Welcome to the new RPOA website. Welcome to the “New RPOA”. About 8 years ago, John Younger, Kevin Wheeler, Jimmy Taylor and I shook hands and created the RPOA. The first ever association of RPO thought leaders. Over the years this great industry has grown however true thought leadership has slipped into a bit of a slumber over the past few years. I think a couple factors caused us to hit the pause button. First, the economy was great, our companies were growing and we were all very busy trying to manage the growth. Second, the economy tanked and we were all very busy managing the free fall.
There was one other factor that led to the silence over the past few years. A couple years ago, the Recruitment Process Outsourcing Association (RPOA) and the Recruitment Process Outsourcing Alliance (a special interest group of the HROA) agreed to a merger. After working for a couple years to get that merger done, the RPOA pulled back from the merger. The merger stalled for months as parties waited, one on the other, to move the deal forward. During this time, the members were tremendously under served. John Younger poured his heart and so much time and resources into getting this deal done and for that we are all very grateful. Likewise, the Alliance invested time and energy into the merger and along the way we developed a great deal of mutual regard for each other.
John and I got a little weary of this process so we met with our RPOA Board and unanimously agreed that we would end all merger activities and rather focus our efforts and resources back on the members.
I remember 8 years ago that when we would all get together there was amazing energy and optimism in the room. That went away for a while, however, on the day that the Board met and decided to not pursue the merger any further, that energy was back and stronger than ever. So over the past couple months we have utilized that passion to kick things off and get things moving better than ever before.
Our immediate goal is simply - GET PEOPLE TALKING AND COLLABORATING WITH ONE ANOTHER.
We are excited to announce that we will immediately resume our executive member calls where we will discuss real issues on a monthly basis. Additionally we have changed our membership framework and added a couple new levels. Executive members in good standing will also be allowed to have Executive Constituent Members at no charge. These members will be members of Senior Leadership Teams within RPO. The second membership is Practitioner Member, also no charge for team members of an Executive member in good standing. These members are your employees who practice within your business and will be encouraged to collaborate with one another.
Executive Members and Executive Constituent Members will be encouraged to attend the Executive calls on a monthly basis (requires registration). Practitioner Members will be encouraged to attend the monthly calls specifically designed for RPO practitioners (registration required).
Other changes besides the new website is that we have purchased an Association Management Software to assist the Board with communication, member management, blogs and much more. We believe this will greatly enhance our ability to meet our goals.
So, again, welcome to the New RPOA. I encourage you to consider for just one moment what this really means. You are the RPOA. We have all been silent. The changes and issues hitting our industry are vast and require serious dialog between committed professionals. You are the RPOA and we need to associate with one another now more than ever. Join John Younger, Kevin Wheeler, Kurt Ronn, Terry Terhark and myself in the great dialog that is to come.
Mike Mayeux is Novotus CEO and RPOA Co-founder.
