Argyle Conversation: Rebecca Callahan, President, SourceRight discussed the evolution of the talent acquisition market and the growing value of free agents, as well as the integration of younger generations into the workforce and the use of social media technology in that pursuit.

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SCOTT ROBBIN: Can you tell us a little about yourself and your organization? I understand that SourceRight was acquired by Randstad in 2011.

REBECCA CALLAHAN: For me and for the employees of SourceRight and the SFN Group, the Randstad acquisition has been tremendous. I have been with SourceRight for eight years, and I’ve been responsible as their leader and president for the past four years. The ability to scale globally is a key value that an RPO provider must bring to its clients. Randstad is the second-largest staffing company in the world with a footprint large enough to support our customers in every country in which we’ve seen the need. That capability is pretty powerful for us, and we’re taking full advantage of it.

How has that changed your offerings to the marketplace?

It hasn’t changed the offerings to the client, and SourceRight will continue to be the market leader in North America. We’re very well known for large and complex RPO opportunities and for more professional-type MSP offerings. That won’t change. What’s changed is the fact that we are better able to expand these services around the globe where clients require solutions with global governance and local expertise.

I would say it’s more of an extension of what already exists. Randstad has already worked in this space around the rest of the world, so they’re really looking to us to bring our expertise to them and to our clients.

When we have conversations with our members and other executives, we often hear the term “free agent” to describe a growing portion of the talent supply. What do you mean by “free agent talent,” and how is that different today compared to the traditional use of contingent labor five, maybe 10, years ago?

Five years ago, a free agent was considered to be the same as a temp or contract worker, regardless of their level of expertise and whatever else they were bringing to the table. Free agents were not treated the same way that full-time professionals in the same jobs would have been treated. But in today’s market, a free agent is now considered a professional person who chooses to work on a specific project because their skill set fits that niche. That’s how they decide to come to work for the employer. As the employer, you’re pretty lucky to get them because you’ve found the best person for that job.

So there’s an evolution that has taken place, and it’s affecting all industries. As healthcare changes in this country, I think you’ll see more of it there. We’re seeing it already in IT professionals who want to work on a project-by-project basis as free agents rather than as contractors. As health benefits become less tied to the employer, we’ll see more people opportunistically take their skill sets to companies that embrace people who want to work as contractors or free agents.

What are some of the challenges and opportunities you see companies facing when it comes to managing talent acquisition across the business?

Many companies still have a very limited perspective in terms of how they choose to fill a position; they don’t realize that some of the best talent available for that position is potentially a free agent or contract worker. In the eyes of many of those desirable free agents, those companies’ reputations as employers are diminished. Those organizations have to broaden their perspectives in order to get the best person for that job. If the best IT professional for the job is only going to work as a contractor, but your brand is not set up to attract that individual—or your business processes or contractor management are set up in such a way that they’re treated as not being as important as their full-time equivalent [FTE]—you’re not going to attract the best person for the job. So companies today are struggling with how to develop their brands as employers to better attract the free agent type of talent.

Many companies also don’t know how to leverage the Millennials. This new talent coming into the marketplace has a different perspective and different demands than companies have seen in previous generations. They may want four hours off once a month to volunteer at their favorite charity, a gym membership and the ability to work from home. Companies aren’t always prepared to address these types of demands, and they may not be ready to manage productivity virtually, but the Millenials are here; they’re the next people to fill the jobs. Working on your brand as an employer to attract this next wave of talent is where talent management professionals need to spend their time.

One opportunity that also presents a challenge for many companies is the rise of new avenues to communicate, interact and build relationships with candidates. There are so many ways to reach potential candidates. Just think about how people search for jobs today. The first place people look is Google. The number is staggering: hundreds of thousands of people use Google to search for jobs. The other opportunity companies have is to leverage social media—Facebook, Twitter, mobile applications and new applications that seem to appear every day—to find these candidates. The organizations that apply new technologies and innovations in a way that best reaches their potential talent have a significant advantage over their competitors. In the end, companies are not just looking for talent; they’re competing for talent. So when you look at it through that lens, innovation and an openness to new ways of thinking are not just nice-to-have qualities; they are a necessity.

