Workforce Visibility

5 ways to add value to an MSP via Business Analytics

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Challenges in hiring and maintaining performance can arise in any company. Whether it's a lack of available talent, minimum pipelining in place or a simple drop in productivity over time, these challenges are problems that need to be addressed.

When working with Allegis Global Solutions (AGS) as a Managed Service Provider (MSP), however, you find that there are ways we can work together to overcome these hurdles. By leveraging our Business Analytics team to provide support in combating these challenges, you can add value to your MSP solution and your business.

1. Using industry benchmarking against attrition

A healthcare provider client had seen a marked increase in the number of people working in its business over the space of a year due to the volume of call center roles it had. However, during this period it was also experiencing negative attrition as the volume of successful assignment finishes started to fall.

In call centers, we were able to establish from our portfolio that successful attrition should be sitting at around 30%, but through ACUMEN workforce intelligence, we identified that our client was achieving just 16% in its centers against this benchmark.

We were able to be proactive rather than reactive with our client, and we were able to identify key skills that play into specific call center roles, and how these differ from other positions. This allowed us to create a profile of what the role should consist of, and meant that we could distribute reference sheets to providers to distribute to onboarded candidates, allowing them to better convey the responsibilities and expectations of the role, which can help improve attrition.

2. Moving roles from one location to another

A finance sector client was beginning to see an increase in negative attrition, largely due to the changing workforce and the skills needed to fill new roles as termination trends rose. Banking industry negative attrition should be around 28% on average, but our client had seen rates of 22.8% and 25% in successive years, bringing it in below average.

Through both quantitative and qualitative research, we were able to identify that our client was hiring near a major city, which meant less talent in its suburban location. This was largely due to the commute on working days, which took two hours from the major city. It therefore meant that we were able to identify that the commute itself was negatively affecting attrition, and we were able to recommend relocating roles from the suburb into the city itself, where there are more skilled workers. This allowed our client to remain competitive with top talent in the area.

3. Aligning goals with program performance

Our retail client was struggling to keep on target in terms of the established supplier scorecard goal of 80% for successful contractor assignment completions. To better align the client goals with program performance, we were able to use business analytics to determine that with over 400 contractors, just a single bad performance could mean a supplier failing its metric, and the percentage of assignment completions dropping significantly.

We were therefore able to realign goals with the client in mind, and recommend a drop in the supplier finish goal to 75%, which meant that the accuracy of performance ratings would be maintained without any drop in service quality. Once implemented, we were able to see a real improvement in quarterly successful finishes, with 80% of suppliers hitting targets, and scorecard performance improved across the board with better accuracy.

4. Creating attainable service level agreements

In working with another financial services client, it was discovered that the industry it worked in had changed markedly over the past five years, and that the service level agreements in place were no longer meeting today's market conditions.

From analyzing the agreements previously in place, it was clear that there was a wide distribution of data, which meant potential for outliers affecting averages. We identified that it was key to make sure agreements were therefore not just challenging but attainable.

Our Business Analytics team recommended a cycle time goal of 3.0 business days for the client, in line with financial services in general. We also changed time-to-offer conditions to include only business days to make goals more attainable, as well as adherence to the AGS Way best practices, including the use of ReqZone.

5. Increasing accurate job template usage

A travel client was experiencing a problem with inaccuracies in job role templates which caused the client to experience issues with cost savings, bill rate management, and other areas of performance.

Using the wrong job title template can mean people being paid more than they should be for their role. Our Business Analytics team was able to show that realigning 151 job titles to the template title they fit best would mean annualized missed avoidance for 2016 of over $1,200,000 in cost savings.

This analysis shows us the importance of correct templates, allowing us to redefine templates and recommend looking into why managers use the wrong templates when hiring as a precursor to changing behaviors for the better.

Is your organization looking for an MSP that can add value through business analytics? Learn more about our global MSP solutions and how we can help you overcome challenges.

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    Written by Leslie Ethington
    Leslie Ethington has over 25 years of industry experience, with her primary focus being process improvement, business analytics and business intelligence. Leslie has played an integral role in the success of AGS and was an original member of the Acumen Workforce Intelligence product development team. Today, Leslie splits responsibility between the AGS Global Business Analytics team and the Acumen team, working to implement workforce intelligence strategies and best practice standards for reporting and analytics for AGS clients.