Create Lasting Partnerships Between Organizations and Staffing Providers
Effective recruiting and hiring in the world of business is a lot like fielding a team in Major League Baseball (MLB). According to the baseball rulebook, on any given day, each major league team in North America can suit up 25 players. But that doesn’t mean each team has only 25 players to choose from. In fact, they have more. Many more.
Every major league team has an “expanded roster” with fifteen additional players who are immediately available if needed. Also, each team has a “farm system” of seven to 10 minor league teams. This gives them another 150 to 200 or more players to call on. Teams can trade players with other teams. They also employ talent scouts. These scouts work in countries across the globe, funneling additional talent to both the major and minor league clubs.
This coordinated approach is why MLB teams always have someone to fill every role, the instant they’re needed. A game is never cancelled because there aren’t enough players. Nor is a position ever left open. There are always nine players in the starting lineup. Leaders in baseball know that it’s not a matter of “if” they will need additional talent, but “when.” So, they plan for the when.
The roster of employees at your company is ever changing. People leave; jobs are created; promotions happen; new business comes in. All of which generates open seats. Just like baseball, it is never a matter of if a job will open, but when.
Large organizations, and some mid-market companies, have their own talent scouts (a talent acquisition department or corporate recruiters). Small companies with HR staff make scouting talent part of their job. However, these in-house employees aren’t always able to source enough people to fill all of the open jobs. That’s why organizations of all sizes also rely on an external scouting arm—employment services often referred to as staffing companies or recruitment firms. They are part of a global staffing industry supplying temporary employees and candidates for full-time employment.
The staffing industry has grown from a handful of temp agencies started after World War II,1 to 20,000 staffing companies in the United States alone.2 Globally, the industry helps 60 million people a year in their job life.3 The positive impact of external talents scouts is why they’re one of the eight talent streams of candidate gravity.
One of the things that make this talent stream unique is that it comes with a guarantee. External talent scouts frequently guarantee their “product.” If a temporary worker you bring in has poor attendance, the staffing agency will typically provide a replacement person. When the contract employee you secure for a project doesn’t work out, the firm representing that employee will send someone else. Full-time hires also come with guarantees, such as a replacement candidate or a refund of the fee paid for the recruiting services.
The guarantee provided by external talent scouts adds a level of safety in using their services. This guarantee is valuable—hiring on your own comes with no such promises. There’s also the flexibility gained when using temporary workers. Temp workers allow your company to scale your workforce as business ebbs and flows. Also, engaging an external talent scout is “free” in most instances. Your company pays a placement fee for a full-time hire or an hourly rate for a temporary worker only if the scout delivers the person you need. Given just these three benefits, it would be reasonable to expect that many companies rely on external talent scouts. They don’t. Less than a third of organizations use their services each year.4
Why aren’t more organizations using external talent scouts? It isn’t that companies aren’t hiring. With the exception of the smallest of companies, I’ve found that almost all organizations need talent every year (and often many times throughout the year). Nor is it that do-it-yourself hiring is making the need for outside help unnecessary. In 2016, 40 percent of employers reported difficulty with filling jobs.5
I’ve asked thousands of organizations that aren’t regular users of staffing or recruitment firms: “Why don’t you use them (or use them more often)?” For 30 years, I’ve heard the same answers:
• “They often don’t have the talent I need when I need it.”
• “They’re expensive.”
• “I’ve had a bad experience.”
• “Outside agencies are a necessary evil.”
The complaints don’t stop there. External talent scouts voice their share of frustrations about working with organizations. They say things like:
• “They treat us like a commodity and pressure us to lower our price.”
• “We submit candidates for their consideration, but hear nothing back.”
• “HR sees us as competition.”
Not all relationships between organizations and external scouts are contentious. Many organizations appreciate their staffing providers, and lots of external scouts have positive experiences with the organizations they serve. But there’s also a growing group of organizations and scouts that have formed even better relationships—relationships that have eliminated complaints on both sides.
