RPO & MSP solutions design 9 Digital Transformation tips

RPO and MSP – How well does your solution design modelling reflect Digital and Data Services transformation principles and standards. Use the Digital Transformation design principles and the check list below to shape impactful RPO/MSP transformation plans to your existing client solutions and to ensure your future solutions proposals are as digitally enabling as possible.

Digital and Data Service Transformation Standards - The Key 9 for RPO and MSP

1. Understand users and their needs

Develop a deep understanding of users and the problem you’re trying to solve for them. Look at the full context to understand what the user is trying to achieve, not just the part where they have to interact with the solution model.

Why it’s important:

Understanding as much of the client context (its strategic operating environment and objectives) as possible gives you the best chance of meeting users’ needs. Resourcing solutions must reflect the strategic context of the client, not just the transactional recruitment tasks listed in the typical service matrix. This means - Focusing on the client organisation and the strategic problem they’re trying to solve with the resourcing solution- rather than trying to fit a vanilla solution in your solution kit bag.

2. Solve a whole problem for users

Work towards creating a service that solves one whole problem for users, collaborating across organisational boundaries where necessary.

Why it’s important:

Fragmented services are difficult to use, because users have to do the hard work to make sure they’re doing what’s expected of them. It means not building big, complicated solutions that aren’t intuitive to use because they try to do too much. This is a challenge with many legacy ATS,CRM,VMS systems that do not easily offer flexibility in adapting service process to unique organisational user needs. For example, far too often we avoid the complications of true integration of the RPO/MSP model and aim for minimalistic interface solutions/ CSV data transfer. Whilst this may deliver shorter implementation timescales, it is not user centric design thinking!

3. Provide a joined-up experience across all channels and make the service simple to use ensuring everyone can use the service

Work towards creating a service that meets users’ needs across all channels, including online, phone, paper and face to face. Providing a service that includes people with disabilities or other legally protected characteristics. And people who don’t have access to the internet or lack the skills or confidence to use it.

Why it’s important:

People expect services to just work, and Resourcing solutions services should be no exception. Bringing different channels together means you can design an experience that makes sense to the users wherever they use the service. Users shouldn’t be excluded or have an inferior experience because they lack access to technology or the skills to use it. Total Talent Resourcing models must be able to include in their scope a variety of roles from Blue Collar to Professionals. Each of these categories has a different type of Worker and Hiring Manager context – how they need to use the service and how they can access the service will differ – recognise that in the solution design. Inclusive, accessible services are better for everyone.

4. Have a multidisciplinary design team

Put in place a multidisciplinary team that can create and operate the service in a sustainable way.

Why it’s important:

You’ll need a team made up of people with a diverse mix of skills and expertise. It’s important that people who are involved in decision making are part of the team, so they’re accountable to the team - and the team as a whole can respond quickly to what they learn about users and their needs. The busy world of ITT, RFP and often a lack of adherence to segmentation guidelines means that many RPO/MSP sales and bid teams end up chasing more deals than they have the capacity to deal with. Don’t fall into the trap of inviting your multi-disciplinary team member as ‘Tentative’ to design workshops. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but if you do not have the resource capacity for multi-disciplinary team ask yourself should you be going for the deal?

5. Use agile ways of working

Create the service using agile, iterative user-centred methods.

Why it’s important:

Follow Talent Trends reporting from most RPO providers and they will highlight how agility is key to their client's success and resourcing talent to enable that agility is key. Don't fall into the trap of using Agile as a buzz word - when you say to your client you can provide agile resourcing solutions, prove it by adopting true Agile working practices in your solution operating model. Using agile methods means getting your service in front of real users as soon as possible. Then observing and generating data on how they use it, and iterating the service based on what you’ve learned. Get into the habit of developing people in your Sales/Solutions/Implementation teams to Agile ways of working. Embed Agile tools and techniques into your design process and, more importantly, at your QBR demonstrate to your client how you have used Agile to identify the next phase of transformation improvement actions to the service you provide them. That dreaded 3 year contract review meeting should lead to a much more successful outcome.

