Recruitment Company owners and managers by nature are sales drivers. The natural traits or make up of a recruiter often deems the recruiter not suitably motivated and/or skilled to manage their backoffice. The growing number and types of backoffice outsourcing options is a testament to that.
With strong progress in technology development, there are now IT platforms that recruiters can use to streamline their business processes, build in efficiencies and improve accuracy. These systems can dramatically reduce the time required to manage the backoffice (depending on the scope of the system chosen) but someone must operate these systems and therefore the management of the process is maintained by the recruiter.
Recruiters starting out on their own or in an early phase of their growth can be attracted to completely outsourcing their backoffice –systems and administration. Offers to completely take the backoffice off their hands are enticing.
A decision to outsource should not be taken lightly. There are some key elements to be assessed:
- Do the systems suit your style of business – e.g. will your customers embrace online timesheets or are they not tech savvy enough?
- What aspects of your business do you want to have control over – e.g. managing relationships with candidates and customers?
- Who owns the assets of the business – e.g. invoices to customers, contracts with customers, candidate pool?
- What functions can you delegate with confidence (whether internally or externally)?
- What are the costs associated with each component – does the total cost make your business uncompetitive
- How flexible is the arrangement with the vendor – how will your vendor work with you if your business grows, shrinks, or changes direction.
There are an array of options to allow the recruiter to design a suited backoffice solution. A mix of systems, administration resources and complete “take off your hands” solutions are available.
Related: Recruitment Process Outsourcing Around The World
In making the choice, it is important to keep in mind that removing functions and responsibilities can also remove value from your business or reduce flexibility for the future. Growing a temp business is considered an optimal way for recruiters to build value but it is critical to keep that value in the business by ensuring the structure at the back-end is right.
Danny Marlow, from APositive Cashflow, recommends that “based on my experience in assisting recruiters with their backoffice, the most balanced model to maximize your time and value in the business would be one that allows the owner to maintain control and ownership over a streamlined backoffice, with a funding arrangement that keeps the cashflow positive”.
There are a bewildering array of options available to business owners. It is not a decision to be taken quickly or without due consideration.
ABOUT APOSITIVE
APositive Cashflow is a specialist payroll funding provider for the Recruitment sector. APositive provide an industry tailored funding platform to help recruiters meet their payroll obligations and streamline their backoffice by integrating this function with other services that have been outsourced by the recruiter.
Danny Marlow, Director of APositive Cashflow, has been providing SME’s with cashflow funding facilities for over 15 years and has accumulated a wealth of experience in the Recruitment sector over that time, having assisted many recruiters pay their payroll on time.
For further information view www.apositive.com.au or email APositive