You’ve mentioned that managing contingent and FTE talent acquisition under a comprehensive strategy really involves getting procurement and HR on the same page. What are the challenges of doing that, and how do you see some successful companies coordinating that type of change management?

We’re seeing more companies—particularly companies that hire a lot of professional-level contingency talent—start to give responsibility for both permanent and contingent labor to the same person, generally the person responsible for global staffing or global talent management. We see that in companies that really think about their talent strategically and are forward-thinking. When a company is not doing those things, what you basically have is a very procurement-driven cycle for contingent labor for a traditional MSP.

Believe it or not, I still see examples where there isn’t anyone in the business who gets involved. There are still HR professionals who don’t see contingent labor as a strategic buy. Somebody has to step up in that organization. The business leaders, the CEO, the CFO or the folks on the ground running the business need to become more vocal because if they don’t force a change there, they’re the ones who will suffer. They won’t get the best talent through their company channels. With contingent labor, one could argue that there might be some skill sets that could be treated as a commodity, but regarding the professional skill sets, you want the best person for the job. That’s why contingent and free agent talent cannot remain solely in the hands of procurement. It has to get into the hands of HR and talent management. Business leaders need to push that agenda in their companies. And I’m not the only one who believes that’s the case.

Absolutely, especially as HR executives are really driving the business results and moving the needle more than ever. It seems like it’s [their responsibility] now more than ever to take that initiative.

My advice to HR professionals today is that if they want a seat at the C-table, which they should, and are looking for ways to ensure that their talent is managed strategically, they need to have responsibility for all the talent. If they want to have a strategic conversation with the CEO, they need to have it about talent because that’s what a CEO is worried about today. They can’t scale their organizations without the best talent, so to keep that strategic seat at the table, start talking to your CEO about talent and get control of it in your organization.

What role is technology going to play in the evolution of blended workforce management? How are the growing applications of workforce analytics capability influencing this evolution?

Workforce analytics is a big part of it. It will give folks who make hiring decisions the right data, such as if there are more contingent workers in this market than there are permanent workers, what the price points are, what the tenure is, etc. So those applications are very important and, quite honestly, very available to make a better hiring decision. As for the people working in applicant tracking (on the traditional FTE side) and those in Vendor Management Systems (VMS, on the contingent side)—none of those folks are on the same page yet. If you really want to have a unified experience for the hiring manager and take that workforce analytics data and do something with it inside a technology that manages that process, somebody has to come to the table with a combined application. Now, there are a few companies out there dabbling with that, but we haven’t seen anybody really put a big investment in it and come to market with that combined platform. I think that the market providers, such as SourceRight, are getting a little ahead of the curve, but the technology providers haven’t kept up.

How are the RPO and MSP providers addressing the demand for blended workforce solutions? How will a company’s choice of providers and solutions change over the next, say, five or 10 years?

What we’re seeing now is a lot of acquisition activity in the market. All the big staffing companies now have a robust RPO offering, some more than others. They are clearly in the driver’s seat to start providing the right consultative services to customers—how to do this, how to do it well and what the pitfalls are—and to introduce them to other customers who have done it well. Throughout this evolution, as staffing organizations try to go upstream with these types of higher-level solutions offerings, those companies will continue to lead the marketplace. And you’ve seen them do that. All of us involved in this evolution have combined our MSP and RPO stories to tell a single talent acquisition story, and I think that all the providers—particularly in the last six months—have started to get their act together in talking about these services. The next phase involves putting it into practice and showing the marketplace some examples of where this has worked well.

What would you say is the number-one concern that companies should be aware of when considering their partner options, whether it’s RPO, MSP or blended workforce solutions?

If you are a big user of either RPO or MSP and you’re buying today, I would tell you that you’ve got to buy best of breed. If you’re going to outsource your recruiting and hire two or three thousand people a year, you can’t trust the company that potentially has the stronger MSP value proposition but the lesser RPO value proposition. I wouldn’t recommend that as a wise thing to do. The same is true on the opposite side: if you have half a billion dollars in global spend on the MSP side, you have to find the best of breed in that market. I think that’s important for large-scale companies, the Fortune 100 and even Fortune 500 organizations.