How have they done this? They’ve formed partnerships based upon mutuality: A belief that, for the relationship to succeed, each party must get its needs met. The organization gets the talent it needs when it’s needed. The talent scout is equitably compensated for the value it provides. Both meet expectations that make the partnership work.
Such partnerships achieve a greater good by creating better outcomes for job candidates. Like a nurturing home resulting from a healthy marriage, these partnerships foster positive work environments. Workers benefit from the healthy dynamics of the relationship. I’ve heard workers refer to these partnerships as heroic. That’s why these business relationships are referred to as heroic partnerships.
This chapter will help you form these heroic partnerships. The pages that follow are meant to be read by both organizations and staffing providers. You’ll learn about the different ways partners work together. I’ll share examples of what happens when you create mutually beneficial relationships. You’ll also learn about the five expectations that form the foundation of how you’ll work together.
The staffing industry has evolved into an ecosystem of workforce solutions—an ecosystem that continues to grow and change (Figure 10.1). Weighing your options can be overwhelming.
FIGURE 10.1 The Workforce Solutions Ecosystem
You could choose a search firm to hire a full-time employee. Their recruiters will conduct a search for qualified candidates matching your specifications. You’ll get to interview these candidates. Find one that fits the job? You can hire that individual and pay a placement fee to the firm for their services.
Then, there’s temporary staffing (also referred to as contract staffing for IT, creative, engineering, and other professional roles). Temporary staffing allows you to bring in one, a handful, or hundreds of workers for a specified period of time. The workers are employed by the staffing firm; you are typically responsible for supervising their work. When there is a large number of workers, the firm supplying them may also provide an on-site coordinator. You’ll pay the staffing firm for each hour someone works. The contract you sign may have provisions for converting temporary workers to full-time employees of your company (called temp-to-hire). Some temporary staffing firms also provide place and search services for full-time employees.
Need more options? An alphabet soup of valuable offerings is available:
• BPO—Business Process Outsourcing: An entire work function or department, such as your mailroom or call center, is handled by an outside organization.
• HRO—Human Resource Outsourcing: Your provider takes over portions of your human resource function.
• MSP—Managed Service Provider: An outside vendor manages the staffing firms supplying your company with workers.
• RPO—Recruitment Process Outsourcing: You transfer all or part of your recruitment process to an external service provider.
• SOW—Statement of Work: An outside vendor becomes responsible for a defined set of work activities and deliverables.
• VMS—Vendor Management System: An Internet-based solution helps you manage and procure staffing services.
Need even more possibilities? How about a freelancer who’s part of the gig economy? Online platforms are allowing an increasing number of people to go it on their own. These platforms create a “human cloud” of workers ready for hire. You’ll likely never meet them in person because tasks and payments are all managed online.
If you’re convinced, after reading this list of possibilities, that you know exactly which solution is best for you, be careful. Picking a solution because it sounds like it fits is no better than self-prescribing medication. A TV ad about a new drug may convince us we need it. Better to let an expert, our doctor, help us make an informed choice. The same is true when choosing a workforce solution. It’s best to let the experts lay out the best options for your circumstances.
What happens when organizations self-prescribe a workforce solution? Sometimes it works out; other times it does not. There’s the bank that was convinced that VMS was the way to go. It slowed down their hiring. An MSP proved to be a better solution. Then there’s the insurance company that set its sights on RPO. It failed. SOW consulting services was what they really needed for their call center. There’s also the publishing company that fell in love with BPO. What an expensive mistake that turned out to be. Using temporary staffing worked out much better.
Heroic partnerships begin by picking a good partner, not by fixating on a solution. A good partner will take time to understand your organization and its needs. Then, they’ll walk you through your options. The right staffing partner (the name I’ll use from here on to refer to the companies that provide the various workforce solutions) can do more than help keep jobs filled. They can become an indispensable part of your business.
Ask anyone in the staffing industry, and they’ll tell you that clients come and go. You’ll occasionally hear stories of long-term relationships that span years. But not every staffing firm can say they’ve retained dozens of the most prominent U.S. companies as loyal customers for years. Some, for over a decade. Staff Management | SMX, headquartered in Illinois, has achieved this. One of their relationships has lasted 28 years.
