RPO and Talent Management Blog by Ochre House | Ochre Talk

Around the World in 7 Days

 

What does Global really mean and can this really be achieved through RPO? I asked myself this whilst on a 747 between San Francisco and London – having travelled via Hong Kong, India and South Korea during the seven days prior to this. Two days ago I was with the EVP HR for one of our Global customers who said that their transformation objective for doing a Global RPO with Ochre House was to truly Globalise his HR function. This got me thinking… is Global RPO there to support the hires for Companies in many countries across Americas, EMEA & APAC or could it be utilised to create real transformational change within businesses. 

Is this where the RPO Companies have gone wrong up to now? Reacting to the handful of RFP tenders coming out in the year and hoping to pick up as much volume and scale as possible? I was reminded during this trip that Resourcing and Talent Acquisition for this Company was one of their most important strategic agendas – they see RPO as a way to achieve transformational change through executing their objectives and strategy over the next three years.  By introducing a defined blend of talent into the organisation they will be able to facilitate the change, direction and growth needed to achieve real business value to the bottom line.  Isn’t that what RPO is about?  Strategic partnerships that create great things? 

If this is the case does the industry need to go back to the drawing board – to focus on the customers overall strategy first and then the hiring infrastructure and capability second…is it this simple? 

I believe it is! In my experience, no Company should consider Regional or Global RPO without asking themselves what are the main strategic objectives to be achieved from outsourcing.  Operational cost savings and efficiency should be taken for granted. If you look at all the large scale RPO contracts that have been centered on these principals mainly they tend to be short lived relationships which don’t set out to achieve for either the RPO Company or the Customer the original intent and scope of the service. Usually it goes off track because of constant change and drivers within the Company being supported and they don’t ever really realise the value of having external resourcing support. 

This moves me on to my next observation which is what is true partnership? Many RPO companies talk about partnerships by defining the relationship as one that is flexible and one of compromise… but how many are strategic partnerships where the RPO leaders sit on the board of the Companies they work with, define the talent acquisition strategy and shape the future success of the businesses they support? Surely this is the value of an RPO partnership? Where a Company brings in external non core skills,  experience and talent to manage their Talent Acquisition strategy. The output of which creates transformation value and significant contribution to the business success. Lets not forget that the people that work for you are your main differentiator – how many times have we heard this over the past 10 years? But despite this how many businesses have actually put specific strategies around their people?

Its time the industry changed – look after the Talent Acquisition strategy and create a true partnership based on Transformational change. Get this right and you can literally change the world…

Stephen Gilbert, Client Services Director EMEA / APAC

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