Do you know what you’re looking for when it comes to buying an RPO solution? Travel through the RPO buying journey with RPOne, powered by Morson, and Rowena Cooper, head of talent & resourcing at St. Modwen, as we present the RPO Buying Guide.
Your priority is sourcing the very best people in your field to ensure your business prospers. But the right RPO talent partner should help you do much more than that. As well as attracting great candidates, an RPO should help to forecast your future recruitment requirements; examine, critique and improve your job application experience; understand how you’re perceived versus your competitors and find candidates that seamlessly fit your culture.
COVID-19 demonstrated that the traditional RPO model is no longer fit for purpose and simply handing over the reins to an outsourced provider could be more of a hindrance than a help to your business. Instead, time should be taken to understand how an RPO’s approach will transform your organisation for the better.
Travel through the RPO buying journey with RPOne by Morson, and Rowena Cooper, head of talent & resourcing at St. Modwen, as we present the RPO Buyer’s Guide. Helping you spot a good RPO from a great one, the guide explores the five key things you should look out for in an RPO provider that show they’ll collaborate, support and flex around you, every step of the way.
RPOne, is the Morson Group’s boutique RPO solution. We’ve developed RPOne just as we’ll deliver it – in partnership with our clients, all of whom have different needs, to provide a truly agile talent solution that wraps around your brand today, tomorrow and for the future.
Our mission is simple: offer a flexible RPO solution that scales on demand. We’re here to change the market, and we’re already well on our way.
More than just recruitment. We are your partner to the possible. Find out more by emailing hello@rpo-one.comor going to www.rpo-one.com
The annual awards by The Global Recruiter magazine celebrate the brightest and best in recruitment across the UK. The judging panel is made up of some of the leading lights in the industry, including representatives from the REC, APSCo and The Recruitment Network.
Outsourcing recruitment requires a special relationship between the recruiter and the client. The award for Best RPO Business recognises the value adding relationships which enable clients to gain the best talent in the most effective and efficient way. The judging panel scrutinise each nomination, looking for how businesses have adapted their service during the pandemic, the implementation of efficient processes to ensure seamless recruitment and on-boarding and the overall impact of the RPO solution from a talent supply point of view.
RPOne, powered by the Morson Group
With 50-years’ experience helping clients around the world to navigate their recruitment challenges, in 2021 we launched RPOne – a transformation of the traditional RPO model, offering a more agile, custom-fit solution to organisations that wish to make their talent ambitions a reality and gain a competitive edge within their industry.
RPOne is a response to the conditions many industries have endured as a result of COVID-19. Many businesses have been left looking for an outsourced recruitment partner that could offer a high touch service and seamlessly drop into their organisation. However, with RPO offerings being a one-size-fits-all approach, most found there wasn’t a solution that could suit the changes they’d had to make to their business because of the pandemic.
Having been recognised as the leader in Managed Service Provision for decades, we were keen to push our proposition further by bringing our extensive RPO experience to the fore. And so, 2021 quite naturally became the right time for us to launch an official offering to the market.
With RPOne, we’ve developed a suite of products and services which are brought together into one enormous offering, which we wrap around our customers. They’re not just equipped with our anecdotal expertise; they have a shopping list of ‘plug in’ extras to adapt, expand and improve their service from us, on demand.
With packages available for start-ups through to enterprise organisations, RPOne is designed to be more effective than anything else currently on the market and can be adapted to suit organisations of all sorts and sizes, scaling alongside businesses at their pace and ensuring they’re prepared for the next phase in their journey.
Nurturing recruiter-client relationships | Manchester United
As well as providing our clients with a transformative recruitment solution, we’re using RPOne to turn around misconceptions that RPOs can never truly be fit for purpose because there are several Morson clients that have seen their business benefit exponentially from the fundamentals of RPOne for years – including one of the world’s most iconic brands, Manchester United.
The complexity of Manchester United’s business model and the sheer scale of its operations requires it to be best-in-class both on and off the pitch. Its mantra is to attract, develop and retain a best-in-class workforce that sits behind the scenes and sets the club apart from its competition. To achieve this, our RPO delivery arm focuses on developing the club’s employer brand, creating streamlined candidate journeys, evolving ED&I agendas and developing behavioural frameworks, all whilst delivering the plethora of diverse skills that the business requires.
In the two-and-a-half years that we’ve been part of Manchester United, we’ve recruited physios, software programmers, coaches, partnership leads, social media specialists, goalkeeping scouts, football analysts, fundraising executives and groundsmen. We’ve even recruited two seat fixers to maintain the 75,000 seats within Old Trafford.
