You might be tempted to think that delivery in our business is only about filling roles – and, yes, that is the ultimate goal but we shouldn’t ignore the journey that leads us there. Today, the key to successful talent solutions is determined by a purposeful delivery experience designed to drive value for the customers.
Jay Eardly, Global Head of Service Design & Delivery
In this article, I share insights on key components of talent solutions delivery and showcase how Pontoon ensures client success through our reimagined Global Delivery Network (GDN).
Some benefits of global delivery models are evident – seamless integration of resources across disparate global locations operating 24/7 at a reduced cost. However, I would argue that what clients are truly looking for in a delivery experience is consistency, expertise, and continuous improvement.
To support companies in achieving business goals, talent providers must demonstrate a deep understanding of their client’s industry. Any dependable talent provider needs to be proactive in spotting the ways in which processes can be optimised. When the hiring strategy improves, so does the client delivery to their internal customers.
The relationship between a talent provider and their client is a symbiotic one. It requires trust, open communication, and consistency in responding to unpredictable external factors in an ever-changing talent landscape.
It’s only natural that, in meetings, clients will ask: “That’s great – but what’s next?”. Some programme leaders might feel discouraged by being just as good as their last quarter’s performance, but they shouldn’t give in to that feeling. On the contrary, questions like that drive the services industry forward, enabling its growth and motivating us all to become better at our jobs.
I see at least three factors that drive a successful delivery experience: integration, automation, and scalability. All three are crucial to how Pontoon has been reimagining delivery as a strategic priority designed for our clients’ benefit.
A key component of ensuring consistent delivery from one customer to another, integration allows talent providers to streamline operations and eliminate inefficiencies, ensuring better results for customers. By eliminating duplication of efforts, optimising processes, and leveraging economies of scale, we can operate more effectively and reduce client costs.
Integrating processes and systems allow Pontoon to automate workflows, share data, and improve overall operational efficiency. This translates into faster and more comprehensive talent solutions. Importantly, integration is also the necessary groundwork for elevated automation.
By integrating delivery, we can combine instances of automation that are already in use in different programmes and apply them across the entire business. While automation is not a magic wand that can solve all problems, it can often boost efficiency. Automation is crucial for scaling operations seamlessly to meet fluctuating demand and manage large numbers of requisitions. Once workflows are automated, it becomes easier to streamline processes and consistently maintain service levels.
As Pontoon’s RPA (Robotic Process Automation) journey demonstrates, automation does not eliminate the invaluable human touch embedded in workforce solutions. On the contrary, automation enables us to redeploy resources to more demanding tasks where our talented colleagues can act as the client’s consultative partners, seeking to deliver cost savings. Our experience shows that leveraging AI tools helps with demand planning and reduces time to fill.
While highly-customisable boutique solutions are appreciated by customers, talent providers should also ensure they’re able to scale operations. This allows them to serve all organisations better – regardless of industry, location, targeted job profile, and the challenges a specific hiring programme might be facing.
By gathering and analysing data about market trends, recruitment metrics, and workforce planning, and then sharing that knowledge across all programmes, Pontoon enables more informed decision-making and faster response to challenges as they emerge. With the assistance of Pontoon’s analytics and BI teams, our clients can even predict those challenges by leveraging predictive analytics for improved cost management, demand planning, and decision intelligence.
Scalability is especially important for global delivery models where operations are distributed across multiple geographies and time zones. Through internal collaboration between hubs within Pontoon’s Global Delivery Network, we can accordingly adjust the delivery model and support clients whenever and wherever they need.
Candidate experience and customer outcomes have always been at the core of Pontoon’s culture but once we transformed our four customer hubs – in EMEA, the US, and APAC – into a truly global and integrated delivery network, we could unlock an entirely new level of customisable screening, sourcing, and talent delivery solutions for our clients.
We designed the new Global Delivery Network (GDN) to focus on these key value adds:
Direct sourcing speeds up the recruitment process by leveraging employer-branded talent communities created from proactively vetted candidates with relevant experience and interest in working at your company. The role of GDN is to support our MSP and RPO programme teams via a shared services model in order to accelerate sourcing, screening, and recruiting for our clients.
Expertise spanning all major industries within life sciences, industrials, financial services, technology, and consumer products allows Pontoon’s GDN to offer robust screening and sourcing for all types of roles. An in-depth, data-driven understanding of skills availability across various geographic locations makes our GDN team experts in their field. Our people support over 30 countries worldwide, sourcing 1.3 million candidates and screening more than 550,000 job-seekers a year.
Pontoon’s GDN can be easily leveraged for digital campaigns that nurture our talent communities, use client branding and EVP to attract qualified candidates through strategic social media and email campaigns, and create awareness around hiring events to ensure their success, even in demanding locations.
Whether it is onshore, offshore, nearshore, or a hybrid mix, Pontoon’s GDN is ready to support our client programmes, responding with lightning-fast speed, managing ramp-up, and handling high-volume hiring initiatives in any location. With GDN, Pontoon’s programmes can grow and evolve together with our clients’ needs.
Click here to learn more about how Pontoon’s Global Delivery Network can support you on your hiring journey. Do not hesitate to reach out to us for more information.
