RPO and MSP Definitions

JCSI is starting to see some larger clients begin to ask about “Total Workforce Solutions.” This trend is effectively the combination of the RPO and MSP functions. In short:

Total Workforce Solutions = Recruitment Process Outsourcer (RPO)+ Managed Services Provider (MSP)

But what are an RPO and MSP?

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is industry jargon, which means outsourcing a component or all of your permanent placement hiring process. In contrast, Managed Service Providers (MSP) covers outsourcing one or all of the elements of temporary and contract staffing.

Whether you are looking at permanent (RPO), non-permanent (MSP) hiring, or both, the most important thing to clarify is what the problem is that you are trying to solve.

For example, do you have a seasonality issue for hiring a specific role? Is it a churn issue with the permanent workforce? Are you paying too much to agencies?

Or are you having a payroll issue with your temporary staff, is your temporary staff not reliable, etc., etc.… As you’ve seen over the years, each client is unique in the issue they are looking to solve.

Rarely have we seen a company with real issues simultaneously in both temporary and permanent placement functions in their organization. Usually, the impetus for a transition to a single-source vendor (Total Workforce Solution) comes from the want to reduce cost. This is done by eroding some of the margins paid to each provider and consolidating into one spend. While this may be a significant initiative for some companies, it leads to quality and other issues that erode the original cost savings projections.