Understanding the nuances of a client’s business is critical to our success. From day one of working together, our mission is to build mutually beneficial relationships across the entire organisation – not just with HR business partners and hiring managers – to understand how these unique puzzle pieces come together. Hiring managers come to us with every role – not just those in more technical areas – which is testament to the trust and autonomy of our relationship, and the time we invest getting under the skin of their industry.
The Global Recruiter UK Industry Awards ceremony will be held in the afternoon of October 14th 2021 at East Wintergarden, Canary Wharf, where the Best RPO Business winners will be formally announced.
Our new IR35 Health Check MOT service supports businesses that are currently unsure of whether their assessments are valid to avoid the financial and reputational risks associated with not meeting IR35 regulations.
The pandemic has created huge fluctuations in contingent labour requirements, with businesses turning to contractors to manage demand for their services and source niche or volume skillsets.
The 12-month delay to IR35 saw HR and talent teams granted more time than originally anticipated to determine whether their contractor workforce fell inside or outside of the legislation, while many contractors who previously job-hopped felt more inclined to remain with a trusted client as markets coped with some of the most turbulent social and economic conditions ever witnessed.
In the run-up to the delayed introduction of IR35 reform in the private sector – which eventually came into play in April 2021 – thousands of businesses used HMRC’s CEST tool to determine whether their contractors fell inside or outside of IR35. Despite HMRC saying the tool was fit for purpose, businesses have since discovered that may not have been the case. Several incorrect statuses assigned to contractors have been declared, with affected companies now at risk of being fined – despite taking HMRC’s own recommended steps to protect themselves.
While the IR35 reform is now enforced, HMRC has announced it will offer businesses a grace period to ensure their assessments are completed accurately. This is a crucial time to take a step back and ensure you’re entirely compliant, so to help clients achieve exactly that, we’ve launched a brand new IR35 Health Check MOT service.
The challenges of conducting an IR35 assessment in-house, without the support of a third-party advocate, are well documented and amongst other things, include:
The need to allocate dedicated resources to assess each contractor individually
The need to roll out new policies and procedures to manage the assessment process, in addition to hiring manager training
Changing mindsets as to how contractors are treated in relation to employees. This covers the possible removal of benefits, such as staff parking and training, and issuing new hiring manager guidelines on how to engage with contractors in an evolving landscape
The need to police your supply chain, as all suppliers have to carry out adequate assessments of their own
The risk of significant financial penalties, as well as potential legal and reputational damage if assessments are found to have been completed inaccurately
Our new IR35 Health Check MOT service supports businesses with contingent workforces of all sizes to ensure their contractors have been assessed individually and is fully insured against the outcome as it’s backed by employment law experts, not just algorithms like alternative tools available today.
We aim to ensure that by using the service, businesses that are currently unsure of whether their assessments are valid can avoid the financial and reputational risks associated with not meeting IR35 regulations.
The service includes:
A review of tools used during assessment of incumbent contractors leading up to April 6th
A review of all assessment outcomes
A review of users’ ‘business as usual’ processes and procedures post-April 6th
Agency Worker Regulations (AWR) considerations
Analysis of policies and procedures to identify any outstanding risks and potential for improvements to operations
Use of Morson’s market intelligence tools and consultancy
Above all else, it provides users with the opportunity to review their IR35 position away from the pressures and time constraints that were present during the initial implementation phase, meaning they’re empowered to make more accurate and considered assessments, following our operational best practice and using our approved PSL of suppliers who are all FCSA regulated.
Our role as talent solutions specialists is to arm companies affected by IR35 with intimate knowledge of its regulations, and how they can thoroughly assess their workforce to remain compliant. Whether your contractor workforce is vast or tiny, we want to help you avoid the potential mistakes that might be incurred by your business’ individual practices, and offer you total confidence that despite IR35, there won’t be any hurdles in being able to access and utilise contingent labour.
Once you understand your responsibilities with IR35, you can better define your process for current and future contractors.
Let us conduct an IR35 Health Check MOT, and you’ll be armed with the clarity you need to move forward in line with the regulation rather than against it. To find out more get in touch at hello@morson.com or contact Morson compliance and assurance director, Phil Beardwood, directly at phil.beardwood@morson.com
Our boutique RPO brand, RPOne, are delighted to have been recognised as a finalist in the TIARA Talent Solutions Awards Europe for The Giant Group Best New Talent Solutions Provider! The TIARAs set a new standard of excellence for the RPO/MSP sector’s crowning achievements and recognise exemplary growth, innovation and leadership.