6. Iterate and improve frequently

Make sure you have the capacity, resources and technical flexibility to iterate and improve the service frequently.

Why it’s important:

Services are never ‘finished’. Making improvements throughout the lifetime of the service means more than doing basic maintenance like fixing bugs in code, updating rate cards, keeping recruitment briefs up to date, updating hierarchies and approval codes. If that’s all you do, you’ll be fixing symptoms rather than underlying problems. And over time, the service will stop meeting candidate and hiring community needs. Continuous improvement means you can respond to changes in user needs, so rather than having to be replaced at the 3-5 year contract review point, the service stays relevant justifying an extension. Within the RPO/MSP we still see far too many contracts swapped out to new providers, the current incumbent given notice. Be under no illusion this action causes significant upheaval to clients – the fact they are taking this action is sending you a message about how well you deliver against this standard. When you sell a model with a foundation level service matrix, with the promise of phased transformation over the next 2 years of the programme – ensure you follow through on those promises – often this does not happen because it was never costed into the solution in the first place. Continuous improvement cannot be a carrot to dangle at Presentation stage, covered on one slide. This element is an imperative, presented in as much detail as any other aspect of your proposal and included in your upfront cost/investment model.

7. Create a secure service which protects users’ privacy

Evaluate what data the service will be collecting, storing and providing.

Why it’s important:

Resourcing solution models span multiple aspects of data, often across diverse country legal frameworks. The emergence of GDPR and focus on data privacy for candidates exposes the hiring community and client organisation to numerous data breach risks. It is the responsibility of the RPO/MSP to help the client organisation protect themselves with a solution that protects all users privacy, but remember......whilst at the same delivering against earlier service standards 1-3

8. Define what success looks like and publish performance data

Work out what success looks like for your service and identify metrics which will tell you what’s working and what can be improved, combined with user research.

Why it’s important:

Data from the reporting metrics you define identifies trends, predicts changes and drives strategic resourcing objectives – operational demand forecast planning and longer-term workforce planning. Your reporting processes must be optimised and automated gathering metrics that validate value or uncover insights for continuous improvement. Defining what good looks like and identifying appropriate metrics means that you’ll know whether the service is solving the problem it’s meant to solve. And remember the problem the RPO/MSP is trying to solve is not just candidate pipeline metrics, it is the problem of attracting, sourcing and hiring the specific talent needed by the organisation to achieve its business goals. The forward thinking RPO MSP are now suggesting commercial KPI and SLA that are qualitative and can be linked to golden thread achievement of business objectives/projects, enabling real Gain Share commercial discussions. Publishing this type of performance data means that you’re being transparent about the success of service outcomes promised through your solution proposal, not just the transactional process’s that drive E2E recruitment.

9. Choose the right tools and technology

Choose tools and technology that let you create a high-quality service in a cost-effective way. Minimise the cost of changing direction in future.

Why it’s important:

When you make a decision about technology, your client/you is making a significant investment. The choices made will have a huge impact on the programmes ability to create, iterate and operate the service in a sustainable way. Resourcing solution tech solutions are abundant (ATS / VMS expansion, CRM ,video interviewing, social aggregators, job boards, reference checking, referral tools, interview scheduling tools, on-boarding tools, Auto matching, Boolean string tools, FMS, Talent Analytics...) the list is endless. But remember to be clear on the purpose of the tech you are proposing, will it deliver against the 3 key tech enabled outputs required from your solution model: 1.Efficiency of process, 2.Experience of users, 3.Insight for decision making.

(*Adapted and Edited from Govt Digital Services (GDS) website at Gov.UK. I have reduced/combined the GDS standards and adapted my own content - 'Why its important' - to align the Resourcing Solutions Industry)