Staff Management | SMX is part of TrueBlue, the largest industrial staffing firm in the United States. It seems fitting that they fall under the TrueBlue umbrella. The definition of the phrase “true blue” is to be extremely loyal. The long-term customers of Staff Management | SMX fit this definition. “Our six brands serve 130,000 organizations each year, providing them with over 800,000 workers,” said Patrick Beharelle, TrueBlue’s president and chief operating officer. “Every one of our brands has maintained long-term relationships with thousands of companies. Staff Management | SMX has an exceptional base of loyal customers.”
Why do customers stick with Staff Management | SMX? Let’s look at that manufacturer that’s been working with them for 28 years. Mary, their procurement manager, says it’s because of the quality of the relationship. “We don’t mandate that our manufacturing sites work with Staff Management | SMX. However, over 90 percent do. Staff Management | SMX has proven themselves by doing quality work at site after site. Winning our trust has allowed them to expand organically through internal recommendations.”
Mary made clear how important staffing is to her organization when she said, “Failure is not an option. Our company is dependent on our temp labor program to meet our production requirements. The on-site managed model we use allows Staff Management | SMX to be a seamless part of our organization. Beyond filling our staffing requirements, they understand our culture and find candidates that are truly a ‘good fit.’”
Mary’s been with the manufacturer for a few years. I asked her to compare the partnership with Staff Management | SMX to her previous experiences. “The nature of the long-term relationship we have with Staff Management | SMX is different from what I’ve seen in other organizations,” she said. “At my last employer, there was a hard-and-fast rule to drive competition and reduce costs. Relationships with vendors were nonexistent—there was a transactional attitude toward the purchase.”
This transactional approach created other issues: “There was no big picture, since procurement of staffing wasn’t looked at from a strategic perspective. It was all about dollars and cents. If we wanted something better, cheaper, or different, we’d wait to see what was offered during the next RFP period. Once a desired solution was identified, we were told to have the vendors ‘sharpen their pencils’ when it came to pricing. This usually led to a race to the bottom with vendors reducing their offerings to the bare bones to win the bid. In the end no one was truly satisfied. With Staff Management | SMX it’s different.”
How does Staff Management | SMX do it? “We’re looking for partners . . . organizations where we can integrate our solutions and become part of their company,” said Loree Lynch, Vice President of Operations for Staff Management | SMX. She’s been around for all 28 years of their partnership with the manufacturer. “Our job is to look out for their business. We do everything we can to protect their brand, not just look out for our own brand.”
Identifying good partners starts with their sales process. “We’re not a good fit for every organization,” said Lynch. “Nor is every company a good fit for us. We improve how our customers get work done and are compensated for that impact. If a prospect is looking to put bodies in jobs, or is purely driven by price, we go our separate ways.”
The partnership approach at Staff Management | SMX continues through every step. “We bring in an engagement team early on in the sales process,” said Lynch. “It includes people from sales and operations who conduct a needs assessment.” The engagement team remains intact through each stage of the partnership. They design flexible solutions, present them to the customer, and drive implementation. “Our approach is methodical. We kick off implementation by getting all of the client stakeholders in the room. We discuss expectations—theirs and ours. We get everything on the table so we all have a clear understanding of what is expected and by whom. It lays the groundwork for a lasting partnership.”
And last these partnerships do. The on-site services teams at Staff Management | SMX client sites become entrenched in the customers’ business. They sit in on production meetings and become part of their safety committees. Frequently, it’s hard to figure out who works for Staff Management | SMX and who’s an employee of the customer. What’s easy to figure out is the impact. Customers say their expectations have been met or exceeded, rating Staff Management | SMX in the top 2 percent of staffing agencies in the United States.
Are heroic partnerships the exclusive domain of big staffing partners that provide large-scale services? No. Small and mid-sized firms are forming them as well. Size of firm and scale of service don’t matter. What does is building mutually beneficial relationships.
