Johns Hopkins University is changing the way it hires temporary employees: A new partnership has been formed with Randstad Corporate Services to bring greater consistency to the onboarding process while saving the university up to $2.3 million each year. A staggered rollout of Randstad's services—including a Web-based requisitioning tool and time sheets—begins in mid-March in the schools of Public Health and Nursing, with the Department of Medicine and IT@JH following by the end of March. The remainder of the School of Medicine and all other academic divisions in the university will begin working with Randstad by mid-April.
Randstad, which will have an office at Johns Hopkins at Eastern, was chosen as JHU's sole provider of temporary services after a thorough review of best practices by the faculty and staff serving on the university's Procurement Advisory Committee. The procurement team was commissioned in summer 2013 with the launch of the Administrative Excellence Initiative, designed to improve service levels, curb spending growth, and allow the university to devote more resources to its core research, education, and service missions.
The university currently spends $10.2 million each year on temporary staffing. It is estimated that working with Randstad will result in savings of up to 23 percent each year. Beyond saving money, the university is placing a premium on improved service as the transition gets under way.
"Our Human Resources team and Randstad are working together to ensure an orderly transition that both meets the university's needs and supports the temporary workers currently on assignment here," wrote Charlene Moore Hayes, vice president for human resources, in an email to university employees. "It is important to note that current temporary staff will not lose their assignments; their pay rates will remain the same, based on continued good performance."
Randstad is a leader in the recruitment, selection, and retention of information technology, administrative, clinical, manufacturing, and professional talent. The company will offer on-site resources ranging from professional group affiliations to Internet social networking and specialty recruiting sites. Working with Randstad, university administrators say, will lead to further process standardization and improvements, reduced costs, improved quality, and a value-added partnership where continuous improvements can be implemented.
Randstad's account management team will be discussing continuity of service with the university's current temporary staffing agencies. Additionally, JHU and Randstad have agreed to work with other temporary staffing agencies that are best-suited to serve in our approved-supplier network, where needed. Randstad is contacting these providers—including those temp agencies currently being used throughout the university—to discuss potential relationships. Note that managers in the School of Medicine will use Randstad to engage Intrastaff and AMN Healthcare for temporary clinical staffing support, if needed.
To support a successful transition, a series of training sessions is planned for early March for those who manage temporary staff to learn more about this change as well as the company's user-friendly Web tools.
Managers are asked to continue to direct their business to current suppliers until receiving notice from the university in the event that the rollout dates change.
Questions may be directed to JHUhumanresources@jhu.edu or JHUstaffing@randstadusa.com.
Posted in University News