With 50 years’ experience helping clients with operations around the world to navigate their recruitment challenges, in 2021 we launched RPOne to the market. It’s a transformation of the traditional RPO model, offering a more agile, custom-fit solution to organisations of all sizes that wish to make their talent ambitions a reality and gain a competitive edge within their industry.
Over many years, we’ve developed a suite of products and services to complement the entire talent journey, whether that’s technology that tracks a candidate throughout their lifecycles; management information dashboards; accredited training schemes or HR consultancy that ensures our clients remain in line with changing legislation. RPOne brings all these things together, which we wrap around our customers. They’re not just equipped with our anecdotal expertise; they have a shopping list to adapt, expand and improve their service from us, on-demand.
Never before have talent teams been under such different extremes of pressure. Many have seen their industries transform around them, pivoting to become HR experts overnight in the face of redundancies and furlough. For others, the last 18 months has been a battle to identify adequate skillsets fast enough to meet the surge in demand for their service. This has left many looking for an outsourced talent solutions partner that can offer a high touch service that seamlessly drops into their organisation. But what COVID-19 demonstrated was that the traditional RPO model is no longer fit for purpose. Rigid in their makeup, most RPO solutions currently on the market have left many businesses exasperated. They seek to bolt on extra services in response to the pandemic but are forced to go through prolonged procurement processes.
The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to RPO now fits no-one. At the Morson Group, we can break down the blueprint for RPO into individual parts that customers can buy as and when needed, without challenge or pain. Offered as a boutique facility with 50 years of expertise behind it, our new RPO service, RPOne, is designed around the client and candidate needs we hear about today and every day. As well as providing our clients with a transformative talent solution, we’re using RPOne to turn around misconceptions that RPOs can never truly be fit for purpose. We’ve developed it just as we’ll deliver it – in partnership with our clients, all of whom have different needs. And it’s because of them that RPOne has flexibility at its root, with Grow RPO – a solution designed specifically for start-ups and tech businesses – a prime example of how our model wraps around the client, rather than restricting them. Our mission is simple: offer a flexible RPO solution that scales on-demand. We’re here to change the market, and we’re already well on our way.”
Adrian Adair – Morson Group COO
With packages available for start-ups through to enterprise organisations, RPOne has been developed in response to the changed and ever-evolving needs and expectations of businesses who want to attract the very best talent to their organisation. It’s designed to be more effective than anything else currently on the market and can be adapted to suit organisations of all sorts and sizes, scaling alongside a business at their pace, ensuring they’re prepared for the next phase in their journey.
Winners of the TIARA Talent Awards for The Best New Talent Solutions Provider will be announced at the awards ceremony on Thursday 30th September, taking place at the stunning IET, Savoy Place, London.
Sian Whittaker joined EC Harris in 1999, prior to its merger with design and consultancy giant, Arcadis, in 2011. Having undertaken accountancy qualifications in her early years in business, Sian has since worked across several roles within Arcadis, and is now a senior leader and director. In this blog for our Women in Leadership campaign and as a Morson client, she shares her best advice for people wanting to progress in their careers; what we can all learn from one another; why equality must go beyond gender and how letting children make their own mistakes is the best thing we can do for them.
“There’s no ‘typical day’ in my role; every day is different and many days I’ll be asked to do something I’ve never done before. But primarily, I focus on making sure that people want to come to work, that they’re able to work on projects which can make a lasting difference in society, that they are safe while they’re with us and are safe when they go home, too. I’m responsible for ensuring consistency in attitudes, values and culture across all our people – perm staff and contingent labour – so I spend a lot of time understanding what our employees think about, and what they’re experiencing. This is very rewarding and helps me better determine how we can tailor our service for clients, ensuring they receive something different from our delivery compared to that of our competitors.
“I didn’t take the typical route to this role that people might expect. I didn’t go to university, I don’t have a degree, and my accountancy qualification was undertaken while I was working here in a junior role. I’ve experienced big challenges to get to where I am now but am lucky to have always been surrounded by people who wanted to help and support me, so I focus on paying that back to our team. It’s only when you’re able to look back that you can say ‘I’ve done really well before; I can do whatever is in front of me now’.
“A part of my role that many don’t know about is how much time I spend listening. I’m not just a director in a highly technical role; I’m also a confidant, a friend, a sounding board, and I’m really proud of that. I am an official mentor for our internal team, and have coaching duties outside of the business, too. It’s so important to invest your time in other people, because we all have something to learn. In my role as a mentor or coach I’m supposed to be the one sharing knowledge of guidance – and I make sure I do that to my best ability – but I’m also able to spot really insightful behaviour, tenacity and innovation, which I can learn from myself, but can also be channelled back into the business to help it grow.
