Why is establishing a trusted partnership between providers and customers such a challenge in today’s RPO market? Customers are asking for more and service providers are going the extra mile, even involving CEO’s in many of their customer relations. Yet, trust seems to be the missing piece of the puzzle and in many cases, preventing end-to-end RPO engagements from coming to fruition.

One major reason is the lack of standardization around pricing and practices. Without transparency or an accurate way to measure ROI, organizations are not sure if they are getting the most from their RPO investments and hesitant to move forward. Not surprising, 30% of companies feel that the price for RPO services is too high and 23% do not know if it is too high since they have little to benchmark against. Compounding this problem is the fact that over the past year, many of these providers have significantly reduced costs in order to acquire and retain customers. Until solution providers disclose information around pricing and practices, organizations will feel lost when re-evaluating their investment or looking to make changes for the future.

How can today’s providers help to establish this trust?

• Company culture: Although it may sound superfluous, establishing the right cultural fit with your solution provider is one of the most critical components of a trusted partnership. Through our research, we found that leading solution providers (such as Pinstripe, The Right Thing, SourceRight Solutions, Kenexa, Talent 2 and Futurestep) are adapting to the culture of the client and gaining an understanding of the business acumen of the hiring managers they are dealing with

• Scalability: Many of RPO contracts last for three years, organizations need to make sure that their solutions providers are scalable and can adapt to changes of both a strong and weak economy. During periods of strong economic growth, organizations are looking to hire rapidly and need to augment their sourcing support and possibly adjust their cost per hire. During periods of economic slowdown, organizations need greater help with process re-engineering and handling resume overload.

• Service Level Agreements (SLA’s): Solution providers should continue to provide guidance around key performance indicators included in Service Level Agreements (SLA’s)

RPO can help organizations create greater efficiencies as well as reduce costs and save time during both a strong and weak economy. At a time when organizations are revamping their talent acquisition strategies and looking to create a more consistent and streamlined recruitment process, RPO needs to position itself as transformational rather than transactional.