UK-based Serocor Group isn’t a big, publicly traded company like TrueBlue. But its business units have made a big difference for their customers. Each unit zeroes in on a different set of needs. One specializes in engineering and IT. Another targets the digital space. Yet another division helps organizations in the cyber, defense, and security markets. Plus, Serocor has developed its own Recruitment Process Outsourcing service.
Specialization is one way Serocor’s divisions have developed lasting partnerships with customers. “Many of our competitors focus on delivering people,” said Mike Gawthorne, Serocor’s CEO. “We deliver expertise, using that knowledge to help our customers build better organizations.” Gawthorne has grown the company with this idea in mind. “We’ve built a team of recruiters who are subject matter experts. They have vast knowledge of the industries they serve.”
Gawthorne’s strategy for sharing expertise is straightforward: They unselfishly give it away. Even to companies that aren’t paying customers. “Our recruiters are a combination thought leader and matchmaker. Their job is to constantly deliver value to everyone they’re in contact with. This starts with prospective customers. We share market intelligence and best practices. If a company elects not to work with us, they’re still better off from having interacted with our team. For those that become customers, we use our expertise to shape the solutions we deliver to them.”
Has this paid off? It has. Most of Serocor’s customers make them their exclusive recruiting partner. This level of trust in a single firm is uncommon. Many companies hedge their bets, pitting several firms against one another.
To continue their success, Gawthorne focuses on expectations. “Expectations are the key to success in the recruitment business. This starts with high expectations for our team. Every member of our team must operate with integrity and deliver value to every relationship. We expect our candidates to communicate honestly and do their best work. Our relationships with every customer are founded on clear expectations. We know what they expect. They know what we expect. That’s why so many of our relationships are exclusive. We trust each other.”
What do all heroic partnerships have in common? Expectations. Organizations and staffing partners who’ve formed heroic partnerships have communicated their expectations to one another. These expectations are clear and reasonable, and are centered upon making their relationship mutually beneficial.
Five mutual expectations form the foundation of heroic partnerships. Each expectation creates a layer of stability. The more of these layers that are in place, the stronger the foundation, and the greater the likelihood the relationship will stand the test of time.
What are these clear and reasonable expectations? They fall into five categories (Figure 10.2).
FIGURE 10.2 The Five Mutual Expectations of Heroic Partners
If you work for an organization, you must be flexible. It’s important to remember there are no “purple squirrels”—absolutely perfect candidates with every skill and experience imaginable. These candidates don’t exist. Your staffing partners, then, can’t manufacture talent from scratch. Providing realistic Hire-Right Profiles to your staffing partner will help them do great work for you.
If you’re a staffing partner, you too must remain flexible. The needs of the organizations you serve are changing constantly. A sudden influx of orders can be followed by a lull. New regulations can create an immediate need for candidates with a different skillset. Projects pop up and initiatives slow down.
It’s your job to understand the shifting needs in each relationship. Does the company have a busy season? A slow period? How is their industry changing? In what ways will this change affect their hiring needs? Who are their competitors? How do these competitors impact the business of your customer? You need to keep asking questions, so you’re always ready to be helpful.
Flexibility is expectation #1 for a reason. Without it, your partnership may get off the ground, but it won’t last long.
If you’re a leader in an organization, you have vital information. You know your organization’s goals and the work that needs to be done to reach them. You’re the one who sees what’s going on, including how things are changing. Sometimes, those changes impact the type of help you need. It’s your job to communicate these details. If you do, you’re enabling your partner’s success. If you don’t, you’re setting them up for failure.
If you’re a staffing partner, you’re a matchmaker. This begins with the details. Do you have all the details you need to match your customer with the right solution? Have you done this type of work for the customer in the past? If so, have you explored how the work may be different this time, or assumed everything is the same? Matchmaking should never begin until you know you’ve got all of the current details.
Regardless of your delivery mechanism—temporary staffing, search, RPO, BPO, SOW—it’s your responsibility to match customers with the appropriate solution. Does this mean you’ll always be the one to deliver that solution? No, heroic partners are honest about their limitations. They willingly refer business to companies better suited to meet a customer’s needs.
In a heroic partnership, accuracy fortifies your foundation, keeping your relationship rock solid.
