Why Work with a Functional Service Provider (FSP)
By Ryan Jacklin, Orbis Clinical VP of Client Solutions
With the increasing number of clinical trials conducted all over the world comes a greater demand for clinical research staffing. However, due to the complex nature of clinical research and the competitiveness in life science recruitment, organizations often struggle to allot the necessary time and resources to find and hire the right people. This is where a life sciences recruitment agency, like Orbis Clinical, can help.
Orbis Clinical provides organizations with reliable solutions in life sciences staffing. One particular solution is Orbis’ functional service provider (FSP) model: OC Link. The FSP model is an excellent solution for organizations struggling with labor outsourcing.
However, organizations often find themselves in the dilemma of choosing between the typical staff augmentation model or trying out the FSP model. This article will dive deeper into the differences in each model to help organizations who are making this decision.
Why Organizations Use the Staff Augmentation Model
The staff augmentation model is often seen as the traditional way to go about life sciences staffing. In this model, life sciences staffing agencies will recruit individual candidates on a contractual or temporary basis. For clinical trials, this often means having talent on board only for the duration of the clinical trial or until their services are required.
1. Scalability
Scalability is often a vital factor to consider in clinical research staffing. Organizations seek the freedom to scale their operations up and down, depending on their needs. This is often the top reason organizations choose to go with a staff augmentation model as every organization has the flexibility to scale up, when workload increases, and scale down as studies are completed all without affecting internal headcount and related costs.
2. Quicker Turnaround Time
Clinical research is often time-sensitive, thus, having a quicker turnaround time is crucial. Searches for permanent hires often average at least three to four months from start to finish. However, searches for contractors only average a two to three-week turnaround.
Additionally, if there is no approved headcount, organizations will have the option to bring in talent immediately. This can help organizations hit critical timelines by getting the right talent onboarded through Orbis Clinical.
The Orbis recruitment team specializes specifically in recruiting both active and passive job seekers in the life sciences market only. This ensures that companies receive profiles of highly skilled contractors or consultants, within 24 to 48 hours, who are ready to start when you need them.
3. More Focused Work
With permanent roles, organizations often have certain responsibilities to fulfill upon hiring. These responsibilities include benefits, HR issues, pay, and the like. But in a staff augmentation model, the life sciences recruitment agency will be handling all of this overhead and responsibility.
This allows organizations to focus on the more critical aspects of running a clinical trial. With the Orbis vetting process, organizations and employees responsible for hiring will save significant time and energy interviewing, allowing for more time to focus on the business at hand.
4. Cost-Effectiveness
Cost is often a top consideration when it comes to clinical research staffing. That’s why many organizations prefer the staff augmentation model. In this model, organizations will only be billed for the contractor’s time. This is more cost-effective compared to permanent hires, which utilize a much larger flat fee as well as incurring all the additional overhead of that employee.
Why Organizations Use the FSP Model
While the staff augmentation model has its benefits over the permanent hire model, it is not always the perfect solution for every organization or situation. For clinical trials in particular, going with the functional service provider (FSP) model may be ideal.
This personnel sourcing model allows organizations to contract full or partial support for certain functions in the clinical trial services. The FSP model is often used when an organization wishes to build out a full team or department for its clinical trial.
Similar to the staff augmentation model, the FSP model shares certain advantages over permanent hires, such as scalability, cost-effectiveness, and more focused work. However, the FSP model takes life sciences staffing to the next level by offering additional benefits.
Orbis’s niche recruiting specialization explained above allows Orbis Clinical to deliver project teams with high-quality talent, quickly and efficiently. It also caters to the unique needs of each organization through its flexible nature.
1. Simplified Invoice and Billing
Since the FSP model essentially allows organizations to contract with Orbis Clinical to staff a full project team, there will only be one invoice for the entire project team. This is much easier to manage than multiple individual invoices. Billing will also be less complicated as the pricing is consistent regardless of how many hours a resource works.
2. Better Project Management
The success of a clinical trial often depends on good project management. However, with so many different individuals and teams working on the project, it can become difficult to oversee. This is where the FSP model can come in handy. Orbis’ FSP model, OC Link, focuses on efficiency and optimization, taking care of additional tasks such as:
- Managing the entire team while also reporting back to the client.
- Scheduling regular performance meetings with the team to ensure everyone is meeting their deadlines.
- Addressing any gaps in work performance and resolving issues and concerns from both sides.
- Ensuring resources are allocated and utilized properly to minimize waste.
- Actively looking for areas of improvement and working with the team to find optimal solutions for these.
- Taking care of administrative duties so that team members can focus on the more critical elements of their work.
3. Streamlined Communication
Some organizations may be hesitant to use the FSP model due to communication concerns. After all, having a middleman can often mean miscommunication between the team and the client. However, the opposite is true for the Orbis FSP model.
Orbis holds weekly cadence meetings with all consultants to ensure engagement, performance, and other pertinent issues are properly discussed. They will also create a consistent governance model so that both OC and the clients are aware of responsibilities, expectations, and management.
OC Link will have consistent communication with the team members to ensure everything runs smoothly. Having someone they can air their grievances to can also help them feel valued in their work, improving motivation and productivity.
The OC representative will also be in constant contact with the client, giving them regular updates and ensuring that their expectations are met.
Final Thoughts
Finding the right people for your clinical trial is a top priority. However, organizations often overlook the importance of finding the right clinical research staffing model for their unique needs. If you are looking for more control, a more cost-effective approach to typical outsourcing models, and a skilled team that is customized to your needs then OC Link, the Orbis FSP model, is for you. Explore FSP for your organization and contact us today!
About the Author
Ryan Jacklin leads the Orbis Clinical Business Development Team, based in Woburn, Massachusetts. With over 18 years of experience recruiting in Life Sciences, Ryan has led recruiting and business development initiatives across all facets of Research & Development and Technical Operations for clients from small start-ups to Fortune 500s. Ryan’s team focuses primarily on staff augmentation work with some blended permanent /contingent searches as well.
Prior to joining Orbis Clinical, Ryan was a life sciences recruiter who continued to progress into a Business Development Manager, Practice Leader, and Division Director in both large and small life science staffing firms.
Ryan graduated from Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, IL with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing with an emphasis on Sales.
A native of Chicago, IL, Ryan currently lives with his wife and two daughters in Colorado Springs, CO. Outside of the office, you can typically find Ryan golfing, fly fishing, watching baseball (GO CUBS), and generally enjoying the outdoors.
