They are known as either Managed Service Providers (MSP) or Managed Staffing Providers (MSP) and their focus is solely on providing qualified talent to their client-a business. They are an outsourced organization that manage a variety of temporary staffing agencies and are used to hired large numbers of temporary workers. MSPs are responsible for the complete life-cycle of employing a contingent worker. This includes circulating the initial request for talent to paying the temporary staffing agencies for workers’ time. An MSP acts as the facilitator between the hiring managers within the client company to the recruiters at the staffing agency. Yet, MSPs are also responsible for streamlining hiring processes, ensuring accurate worker classification, and verifying that all staffing organizations are adhering to required regulatory compliance.
Why work with an MSP?
Not long ago, companies were responsible for the recruiting, hiring and firing of all their staff, regardless if they were contactors, employees, freelancers or contingent workers. With the demand for talent constantly ebbing and flowing, it didn’t take long before hiring managers were looking for an easier and more cost effective solution. Temporary staffing agencies did provide some initial relief to companies overwhelmed with the constantly changing tides of labor requests. Yet, businesses that were feeling the legal, human resources, regulatory and compliance issues of managing various temporary staffing agencies were soon looking for another type of solution. That’s when the idea of an MSP caught fire. Suddenly, a single organization doing the acquiring, screening, and onboarding of employees was not only more time efficient but it streamlined costs, reduced a company’s risk of being non-compliant and lowered HR costs. Today, it is estimated that between 60-80% of Fortune 500 companies employ an MSP for all of the staffing needs.
Who selects the staffing agencies for an MSP staffing program?
Normally, when an MSP is hired by a corporation, they usually refer to the list of the temporary staffing agencies the client regularly works with to fulfill their contingent labor needs. This is done to minimize disruption. However, in the interest of finding the most qualified talent for their client, the MSP will eventually issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) to many other temporary staffing agencies in order to fulfill their client’s growing staffing needs. The result is that the competition among the temporary staffing agencies increases dramatically and the best talent is presented to the client.
How do staffing agencies get selected for a MSP Program?
A MSP usually circulates Request for Information (RFI) to hundreds of temporary staffing agencies, whether locally, nationally or internationally depending on their client’s type of business. The RFI highlights the location, size and style of customers their client attracts. From that point depending on the responses they receive from the staffing agencies, a MSP will issue a more detailed RFP. This will ask more specific questions including an agency’s past performance, strengths and weaknesses. This is usually followed-up by interviews of a temporary staffing agency’s executive team as well reference checks from other vendors. Eventually usually 5-10 temporary staffing agencies are selected for each skill category that has been identified for the client. This is known as the preferred vendor’s list.
Moving into the 21st century
The era of working solely with your company’s HR department, or placing an advertisement in the newspaper for a job posting are long gone. In their place the age of the MSP has arrived with its streamlined recruiting and hiring processes. The advent of this unique type of employment tool, has allowed temporary staffing agencies to focus on what is most important: finding the best qualified candidates for the job. Additionally, MSPs have enabled their clients, many of this country’s Fortune 500, to focus on the business at hand. That is running their companies without having to give a second thought to their ever-evolving staffing needs.