The Benefits of RPO: Our Partnership with Instant Impact

Claire Tobijanski, Group HR Director, Survitec Group

WAt Survitec, our talent is one of our most important assets and we place significant importance on attracting and retaining the right calibre of talent. By 2021, Survitec has grown both organically and through acquisitions strengthening our position as a global leader in the manufacturing of Survival Technology. We had 3000 colleagues over 70 locations, and following our rapid growth, we had a need to increase our centralised people processes. Recruitment was one area that raise a number of challenges as we experience growth and an area, we placed a strategic focus upon.

We were keen to attract and retain the very best talent but, with an increasing level of growth, we had c.600 hires to make per year and all of them managed by generalist HR personnel in various global locations, we had a number of key pain points:

• Very high recruitment agency costs

• Lack of control over hiring processes

• Slow speed of hire

• Increasing attrition

• Inconsistent Hiring Manager and candidate experiences

• Incomplete management information

After we identified these specific recruitment challenges, it was clear that we did not have the capacity or expertise internally to fully address them. We knew we needed to change to a direct recruitment model to reduce our agency reliance and take control of hiring but we weren’t sure how best to approach that.

We considered traditional RPO providers but wanted a partnership approach that was embedded but flexible solution that could be truly tailored to our needs. This is where Instant Impact came in. From the outset, they built a team for us to support all of our global needs and affording us the flexibility to scale our team up and down in line with any fluctuations to our hiring plan. There was a level of comfort with Instant Impact, knowing they specialise in working with rapid growth businesses like ours and providing the team, expertise, marketing and technology to suit our requirements.

Our Instant Impact recruiters are fully embedded in our Survitec team. They took time to understand our culture, our pressure points and our long-term strategy that has resulted in fantastic direct hires and ensure that we no longer need to manage agencies.

“Lean into building a strong relationship by allowing the RPO to fully embed themselves into your business”

Instant Impact’s Talent Director, Ben, who leads the partnership manages the team gives us one point of contact to ensure that I am kept fully informed of the recruitment process without having to focus on it day-to-day as well as managing multiple agencies. Ben also brings subject matter expertise on the wider areas of recruitment and talent attraction from improving inclusion and diversity to training hiring managers meaning that the wider HR team and I can focus on the other key HR priorities knowing that we can trust our in-house recruitment function to deliver the talent we need.

Working with Instant Impact since September 2021 has transformed our recruitment by:

• Standardising a global recruitment process

• We’re on track to save more than £1M on our overall recruitment spend in the first year of the partnership

• Improving speed of hire

• Reducing attrition

• Providing a great experience to hiring managers, HR and candidates.

I’m really excited for the next stage and steps of our partnership as we expand into new geographical locations and focus on driving further improvements from diversity to rolling out new hiring technology.

How to get the most out of your RPO partner

My advice to any companies who are considering outsourcing their recruitment is firstly to make sure you have a partner who you can trust because recruitment is such an important business process. The right partner will feel like an extension of your team giving you strategic oversight whilst ensuring high quality delivery.

Lean into building a strong relationship by allowing the RPO to fully embed themselves into your business. This is a key part of their success - it is essential that recruiters who are working on behalf of your company have a thorough understanding of your company values and culture to ensure they can be as informative as possible when interviewing candidates, and matching your values.

I would also watch out for any hidden fees or agency style cost per hire charges that could be difficult to predict and expensive. This was a real strength of Instant Impact’s transparent and cost-effective pricing structure and a big part of why we decided to partner with them.

If you are hiring 30+ people per year and are experiencing some of the challenges that we were, I would strongly recommend working with an RPO like Instant Impact. It may seem like a risk to outsource such a key business function, but it provides a lot more control than working with lots of different agencies and, when done properly, it can be the perfect solution.