience productivity loss—and loss of revenue. RPO teams are able to find candidates and fill roles faster by building and maintaining talent pipeline, providing quick access to qualified talent. By streamlining and optimizing recruitment processes, improving the time-to-hire and retention rates, RPO providers can increase your recruiting return on investment and deliver real cost savings to your bottom line.

Improved Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

In their global Diversity Wins report, McKinsey revealed organizations in the top quartile for ethnic and cultural diversity outperformed laggards by 36% in terms of profitability. So, it’s imperative that recruitment is an element of your DE&I journey. RPO teams are knowledgeable about different talent attraction options and can expand to new job boards, social media groups, online forums and events to engage more diverse candidates. Plus, RPO recruitment companies understand the regional nuances of DE&I issues. For example, in some countries like Poland, it is not legal to ask candidates their ethnicity, gender, etc.

❓ Not sure if you should go for RPO or staffing agencies? Here are the top differences.

Is RPO Right for Me?

So, how do you know if RPO is right for your business? Here are some questions to ask yourself:

  • Is your talent acquisition approach slow and clunky or failing to meet your organization’s talent needs?
  • Do you lack the ability to scale your recruitment efforts up or down quickly as your business needs change?
  • Are you seeing high candidate dropout rates or low offer acceptance rates, which could indicate a bad candidate experience?
  • Are low conversion rates more pronounced for candidates from diverse backgrounds?
  • Are you hearing complaints from hiring managers about the quality of candidates?
  • Are new employees leaving your organization less than a year after joining?
  • Do your assessments and other selection tools need to be updated?
  • Do your in-house teams lack the cultural literacy to support recruitment in all regions?
  • Are your hiring costs going up?
  • Is the time it takes to fill positions getting longer?
  • Is your usage of talent acquisition technology immature or out-of-date?
  • Do you lack access to the right data to make workforce planning decisions?

If you answered “yes” to even a few of these questions, RPO can help you meet your talent acquisition goals.

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Is RPO Right for You?

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What Should I Look for in an RPO Partner?

If you’ve decided to that RPO will be a good for your organization, you may be wondering how you go about choosing the best provider. Below are just three things to consider in order to make RPO a truly transformational model for your business.

Partnership

If there’s one thing we’ve learned in 30 years of developing talent acquisition programs, it’s that no two organizations are the same. That’s why it’s important to look for an RPO partner that is collaborative, that will listen to your ideas and take the time to truly understand your business and pain points.

We hear a lot from clients who have worked with other providers who tried to squeeze them into their standard program, and it just doesn’t work. RPO creates efficiencies and improvements to the candidate experience through repeatable processes, but these processes should be adapted to your unique needs and challenges. Look for an RPO partner who understands the balance between consistency and customization.

Talent Advisory

The success of your recruitment program starts with your employer brand. Many RPO providers offer talent advisory solutions that help you to develop and improve your employer brand, EVP, recruitment marketing approaches, candidate assessments and more.

So often we see companies who have agencies that execute recruitment marketing campaigns separate from their RPO program. However, with this siloed approach, the agency is less likely to be held accountable for their campaigns leading to high quality candidates entering later candidate journey stages like interviews and assessments. On the other side, the RPO partner has limited means to provide feedback on the campaigns and the impact the ads have on recruitment outcomes. By having both functions under one partnership, you get a holistic program that not only attracts candidates—but truly delivers against your hiring goals.

Look for a partner with in-house resources (not one who outsources to an agency) who takes a consultative approach to maximizing the effectiveness of your whole talent acquisition program, beyond just filling vacancies.

Technology

Digital transformation has hit HR and recruitment, bringing an influx of new solutions to the market that offer a range of benefits. RPO partners increasingly offer tech consulting and can show you how emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and predictive analytics can boost your ability to attract top talent.

Some RPO partners have proprietary technology, like PeopleScout’s Affinix®, while some offer expertise in well-known platforms. Look for a modular approach that can integrate with your existing systems, so you can continue to benefit from existing investments and grow your recruitment tech stack as your needs change. Any technology you implement must comply with data privacy regulations in all regions where you’re recruiting, including any rules about where data can be stored. A SOC 2 certification is a great way to tell that a vendor takes information security seriously.

In this era of tight competition for talent, augmenting your recruiting capacity and ability with an RPO provider could be a crucial step for the future of your business. When it comes to RPO, there is no single best option, only the option that best aligns with your organizational needs. By understanding your current recruitment challenges and requirements, you can find an RPO partner with right capabilities to support your global recruiting goals.

Learn more about RPO in our ebook, The Buyer’s Guide to Global RPO.