How to Launch and Perfect Your Direct Sourcing Strategy

Many organizations are looking to incorporate a direct sourcing and procurement strategy to combat the challenges that have come with the shortage of talent.

Previously, we covered laying the groundwork, getting the green light, and building a scalable framework for your direct sourcing program. In the final part of our three-part blog post series, we’re going to explore how to pilot, refine, and expand your direct sourcing program, prepare to engage, and perfect the art of grassroots curation.

Launch your Direct Sourcing Strategy with a Pilot Program

Direct sourcing is a marathon, not a sprint, which is why experienced direct sourcing leaders recommend using a pilot program first instead of diving in immediately. A pilot program is a way to test a new strategy on a micro level before implementing it on a wider scale across your organization. Try launching direct sourcing in an area of your business where it could make a significant impact and help make the case for program expansion.

Consider starting by focusing on specific skill sets, for example. After the pilot begins to function as planned for those skill sets, then expand to other categories like IT, accounting and finance, HR, and others as needed.

By taking a gradual approach, you can validate that all the elements and aspects of the procurement strategy are working as expected and can find a sweet spot where the demand for talent, employer brand, and stakeholder support is the strongest. Remember to set achievable business goals and review them at regular intervals to refine if needed before moving on to expansion sequentially from one business unit to another.

Find out how leveraging your employer brand can help you drive cost savings and improve agility when you download our solution brief.

Prepare to Engage

To help ensure you attain hiring goals quickly, there are two additional steps to complete: incorporating the human touch and getting your house in order.

1. Incorporate the Human Touch. A high-touch direct sourcing strategy requires human interaction, which is key for attracting talent and making sure that top talent has a positive experience throughout their journey with your organization. This means going beyond good communication by creating a sense of belonging, and promoting community, acceptance, and inclusion in interactions with workers. According to research from BetterUp and Deloitte, not only does this increase job performance by 56%, but it also reduces turnover risk by 50%.
   
   
2. Real-World Success Story: This “concierge approach” created results right out of the gate for an information technology company. Within the first 90 days of incorporating a high-touch approach, its curation team filled 75% of demand for contingent workers through direct sourcing, exceeding its goal of 30%. Now, over 70,000 people are registered in the company’s private talent cloud, and fulfillment time averages five days. See how implementing direct sourcing also benefitted an international healthcare organization and helped it reduce costs when you read our case study.
   
   
3. Get Your House in Order. Anticipate roadblocks and how to deal with them early on to ensure the implementation of direct sourcing initiatives goes smoothly. Establish rules of engagement with contractors and proactively negotiate new conversion terms with staffing suppliers as needed to avoid possible disputes.
   
   In addition, link standardized job descriptions to real-time compensation data to help curation teams make competitive offers to contractors and prevent losing talent to the competition or violating pay equity laws in some countries. Finally, it is critical that you familiarize curation teams and line managers with data privacy regulations for contingent workers to ensure your organization is fully compliant.

Perfect the Art of Grassroots Curation

The most effective direct sourcing campaigns tend to begin at a grassroots level. Begin by reaching out through your employees’ talent networks and get the word out by posting contract and contract-to-hire positions on the company’s career page and LinkedIn page. Invite more contractors to join and expand the talent network, including past and present workers, interns, alumni, silver medalists, and promising candidates.

Many employers also find it beneficial to unite talent acquisition and marketing throughout the initial social media campaigns to make freelance workers aware of contracting opportunities. Leveraging your employment brand as much as possible through these avenues will not only produce the best-quality candidates but help build a robust talent pool faster.

If you’re thinking about incorporating a direct sourcing program into your company, turning to other professionals who have successfully made the transition is always a good place to start. Take some time to find out what works and what doesn’t, and make adjustments along the way until you get the desired results.

To learn more about the elements of a successful direct sourcing strategy and get best practices from pioneers, download our white paper.