With the increase in the number of participants in the independent workforce, companies realize they now have access to better talent than ever before. Enterprises with extensive requirements for contingent workforce deal with a massive cost from staffing agencies, quality issues, and lack of control in their day to day operations now understand direct sourcing is here to stay.

Enterprises now understand the advantages of direct sourcing but are challenged “where to start their direct sourcing journey.” While there are multiple models for direct sourcing. Enterprises need to answer several questions to choose an ideal model that fits needs based on the current program and maturity levels. Before enterprises get to direct sourcing, it is essential to ask a few questions to access your requirement:

1. Is your program ready for direct sourcing?

Based on the enterprise’s current hiring need and structure, it is crucial to understand direct sourcing is not always the best solution in every situation. It’s essential to assess the organization’s readiness for a direct sourcing program. Few ways to evaluate your organizational readiness are:

The business already has workforce planning and forecasting in order.

Organization plan to recruit a large pool of contingent workforce

The current model is not serving as a cost advantage.

Need control over the process to gain visibility of dollars spent

Looking to leverage your employer brand to hire contingent workers

Implementation of the whole program or only a particular job category

Current status of contingent workforce program – If currently an MSP driven or self-managed program:

Who would curate the talent,

How to curate the talent?

Is there a need to coordinate with the HR Team? Why? And how?

What vendors and partners are more suitable for the program to make this initiative successful?

2. How can the organization benefit from direct sourcing?

Direct sourcing can provide many cost-savings benefits, but the opposite can also be true if employers don’t have the proper resources or a formal program to manage the process.

Tools like Willhire, an end-to-end direct sourcing technology platform, help in talent attraction, curation, and managing candidates to put the direct souring program on autopilot.

When managed properly, the organization reap the benefits of direct sourcing:

Potential cost saving

Employer branding

Curating and nurturing talent

Talent diversity

More control over the hiring process

Increased manager and talent satisfaction

After accessing these two questions, organizations should look to start their direct sourcing journey.

Here’s how to launch an effective direct sourcing program:

Step One: Set an organizational plan

Any great program needs to have a clear and achievable goal, which needs to be well rounded by people, process, and technology to achieve success. Identifying the right model and all the relevant attributes get you ready to launch. Identifying your MVP (Minimal Viable Product) to establish and measure is mission-critical?

Few important factors to consider:

Internal Buy-in

Employer Branding Strategy

Talent Attraction Modelling

Talent Pool Approach

Talent Curation Process & Owners

Talent Engagement Models

Onboarding & EOR/Payroll Services

Accommodating for the cost of acquisition

Step Two: Measuring the experience design – setting KPI’s

Building a community of engaged contingent workers and future employees is not easy – it requires intentional thinking from the talent’s perspective about participation’s experience and benefits. The real value of the talent pool is as good as curation. It is implementing a curation model that applies to the program with modern-day self-assessment tools and automation.

KPI’s, which will track program success:

Recruitment Budget Spend

Spend by Source

Total Applicants by Source

Organic VS. Paid

Cost per Applicant

Time to Hire

Total Members in Talent Pool (Growth by Week)

Total Referrals & Cost of Referral

Jobs Filled through Direct Sourcing Vs. Supplier Sourced

Supplier Bill Rate Vs. Direct Sourcing Bill Rate Comparison

Step Three: Optimize program architecture.

In tandem with the measurement process, every program needs to keep optimizing its fundamental structure to eliminate unnecessary steps to ensure a better talent experience and improve the key metrics.

To prepare for scale, organizations need to ensure the right mix of tech and process is in place. An essential step in this direction is driving sourcing as a marketing play setup with the right engagement trigger driven by MI/AL.

Leveraging this organization can create:

Build faster curation model

Create niche talent traffic generators

Increasing applicant conversion rate

Improve time to hire rate

Step Four: Scaling your direct sourcing program

For every organization, the end goal of implementing a direct sourcing program is to get the benefits of lower supplier cost and dependencies, hiring quality candidates, and reducing time to hire. But achieving these and moving to a 100% direct sourcing model being the target – it’s essential to repeat steps two and three.

A direct sourcing tool is excellent for managing everything on autopilot mode. Simultaneously, the organization can focus on growing the talent pool to scale the program at large.