One of the first questions that staffing firm leaders needs to address is whether they are going to have an opportunistic or strategic staffing firm.
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Opportunistic |
Strategic |
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Will recruit on any customer requirement (Req), in any industry, any type of position; whether they have experience recruiting on that type of Req or not and their access to the talent pool doesnt support their ability to succeed |
Focused recruiting efforts on specific geographic region(s), industry(s) and position(s); only recruiting on Reqs where they have past experience and a high chance of success |
When a staffing firm attempts to be all things to all people they set their sales and recruiting teams up for failure. Furthermore, this leaves the firm unable to sustain a long-term recruiting and delivery capability due to the costs associated with positions their clients may need help with, but are not in the staffing agencys wheelhouse.
Lack of rigor, applying an inconsistent strategy and an absence of any real knowledge the staffing firm possesses from experience in successfully delivering services with similar customers exposes the staffing agency to being viewed by their customer as a commodity that they can exploit. Lack of focus leads to missed forecasts, margin compression, dollars misspent and the staffing firms resources being misdirected; all of which ultimately impact financial growth.
The competition is fierce for top talent in todays market, which requires that staffing firms need to be able to focus attention on how they are being viewed by their own employees, customers, candidates and their competition. This should all be driven by their value proposition and how they differentiate themselves. It is important to remember that having a laser like focus means not accepting a Req where the firm has little to no chance of succeeding.
Unfortunately, due to lack of a cohesive strategy and poorly defined business plan, many staffing agencies fail to deliver on their forecasted financial budgets annually. This happens when there is a disconnect from what senior management wants and the reality of what their existing staff is capable of performing. This is when the alignment of people, processes, performance expectations and supporting technology are typically disjointed. It is common for a recruiting organizations ability to deliver to be a direct result of their quick access to the right talent and repeatedly recruiting on similar Reqs.
After the sales team has created the buying relationship with the customer and the Master Services Agreement (MSA) has been signed it then becomes all about delivery. This is when the recruiting organizations capabilities and access to the right talent makes or breaks the staffing agencies forecasted budget. The success of the business plan and financial budgets rests mutually on the organizations sales and recruiting teams ability to jointly accomplish financial results that management expects.
Questions that leadership need to ask themselves are whether or not they have set their staff up to fail or succeed? Do they expect more from their existing staff than they are capable of performing? And, what can they do to act now to prepare for their financial future?