When Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) became more widely adopted a decade or so ago, the primary focus was on the following functions: Sourcing Recruiting Selection & Assessment Administration Onboarding. During the last few years vendors have added additional capability focused on helping clients improve their talent management capability, including: Talent strat[...]

On October 14, the Xchanging board recommended a final cash offer by Capita of 160p per share. The offer, valuing Xchanging at ~£412m, represents a premium of ~44% to the closing price on October 2, 2015 (the last business day before the start of the offer period), 52% to the prior three-month average price and 64% to the one-month average price.  Capita states it believes the acquis[...]

The theme of KellyOCG’s recent analyst day was ‘Talent Supply Chain Management’, which they demonstrated using their latest online analytics portal, ‘Talent Supply Chain Analytics’ (TSC Analytics). The portal has the ability to propose the optimal number of suppliers for a job category, based on supply chain modelling that has identified correlations between the nu[...]

Employee Value Proposition (EVP) is about more than creating a nice-looking career page with exciting reasons why candidates should join a company. It is also about empowering recruiters to use their corporate brand flexibly for individual candidate situations. This is well known to recruitment processing outsourcing (RPO) companies. However, an effective EVP can go even further. In a candidate[...]

The Twittersphere has been buzzing recently with opinions on the compliance of global Human Capital Management (HCM) technologies, with commentators debating the relative merits of different approaches, and discussing key topics such as localization gaps and the breadth of language support. Vendors are making moves to improve their HCM delivery to address these and other issues, and in 2015 the[...]

Accenture Federal Services (AFS) is to acquire Agilex Technologies, a privately-held provider of digital solutions for the U.S. federal government based in Chantilly, VA. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.  The acquisition will enhance Accenture’s digital capabilities in analytics, cloud and mobility for federal agencies. It also will add agile delivery expertise. Agilex br[...]

Randstad Sourceright Analyst Day 2014: RPO In High Gear Last week Randstad Sourceright held its first analyst event. Services covered included MSP, independent contractor solutions, technology, RPO, employer branding, veterans hiring initiatives, and career transition services. My focus here is primarily on Randstad Sourceright's RPO activity. RPO in High Gear In 2014 YTD Rand[...]

As reported in NelsonHall’s 2014 RPO market analysis, with a global shortage of talent predicted for the foreseeable future, RPO buyers will continue to seek specialists to attract candidates through the use of social networks and to create a pipeline of passive candidates (i.e. talent communities) to improve speed, quality of hire and retention of talent. Nine out of 10 companies in the [...]

At last week’s 2014 HR Technology conference I met with several of the RPO providers. Discussions included service offerings, latest trends, new business and growth. My meetings confirmed findings reported in NelsonHall’s Q1 2014 RPO market analysis that RPO growth would be mid-teens in 2014. RPO is thriving, with vendors reporting growth ranging from the low teens to 30%. And one[...]

Hiring the best talent available, and being able to do this in a timely manner when they are needed, is a top priority of the HR function. For large enterprises, the optimal way to do this is to have candidates available in advance of the job requisition who are part of a talent pool that is already engaged and familiar with the hiring organization’s culture and values, and to make it easy t[...]

TrueBlue announced on Monday it is to acquire U.S. based RPO and MSP provider SeatonCorp. TrueBlue is a specialist staffing organization that supports staffing and also provides onsite management services which will complement the RPO, MSP services of SeatonCorp. The SeatonCorp business beng acquired includes its:  RPO businesses: PeopleScout (U.S based)&nb[...]

The theme of last week’s IBM Connect Conference was Energizing Life’s Work. There was also a concurrent Kenexa World Conference which joined the IBM Connect general sessions. When IBM acquired Kenexa for $1.3bn in December 2012 (with Kenexa integrated into IBM’s Software Group and operationally aligned to IBM GPS), much was written at the time of how this would strengthen IBM&[...]

Capita has announced the retirement of its CEO, Paul Pindar, with effect from February 28, 2014. Pindar will step down after 26 years with the company. Andy Parker, Capita's current Deputy Chief Executive and Joint COO, will succeed Paul as Chief Executive from March 1, 2014.  Dawn Marriott-Sims, currently Executive Director of Capita's Workplace Services division, will be appointed t[...]