With UK staffing agencies still navigating the impact of COVID, more and more are seeking new solutions to drive them through this period and create a solid base for growth.
Between adapting to remote working, addressing financial pressures and anticipating the opportunity to capitalise on the gradual return to freedom of movement, recruitment companies are treading a fine line. It’s never been more important for agencies to adapt their processes and find new ways of making their business as profitable as possible.
As a result of the pandemic, increasing numbers of recruitment companies are turning to Shared Service Center model as a solution.
What is a Shared Service Center?
A Shared service center is a business model that carries out key business activities, like Payrolling or an array of recruitment activities/full-cycle recruitment, without the agency actually owning the property or having to spend on the infrastructure. Recruitment companies are using this model locally, as well as globally. As a business, you want to focus your efforts on providing a first-class frontline service to your valued clients, winningthose hard-to-find contracts and landing hard-to-fill roles that can yield high profits. A Shared Services Model helps you achieve exactly that.
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The SSC model enables recruitment agencies to broaden their reach and connect with new opportunities that they previously considered unattainable..If all branches are being managed by different teams and different setups, your costs are increased by 30%. Not only is this hard to manage, but it also creates a bone of contention. With an SSC, you have a single place of shared services and you liaise with just one or two Point of Contact.
The SSC team also takes care of corporate functions such as IT, accounts, legalities, admin, marketing and HR all under one roof for businesses internationally.
How do recruitment companies use Shared Service Centers?
SSCs are becoming increasingly popular for both small and large recruitment agencies who want to outsource certain back-office business functions.
Smaller agencies are outsourcing part of their back and mid-office processes to SSCs, such as part of their Accounting process or resourcing. Since they deal with a smaller operation, outsourcing just one or two tasks save costs and allow the agency to focus on more business-critical tasks, such as sales and customer service.
Meanwhile, larger companies are feeling the benefit of outsourcing their entire business functions, such as MSP teams, support teams and branch support.
Why are SSCs needed now more than ever?
Recruitment companies are currently juggling more obstacles than ever. With furloughed staff, remote working policies, and a drop in hiring, recruitment companies need to carefully focus on saving costs and generating revenue.
Through the use of SSCs, agencies have been able to remove the burden of administrative tasks. Instead, they have the opportunity to prioritise front-end tasks like sales and customer service.
Due to the uncertainty of today’s market, most companies don’t have the luxury of being able to focus on building elaborate in-house teams. Instead of ‘business as usual’, companies have entered into survival mode. And that means streamlining processes and teams, and cutting costs to maximise profitability.
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What are the benefits of SSC for recruitment agencies?
SSCs offer a number of benefits to the staffing industry:
- Cost savings – Agencies can sustain the back-office functions and growth without having to invest in new infrastructure orrationalise Instead, agencies are just paying a monthly fee for the services and the SSC covers the rest of the costs.
- Best in class Infrastructure – SSCs are specialists in their fields and are therefore already equipped with the necessary infrastructure. There’s no need for agencies to invest in new Infra. SSC covers up to date instruments like telephones, PCs, round the clock surveillance with security personnel, tools and software. All the data is kept under heavy security while remaining fully compliant with GDPR, IR35, etc.
- More accuracy – They cover several business functions. This means recruitment companies don’t have to juggle several external service providers. Instead, they can keep it all under one roof in an SSC where the team all works to the same standards and principles.
- Low risk – Instead of making huge business decisions to invest in more staff or new infrastructure, the SSCs allow recruitment companies to test out new methods for very little cost and on a short-term basis.Eg: If a company can’t risk the high volume – low margin business with their current setup or if it is unmanageable or too expensive, they outsource to a Shared Services Center Model. This removes the risk that comes with investing in new infrastructure, recruiting and training new staff, and managing the operations, KPIs etc.
- Flexible – Companies need flexibility now more than ever. SSCs provide the flexibility to increase or decrease the team size as and when required. This is allowing agencies to quickly respond to fluctuations in hiring demands.
- Time-saving – Companies save time since they’re not responsible for training new staff. Instead, the SSC delivers the training and develops all infrastructure.
- Enhanced Productivity – With the implementation of a Shared Service Center Model, your specific operations are performed by trained staff under experienced supervision. This allows you to focus on revenue-generating activities with your inhouse team. It will enable your team to improve their productivity since they’ll be focusing on core activities. For example, your recruiters can spend more time speaking with candidates instead of sourcing CVs. Similarly, instead of spending time creating contracts, your team can focus on candidate management, relationship building and business development. In turn, you’ll experience a higher number of submissions and close more deals.
What outsourced services do we offer in our SSC?
- Full-cycle recruitment – From CV sourcing to accepting the job offer to formatting CVs, our team is experienced in managing the full spectrum of the recruitment process.
- Sales and Marketing – With a dedicated team for Sales & Marketing, we have the complete infrastructure to help improve your business marketing, including creating onboarding paperwork and marketing materials.
- Accounts – Our SSC has a team of trained professionals ready to manage your recruitment accounts to help you get a better grasp on your business. Services include payroll, credit control, financial reporting, bookkeeping and invoicing.
- Compliance – Whether you’re an SME or a large company, our team is experienced in handling compliance for high-volume hiring.
- Database building – We help agencies to keep on top of the latest candidates through our database building service.
Although staffing agencies are facing huge challenges across the UK, it’s also forcing the industry to find innovative solutions.
The SSC model is allowing recruitment consultancies of all sizes to maximise profits and continue building for the future. It’s brought a powerful opportunity for agencies to restructure, reorganise and refocus their efforts on providing an outstanding service to their clients.
In a time where nothing is certain, it’s paramount that companies maintain as much flexibility in their business as possible, and SSCs are the perfect solution for that.
Interested in finding out more about SSC? Send us an email on info@imspeople.com
