Staffing Scorecards: Measuring the Health of your Partner Relationships

What is a staffing scorecard?

The staffing scorecard is a powerful tool to improve the accountability within your contingent workforce program. Think of it like a report card for all the recruitment partners your firm works with, utilizing established metrics to evaluate performance on a number of different subjects.  Scorecards are particularly useful If you’re seeking more consistency or are in the earlier stages of program maturity. 

Do we really need (or want) to use scorecards?

First off, let’s acknowledge the elephant in the room. You may love your primary staffing supplier. They may “get you” and your organization. But once you scale beyond multiple functions or geographies, centralized oversight makes sense. It’s better to foster competition based on results rather than relationships. 

It’s no easy task to move to a scorecard-based performance management system, but it’s well worth the effort. Here are just a few top line benefits: 

• Reduces concerns about vendor favoritism or cronyism
• Provides common terminology and definitions for key performance indicators
• Establishes a system of record across the enterprise 
• Sets a benchmark for new vendor evaluation as you grow

Today, we’ll share how we use scorecards with our clients and MSP partners to increase collaboration and mutual success. In part two of this series, we’ll take a closer look at how to analyze the five pillars of the typical scorecard—Activity, Quality, Price, Speed, and Compliance—both separately and together. 

Before you start: building out the structure 

Obviously, the data that feeds the scorecard doesn’t just magically appear. All too often that data comes from the inconsistent spreadsheets, sticky notes, and Applicant Tracking System (ATS) entries of your hiring managers and HR departments, especially if you’re operating without a Vendor Management System (VMS, a technology platform that manages the job distribution to payments processes). If it’s cumbersome for the team making the hires to track related metrics, your intake process will bog down. 

Once you gain control of the critical success data points you want to track and how to track them, you need to establish a dedicated resource to manage the vendor management data and process. That person typically operates within the supply chain, talent acquisition, or HR departments, but they need executive sponsorship. Yes, this adds overhead, but if “everyone” owns the system, no one will. 

Too much of a good thing? Narrowing in

What performance metrics should you be tracking in a scorecard? Where’s the sweet spot between being a useful diagnostic and an overwhelming distraction? It depends on a few things. Look to the organization’s vision and mission for clues. If you’ve built your reputation on premier quality, emphasize metrics such as submittal-to-interviews. If you’re in startup mode launching new products, you might weight response time higher to meet aggressive deadlines. 

Early in the scorecard journey, you might opt to use just a few key metrics within each pillar of Activity, Quality, Price, Speed, and Compliance. Then, balance the category weights to align with your business priorities. Starting with a pilot also has the advantage of helping with change management, both internally and externally. 

A two-way street: sparking dialogue 

The goal of the scorecard is to measure the health of your staffing partnerships to optimize outcomes. But qualitative analysis needs to complement quantitative calculations. The best scorecards provide formal and informal opportunities for your suppliers to receive and provide direct feedback. 

It’s in your best interests to solicit constructive criticism. Let’s say a top supplier’s response rate to openings tracks downward. Dig deeper. The less likely they are to make a placement, the more likely recruiters will prioritize a responsive client’s job orders. Are your managers taking too long to provide feedback? Is one manager driving people away? The scorecard can cue up tough conversations that ultimately strengthen the partnership. 

That’s a great example of why it’s important to review the scorecards quarterly with your partners. Regularly scheduled sessions ensure that two-way communication gets proper air time, not only to discuss areas of improvement but also to reinforce what is working well. Quarterly meetings also serve as a valuable checkpoint on the availability of talent in the market and how candidates are responding to job openings. 

Get scoring

With the right mindset and metrics, the staffing scorecard can move beyond identifying what’s happening to predicting what’s coming. It’s a proactive tool that levels the playing field and reduces chances for miscommunication or misrepresentation of efforts. Talk about a win-win!

Check out our staffing scorecard examples.

Reach out if you'd like talk through how your organization might benefit from implementing staffing scorecards.