With over a decade of experience in the recruitment industry, Leah leads Sanderson’s Operations Delivery team, who specialise in Contact Centre hires for multiple large FCA regulated clients across the UK.  

The Operations Delivery team are experts in placing high quality candidates in a variety of positions that fall under both the Customer Service and Sales umbrellas, delivering both in volume and at pace, they thrive on absorbing each client’s culture and acting as an extension of their brand.  

Leah and her team understand that every customer is different and as such they will focus on designing and delivering a bespoke solution that successfully meets our client challenges and objectives. 

Here, Leah tells her story of working with a large client in the Financial Services sector who were experiencing an unprecedented demand in sales and customer service hiring, with 525 roles confirmed in Q1.  

What was the challenge?

The client needed a Project RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) partner who could mobilise quickly, adopt their process and technology, understand their culture and values, and deliver a package of 120 hires across some of their key locations. We were selected to do the work due to a combination of the existing relationship with the client and our knowledge of volume hiring capability. 

What did we achieve together?

• Rapid Mobilisation – The talent acquisition team and our team quickly organised a series of workshops to define requirements and agree solutions. Legal and Procurement teams worked swiftly and collaboratively to draft, agree, and sign an agreement within one week, maintaining the momentum of the project
• Orientation and Communication – The whole Sanderson team visited the client, spending time with the talent acquisition team, and meeting recent hires to quickly immerse themselves in the culture, values, and requirements. Both parties ran workshops with senior business stakeholders to explain the purpose of the project, the amended process and the quality control measures in place to ensure that hiring managers received the same quality of service that they enjoyed from the in-house team.
• Execution – We quickly adopted client processes, including brand, technology and diversity monitoring and worked as an extension of the talent acquisition team, providing daily progress reports, and attending team meetings to ensure the smooth running of the project. In addition to delivering the hiring project, we:
  • Invited the client into our offices to show them how we structure delivery and share our approach to talent pipelining and attracting passive candidates.
  • Provided advice, training, mentoring and guidance on the optimum model for talent acquisition at the client.
  • Provided ad hoc, support, guidance, and market intelligence to support our clients talent acquisition transformation programme.  

It is this transparency and partnership that has delivered the most long-lasting results.  

The client has adopted many of our recommendations as part of the restructure and has a renewed confidence that they have the structure, knowledge, and process to continue to deliver an outstanding service to the business in the post pandemic world.  

The immediate results have been exceptional

• Reduced stakeholder involvement (time) by 60%
• Cost per hire reduced by 28%
• Early indications of an increase in employee retention rates

What did the client say?

“The project not only fulfilled an immediate need but gave us a platform to learn and develop. We wouldn’t be where we are today without the contribution of Sanderson.” – Recruitment Manager 

Leah followed on to highlight that:  

“Fostering a strong partnership with our client was vital to the impressive outcomes on this Project RPO, both my teams hard work and our client’s willingness to embrace us as an extension of their team, was key to achieving our shared goals and driving success together. The true testament is the ongoing relationship we still have following the success and the end of the project! If you have any resourcing issues that you would like to discuss, please do not hesitate to reach out to me for an initial conversation on how we could support with a bespoke solution to suit your needs”. 

How Sanderson’s RPO Service Can Help You

We offer agile, scalable and flexible RPO solutions to address any permanent hiring need you may have.  

Whether you’re looking for a fully outsourced solution or need support on a project-by-project basis, Sanderson has the experience to attract, select, onboard, and retain the best permanent talent for you, always ensuring this will evolve in line with the changing needs of your business.  

Interested to find out more about our solutions and the benefits an RPO can provide? Download our RPO service brochure here, or why not check out our website.  

Get in touch

We’re always open to a chat to discuss how we may be able to help you achieve similar results, so please do reach out.  

Are we too small to benefit from an MSP? This is one of the most frequent questions I am asked when meeting with HR and Procurement leaders. Initially MSP services were reserved for large, enterprise organisations with contractor populations of 150+ and an annual spend of more than £30m.

Over the past 12 months, we have seen a significant increase in organisations turning to MSP for the first time. Many of these companies have had smaller contingent worker populations, ranging from 25 to 125 and an annual spend in the region of £5m and £20m. This growing trend was confirmed by Staffing Industry Analysts in their 2024 MSP Global Landscape Survey, when, for the first time they added a question as to whether MSP providers had ‘off the shelf’ programs for small to mid-market clients.

There are several reasons why small to mid-market clients are turning to MSP partners to manage their contingent workforce:

Cost Savings

Limited growth and rising costs in the UK economy has placed a premium on cost control and cost savings. The increased visibility of spend, process efficiencies, economies of scale and cost management initiatives delivered by MSP partners can help companies achieve both immediate cost savings and sustainable efficiencies over the term of the contract.

Governance, Compliance and Risk Mitigation

Ensuring compliance with all regulatory and legal requirements for contingent workers, in particular IR35 and AWR in the UK is vital to organisations of all sizes. Many SME clients find the need to balance effective governance with flexibility and agility a challenge and, without dedicated headcount to manage the contingent workforce, turn to MSP partners to help them navigate the process effectively.

Innovation and future proofing

Whilst many SME clients have established talent acquisition teams, Applicant Tracking Systems and sourcing tools as part of their HR Tech stack, it is rare that this investment includes contingent worker hiring. MSP providers provide expertise in HR Technology and can provide advice, implement and support the optimum technology and tools to effectively manage your contingent workers. Furthermore, with an MSP partner you can expect continuous improvement, innovation and future proofing to play a consistent part of the governance process, meaning that your contingent workforce strategy can evolve, adapt and improve over time.

Consistent access to high quality Contingent Talent

A key concern for organisations who are considering MSP for the first time, particularly those with small to medium sized contingent populations is whether an MSP will compromise access to the high-quality contingent talent often associated with specialist recruitment agencies. The right MSP partner can help increase the quality of talent by combining outstanding candidate sourcing with effective resource planning, consistent screening and streamlined processes.

When meeting clients for the first time, we focus less on the number of contingent workers they have and their annual spend (without the visibility provided by an MSP this is often not known), and ask 5 simple questions:

• Are contingent workers a consistent part of your resourcing strategy?
• Would you like to access the best contingent talent in the most cost-effective manner?
• Do you struggle to gain visibility of contingent workforce spend across your business?
• Is it important that your contingent workforce complies with local regulations and legislation?
• Does recruiting, managing, and onboarding contingent workers take up more time than you would like?

If the answer to some of these questions is yes, then MSP could be the right solution.

How Sanderson can help

Sanderson has a long history of helping companies to understand the benefits and successfully transition to MSP solutions. More than two thirds of our MSP clients are ‘first generation’ and cover a wide variety of industry sectors.

Find out more about how we help our clients with our MSP service here, or feel free to get in touch with me if you’d like you like to have conversation about managing your contingent workforce. [email protected]

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