As a staffing partner, the organizations you work with demand quality. But what comprises quality? One aspect is in delivering the most qualified people. Another aspect is the caliber of your service. The competency of your staff also comes into play, as does the quality of ongoing customer support. Quality is multifaceted.
How do you ensure you’re always delivering quality? Never guess. Ask your customer how they define quality, and tell them how you’ll deliver that quality. Then keep your promises. Be sure to back up those promises with competent people who provide excellent support.
Your organization’s staffing partners also require quality—quality feedback during each stage of the process. They need your honest feedback on service proposals, helpful comments about resumes they’ve sent for review, detailed comments after interviews, and regular input during ongoing projects. Without this feedback, they’re flying blind. Your input will directly impact the quality of their work.
A mutual focus on quality anchors your heroic partnership, ensuring it remains on solid ground.
Even the best partnerships can fail around monetary expectations. If your organization expects lots of value for little money, it will undermine your staffing partner. Without healthy margins, they won’t be able to sustain quality work. To keep their business viable, they’d have to “cheat” on you, skimping on services and sending top talent to better-paying customers. Eventually, the relationship will break down.
Does this mean your organization should pay inflated prices? Of course not. Your organization should pay for value. The greater the value, the more you must be willing to invest. The value you receive isn’t just the services themselves. It includes how your partner improves your organization’s productivity, efficiency, and profitability. Your staffing partners deserve equitable compensation for the value they provide.
As a staffing partner, you can’t engage in pricing extremes. Charge too much and you’ll erode your partner’s trust. Charge too little and you’re jeopardizing your ability to do quality work. Your pricing must be directly proportionate to the value you deliver.
You must also give the organization options. There is no one-size-fits-all staffing solution. When your customers buy things, they’re used to having choices. So it’s only fitting you provide them with choices, too. Like any business that provides tiered options—a basic service, a deluxe service, and a premium service—you can create these types of choices for your buyers.
Heroic partners know that skimping will cause the foundation of their relationship to crack. That’s why they keep their focus on value, not price.
No one likes to wait. Delays will damage your partnership.
As a staffing partner, it’s never a good idea to make customers wait. They need help now, not days from now. If you don’t have what they need, when they need it, they’ll reach out to someone else. Don’t believe this is the case? Think about how you’ve won new business. You were at the right place at the right time with the right solution. If you’re not capable of giving your partner what they need, there’s someone else who can.
One of your service standards must be immediacy. Earlier in the book, I walked you through the seven principles of an on-demand system, and explained how these are incorporated into the Talent Accelerator Process. Make this part of your business strategy. Maintain an inventory of the core talent your customer will need. You’ll be able to supply that talent on-demand, freeing you up to work on any additional needs they have as well.
Your organization must also act quickly if you expect your staffing partner to deliver positive results. Your input guides their work, helping them do quality work for you. Return their calls and emails swiftly. Provide prompt feedback on proposals, resumes, and interviews. Make nimble choices when choosing a solution or a person to hire. Immediacy also benefits your organization. The top talent provided by your partner will be sought out by your competitors. Taking immediate action makes sure these talented people end up working for you.
Adding in this final expectation makes the foundation of your partnership nearly impregnable. Immediacy makes it a relationship built to last.
Might there be other expectations you’ll need to set? Yes. The five mutual expectations put your relationship on solid footing. As your partnership evolves, so too may your expectations. Making them clear and reasonable will keep your relationship solid, increasing the chances it serves both of your needs for a long time.
As a parent, I know that the statement “It takes a village to raise a child” is true. My kids were influenced by a village as they grew up—family, friends, neighbors, teachers, coaches. My son and daughter are now adults, and who they are is a result of the people that surrounded them.
Filling jobs in an instant, and keeping them filled, also takes a village—a village with an organization that wants to keep jobs filled, staffing partners who can lend a hand, and hiring technology vendors who support them with lean automation. Their collective efforts help each other be successful. The organization has enough people to get work done. Staffing partners and technology vendors have sustainable businesses. The village also includes workers who go to positive work environments each day. All because of the heroic partnership.
