Recruitment has been part of the basic principles of personnel work for decades and is part of the core value creation of every modern personnel department. But is this statement really correct or does it belong to a long outdated nostalgia from distant days? It is much more difficult to answer this question than it seems at first glance.
Basically, the statement is correct and true. The procurement of the right employees, at the right time and in the right place, is one of the central tasks of personnel work and makes a significant contribution to the success of the company. However, when viewed in a more differentiated way, the new question arises as to how large the internal human resources department’s own contribution is or should be.
The need for new task carriers arises at the front, i.e. in the line. Now the personnel department is charged with the recruitment and a part of the selection. However, as soon as a demanding specialist or management function is involved, the normal means of personnel recruitment are often insufficient and the help of a personnel consultant is called upon. If suitable candidates are found and included in the selection process, uncertainties arise again and again and a partner in the field of personnel diagnostics is integrated into the process. Once the line has decided on a candidate, the so-called onboarding process starts with the preparation of the contract until the successful completion of the probationary period. External partners, such as an external HR administration and payroll provider who collects HR master data and handles salaries, or a relocation partner who is responsible for the entry and primary accommodation of the new employee, can also come into play here.
It can now be said that the modern personnel department is increasingly developing into a provider manager and is outsourcing a growing part of its tasks to qualified third parties. We often encounter historically grown, so-called multi-provider strategies. Depending on the presumed level of difficulty and professional orientation, different service providers are called in. Exactly this complexity and multitude of providers creates a high number of interfaces and a significantly increased administrative effort.
Modern Recruiting Process Outsourcing (RPO)
A classic process outsourcing to a qualified third party. Individual sub-processes are not opportunistically outsourced to different third parties, but rather a complete process group, in this case the process group “Recruitment” to a partner. Thanks to the complete outsourcing of this process group, interfaces and administrative expenses are significantly reduced. Clear tasks, competencies and responsibilities are defined and documented in Service Level Agreements (SLA). After a short time, the provider handles the “Recruitment” process group independently, efficiently and effectively. It is up to the partner to decide which resources he needs and uses for optimal value creation. Only result and quality count, measured by the degree of fulfillment of the so-called SLAs. A further advantage of recruiting process outsourcing is the fact that both partners and companies remain active in their core business and achieve the required performance. “Do what you do best and outsource the rest”
Further advantages for the customer or the company arise, such as a reduction in recruitment costs and a considerable speed gain in the recruitment process.
Some readers will find that until now we have only talked about demanding specialist and management positions, i.e. recruitment in a tight and competitive labour market. But what about an opposing market, where potential employers are in abundance and HR departments are literally flooded with applications? The answer to this question is very simple: exactly the same!
The BPO provider has tailor-made instruments with which even large numbers of applicants can be processed efficiently. Tailor-made and multi-client capable solutions allow an efficient and orderly processing of large numbers of applicants, without giving the candidate even the appearance of mass processing. The same applies to the skills of the workforce. The provider can use his resources much more selectively than a normal personnel department can.
In summary, it can be said that Recruiting Process is not just a fad, but a market. The time, the offerings and the services are ripe. RPO covers all the needs of modern HR departments and allows them to focus on other, more important tasks. The economic benefits already mentioned underpin this statement.