Mid-market customers who have fewer resources in their organizations should absolutely be exploring these blended solutions and asking the providers in the marketplace to show them how they can combine their contingent and permanent together in one offering, one technology and one solution that satisfies their hiring needs. And they can do that today. The main providers in the marketplace are prepared to do that. I think it’s a safe bet for that customer because they’ll get a better consultative service than they would in trying to deal with independent solutions for their level of spend.

Looking ahead into 2012, 2013 and beyond, what advice do you have for customers as they establish their talent acquisition strategies?

Hiring managers are a big part of the process, so educating them on how to engage with today’s candidates is essential. For example, video interviewing is available, and it’s going to stay. If you’re a hiring manager and you’ve been with an organization for 20 years, you may not be as adaptive to using that technology. Talent acquisition professionals need to help their hiring managers get up to speed with advancements in the marketplace and how people get jobs today because, in the end, that’s who that individual is going to work for. They need to be able to have that discussion.

The other thing that’s important is something we’ve been talking about, which is to look at contingent labor as a strategic buy in your organization. A recent SIA survey showed that 69 percent of companies will use temporary or contingent labor as a permanent strategy. So, I ask, is your organization ready for that? How are you going to deal with co-employment issues? How will you make sure that you treat them the same? If your FTE gets free Diet Coke, then how are you going to treat that contingent worker? That [contingent worker] might be the best person for the job, so you don’t want to treat them differently than others if you’re going to retain them. Talent acquisition professionals have to stop thumbing their nose at contingent labor and figure out how to make it a part of their strategy because, I guarantee you, some of the best people for their jobs will be free agents.

When you talk about education and who to educate, are you typically looking to educate the heads of HR, the folks who plan talent acquisition?

Yes. SourceRight typically deals with the head of global staffing, the head of HR and the head of talent acquisition, and we have a lot of Fortune 500 customers who are looking to solve challenges in talent acquisition. But bringing in recruiting, outsourcing or managing the contingent labor is just a part of that. We also help them to manage their brand, employer value proposition and social media strategy, which are all becoming increasingly more important conversations.

So you really bring together the different C-level executives—the head of HR, marketing, even customer care, folks who are really on different levels and come from different backgrounds—to work together to succeed, making sure that they are paying attention to the free agent workforce and helping them grow and move the needle.

That’s a great point. When we talk to our customers now, their marketing people are there and are talking about recruitment marketing and their employer value proposition. Five years ago, when we were talking about customers outsourcing their recruits, [marketing] wasn’t sitting at the table. The dynamics are changing.

BIOS:

Rebecca Callahan:

Considered a prominent industry thought leader, Rebecca Callahan is the president of SourceRight Solutions, a Randstad Company. In this capacity, she leads her organization in the execution of one vision: helping clients put the right person in the right job for the best value. In 2011, Rebecca and the SourceRight team accomplished this mission more than 50,000 times, which attests to her ability to grow the business through operational excellence and integrated sourcing strategies. Solutions delivered by her organization cover all aspects of talent acquisition, including recruitment process outsourcing (RPO), managed service programs (MSP) and contractor compliance solutions.

Rebecca was appointed to her present role in September 2009, having previously served as the senior vice president of RPO. She joined the company in 2003 as vice president of the assessment group, followed by the role of senior vice president of sales that leveraged her more than 20 years of sales experience at privately held and publicly traded companies, such as Blue Pumpkin Software and PageNet.

Rebecca has earned high marks for her role in the success of SourceRight’s RPO business. Under her leadership, SourceRight Solutions has received the industry’s highest accolades, including top scores on HRO Today magazine’s annual feature, “Baker’s Dozen.” She is the global chair of the HROA, a board member of the RPO Alliance and was most recently recognized by Staffing Industry Analysts [SIA] in “The Staffing 100 Report.”

Scott Robbin:

Scott Robbin is a senior content associate at Argyle Executive Forum. In this role, Scott manages content development, editorial speaker recruitment and execution for 15+ annual business events. He has over four years of experience working on the production and implementation of senior-level events. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University.