From transactional to trusted: a talent partnership that delivers.

Challenge: adapting to shifting dynamics and evolving partnerships.

How does a Fortune 10 healthcare company transform talent acquisition (TA) across North America and EMEA to keep ahead of leadership shifts and ongoing mergers and acquisitions (M&A)? The answer is a consultative, data-driven partnership that reignites innovation — ultimately, accelerating hiring for 30,000+ contingent and permanent employees annually.

We identified three challenges impacting our client's operational efficiency and alignment:

1. Managing leadership transitions.

Changes in senior leadership made collaboration even more challenging in an already large talent team and stakeholder community. A more structured working approach was needed.

2. Evolving partnerships.

Transactional relationships with multiple recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) providers limited TA flexibility and evolution. The organization needed a trusted partner to offer strategic guidance and tackle current and future challenges.

3. Building a flexible, integrated hiring solution.

M&A-driven shifts in business priorities demanded a scalable program that aligned with evolving needs and stakeholder expectations while ensuring operational efficiency across permanent and contingent workforce teams.

Solution: partnership, performance, and agility.

Our solutions focused on three core pillars: reflective client partnerships, performance optimization, and agility.

Actions included:

Restructuring delivery teams

We realigned delivery teams to focus on business areas rather than job types, helping TA focus on business challenges. Using five years of permanent and contingent performance data from our Sevayo® talent data integration platform, we applied predictive analytics and machine learning to assign the right resources to fulfill skills needs on time. This data-driven strategy improved agility to support evolving client goals.

Fostering operational excellence

We applied best practices from our proven operational excellence function to drive continuous process improvement and operational efficiency. Through cross-functional collaboration, performance monitoring, and data-driven intelligence, we fostered a culture of accountability and excellence across key operational areas.

Driving strategic collaboration

We leveraged outcomes from the client’s internal “RPO Reimagined” project to co-design their global RPO strategy, enhancing communication, governance, and alignment across multiple business lines. We also applied lessons learned to the contingent hiring program, cultivating shared learning to deliver a unified “best-in-class” experience.

Expanding client services leadership

We expanded our leadership team to support the client's needs, enabling us to respond quickly to shifting priorities, offer stronger guidance, and manage large volume fluctuations.

Prioritizing change management

We developed a comprehensive strategy to ensure smooth transitions, clear communication, and a culture of continuous improvement. This strategy was adopted enterprise wide. 

Result: an agile and efficient permanent hire function.

• 30% increase in total hires managed: We captured additional business from competing hiring partners within a year’s time by challenging the status quo and fostering innovation.
• 300% fluctuation in hiring volumes managed: We leveraged predictive analytics to successfully manage wide variations in hiring volume (ranging from 500 to 2,000 positions) while consistently meeting or exceeding permanent hiring SLAs, overachieving contingent hiring supplier targets, and maintaining high program quality without altering the team structure.
• Record high in hiring manager satisfaction: The team earned an all-time high net promoter score (NPS) of 87, a more than 29-point increase, reflecting increased client advocacy and willingness to recommend us.
• Improved candidate experience: The candidate NPS score increased by over 20 points through targeted initiatives.

This content was originally published by Sevenstep. Kelly® acquired Motion Recruitment Partners, including its talent acquisition brand Sevenstep, and integrated Sevenstep within its KellyOCG® business.