“It’s always been a priority of mine to ensure we are welcoming placement year students from Manchester University into our team, which mentoring feeds into. The benefits of working with these eager young people are so invaluable – for us, but mainly for them. When I came into business, work experience wasn’t a thing, and I had no idea where to start but I knew I wanted to do my very best. Someone spotted something in me and I was able to climb the ladder. Only by bringing young people – our future leaders – in at a young age will we spot what the next 10 or 15 years might look like. We embed them into everything, only ever asking them to do tasks we’d be happy to do at director level, and we see so many stay on with us for the long term. They teach us what we need to know about how young people think today, and we’re able to add some serious talent to our ranks.
“Lots of students who join us will ask for my key pieces of advice to do well – how they can thrive, impress and forge a long-lasting career. I start with asking them what it is they enjoy doing and if they’d like to make this part of their job role. If they do, we look at the stepping stones we can put in place to adapt their existing role around that, as soon as possible, so they begin gaining experience straight away rather than having to wait for a promotion.
“Then I tell them to get rid of any timeframes they might have in mind for their life and certain milestones. Everyone seems to want to do something by a certain point and if they don’t achieve it when they think they should, they beat themselves up about it. I say if you want to get somewhere, whatever route you take, we will get there together, but only when it’s meant to be.
“I advise them to remain authentic and true to themselves. Not everyone has the support in their role that I’ve been lucky to have but you’re more likely to get it if you’re always honest about who you are, what you want to achieve and how you intend to get there. This doesn’t have to come across as arrogant – stay grounded and real. It’ll help you get to where you want to be.
“Equally, everyone should analyse the difference between their own perceived weaknesses, and the perceptions of those around them. People are their own worst enemy and often think they’re terrible at things that other people think they are brilliant at. Understanding how other people look at you helps develop your strengths, means you can learn more about yourself and instils great self-belief.
“I am also a big believer in failure. You have to get things wrong to get things right. That’s one of the most important messages we can tell our children – it’s okay to make mistakes, and it’s okay to find your own solution when you do – we’ll be there to catch them when or if they fall. I’ve always felt in a safe place to make mistakes; Arcadis provide a comfort zone for learning and making those errors in your role, you’re supported to use your decision making skills to forge a path out of it, and resolve the situation.
“That, to me, is an essential part of leadership – being so approachable in your nature that people can tell you the good, the bad and the ugly. Listening to people, showing you have time for them – irrelevant of what’s going on in your own world – is one of the best gifts you can give. But you must be conscious in your listening; pay attention, listen to what’s not being said as much as what is. You should never act on your first or second thought or response to what someone is saying; think about what is it they need from you before you react. Because your reaction is what builds up the trust that person clearly is reaching out for.
“In a previous life, there were occasions when in meetings, I was trying to speak up and people would physically stand in front of me so I couldn’t be heard, or so they could get their point across first. It took time for me to build up the courage to speak to someone about what was happening, and I was coached to react differently. Someone listened to my challenge and taught me how to create a different outcome, but it was those coaching sessions which encouraged me to think I could eventually become a leader within this business.
“Everyone has a right to be in the role they want to be and at Arcadis we are good at promoting that. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you’re from – if you have the technical competency, and are willing to work hard, you can achieve anything. And yes, we work in a predominately male sector but as a business we have made great advancements in our gender balance and inclusion agenda. Our senior leadership team is now a 50/50 split between males and females. And women aren’t in their roles because they’re women; it’s because they’re fantastic at what they do.
“And that’s a great position to be in but, of course, complete diversity across the board is a much better achievement to head towards. We must strive for diversity in ability, race, sexuality and more if we want our business to be representative of the world we live in, and if we want the best talent in the industry. And Morson, as our talent partner, has become key in this process. Their own ED&I ambitions match our own, and they can envisage with us how a diverse scope of talent today will help us create a more resilient business in the future. But that also requires working with all the people who influence young people now, ensuring they share our message that you can be whatever you want to be.
“If I could achieve one thing moving forwards, it would be to become the person that other people look to and think ‘if she can do it, I can too’. Because there is nothing more rewarding than spotting the potential in someone when they’ve come to you for leadership and then, years down the line, knowing they’ve achieved their ambitions and are now in a position of leadership themselves.”
