Peak Performance - Getting your recruitment business to achieve its true potential

In my experience, high performing recruitment business leaders tend to have a common obsession…

They maintain this healthy fascination with positively squeezing the life out of every part of their business in order to continuously generate greater levels of performance and net contribution.

That’s a good thing.?It makes the machine run efficiently and drives bottom line profitability.

This is less about quantity and more about quality.?

Less about time, and more about outputs.

All about productivity.

And here’s how to do it…

Productivity Management - getting more from what you are already doing

What is your current productivity per head??How does that stack up against what you were doing last month, last quarter, last year?

How does that stack up again what other recruitment agencies are doing?

Average GP per head (NB: this is per total headcount, not just per fee earners) is one of the critical metrics and a sign of how well your business is performing at any given moment in time.?Look at the direction it is going in and understand what it is telling you about how your business operates.

What patterns are you seeing over the course of the year??Are there periods where there is a clear trend downwards / upwards?

What is causing this?

Have you figured out how to maintain that average GP figure yet, whilst you are building headcount?

There are of course many ways to maximise productivity across your business, but let’s start with 3 of the most obvious…

Increase Performance - how do I get more ROI per headcount?

Think about the type of business you are wining / working.?Look at the net yield of each customer you have and each role your consultants are working on, instead of revenue and GP.

Change your league tables to reflect net yield of each of your consultants whilst you are at it!

Start getting fixated on the bit that sits between activity (inputs) and revenue (outputs) and measure conversion ratios.?Create a monthly objective to improve each conversion point by 1% and put in plans to drive conversion performance at every stage of the marketing, sales and delivery process.

Increase Capacity - how do I give my recruiters more time?

I have always been a huge fan of the “always on recruiter” concept.?The idea of even though a consultant may work a fixed number of hours each week, the clever blend of both offshoring / nearshoring and automation technology can mean they are actually working even when they are not in the business.

Time is one of the most precious commodities when it comes to running any people focused business, so to be able to create more capacity per head has to be a top-of-the-agenda item for any recruitment business leader.?

Automating different parts of the workflow, scheduling activities for outside of non-core hours (when candidates and clients are actually engaging), outsourcing components to be able to turn up / turn down delivery capability, simply increasing the size of the net you are casting at the top of your funnels, all just mean recruiters can spend even more time doing those activities that generate the biggest ROI.

Increase Scope - how do we expand our footprint?

One of the most overlooked and under-capitalised areas of a recruitment business is their account penetration.?Looking customers in (emotionally and contractually) and then increasing your share of their wallet.

Look at your top 20 clients.?Do you actually know what percentage of their total recruitment spend (for your specific niche areas) do you actually have?

Have you ever asked?

Not knowing this basic question puts you are at risk of not only wasting the opportunity, but potentially losing the client for good, as other agencies look to increase their market share with your top clients.?Maximising CLV (Customer and Candidate Lifetime Value) has never been so important as it is now.

You also need to keep a good eye on what is really going on in your markets right now.?

Which parts of your market, which customers, are going to be the “fast-movers” as the economy evolves over the next 6 to 12 months??Which ones will be the “hibernators” or worse, the “non-starters”?

What parts of your market will require a big contract / temp drive over perm hiring??What is causing that??Where is the opportunity? Are you ready for it?

So, look at productivity across your business.?Measure contribution and yield and get fixated on positively squeezing the life out of everything you do.

It just makes good sense!

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If it helps, you may want to start the process by downloading our free Waste Elimination Checklist.

Review all the statements in the checklist and consider where waste exists in your business.

Having completed the checklist, identify the low hanging fruit and eliminate the areas of waste that will have the biggest positive impact on productivity.?

Click here to download it.