In this article we will address: (i) why a staffing agency should be concerned with employee experience; (ii) what differentiates one staffing agency from another; (iii) how a staffing agency benefits from EX and; (iv) what an EX model looks like in practice at a staffing agency.
Why Should a Staffing Agency Focus on Employee Experience (EX)?
Competitive Advantage is mostly thought of through offerings and marketplace. What do you sell that makes you different from other companies? What does your widget have, that the other widget does not? We must consider if an offering’s differentials are truly competitive advantage, or merely differentiators? How does a company produce, sell or market the widgets? These functions would not be possible without thriving human capital. For a staffing agency, the very lifeblood of the business is human capital. Besides the obvious of account managers and recruiters – the offering is an exchange of human capital.
What Differentiates one Staffing Agency from Another?
How does a staffing agency differentiate itself from others? A simple Google Search will bring hundreds of results within a given area. Other than varying vertical focuses, what is the true differentiator between the agencies? Size, time-to-delivery, or some other KPI? These are differentiators as opposed to competitive advantages. The most effective and revealing competitive advantage is how a staffing agency interacts and treats its talent after placement. The reason why this is the most revealing competitive advantage is because it displays if a staffing agency is truly abiding by its espoused company values.
How does a Staffing Agency Benefit from EX?
In other businesses wherein, the human capital is in-house; EX has a stronger prima facie case. This very thought is a dangerous thought to have. Staffing agencies should view all talent pool as the talent pool without a qualifier of positionality. Rather, the distinguisher should be between external and internal employees. External and internal employees are varied only by their roles. How the external employees are treated, and their brand experience is vital for recurring and long-lasting business. Referrals are a game changer and an easy way to greatly increase talent pool. People refer their friends, comrades, and acquaintances for experiences and opportunities which they enjoy and see value. Referrals are limited due to poor EX because social capital is expended when someone vouches for something. Moreover, robust and deliberate EX models decrease turnover and increases loyalty by creating a meta KPI which will now come into consideration when external talent is thinking about making a career change. In addition, when there is honest, real and deliberate rapport between recruiters and their external colleagues this fosters preemptive conversation wherein churn can be identified earlier and remedied.
What does EX look like in practice at a Staffing Agency?
EX looks the exact same externally as it does internally. Sending messages for Birthdays, work anniversaries and remembering certain unique facts about each external employee. Depending on the size of an agency’s external workforce the use of a CRM may be needed to keep all dates organized.
Beyond this, EX us being deliberate in checking in with external talent to see how they are doing, how they are liking their placement. There cannot be a disconnect between the energy that is used when placing the candidate. The removal of that energy will be felt by external talent, and allow or external talent to feel expendable, which will increase churn.
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