Cielo, the world’s leading Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) provider, continually supported our client partners as they faced unparalleled challenges in 2020, providing valuable talent acquisition support through increased service offerings and global reach. As we take on a new year, we are celebrating the collective successes we achieved during the arduous and unprecedented time worldwide.
“While 2020 wasn’t what we expected, I’m extremely proud of everyone at Cielo for their unwavering resilience, unity and dedication to each other and our clients,” CEO & Founder Sue Marks said. “We faced challenges, embraced opportunities, and together, we navigated these most unprecedented times. In so many ways, we’ll look back at 2020 as one of our best and most important years, and that’s due to our consistent focus on our employees and our clients.”
Boldly Rising to the Challenge
We worked quickly with our clients to innovate and adapt to the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, providing unique solutions to offer flexibility and scalability to our clients while balancing the new complexity of hiring. Our expertise in the life sciences sector positioned us as valuable partners for organizations to drive crucial support and response to the pandemic.
McKesson, a global leader in the healthcare industry, through their talent acquisition partnership with Cielo, is building the workforce that moves supplies and vaccines to frontline caregivers and their communities across North America. Our efforts were recognized with an HROA award. In EMEA, we are helping Becton Dickinson hire chemists and technicians in preparation to distribute the second wave of COVID-19 vaccinations.
"Our team is honored to be called on by clients like McKesson and Becton Dickinson in Europe to play such a critical role in the recovery efforts across the globe,” President – North America Greg Summers said. “We saw our clients in life sciences, healthcare, consumer brands and retail get involved, and supporting agile, accelerated hiring plans was a big part of the mobilization effort.”
Internally, our People & Culture team focused on communications that balanced the need to understand what was happening in the business with the personal wellbeing of our teams. We launched the Cielo Employee Fund to help employees facing financial burdens, used thoughtful and relevant conversations while continuing to advance Cielo’s progress in diversity, equity and inclusion, and more, all while investing in our people and technology for the future.
New Acquisitions & Expansions
Our geographic growth continues in markets around the world. In early March, we expanded into China through the acquisition of AsiaNet China, an RPO, executive search, recruitment, and payroll (HRO) business based in Shanghai. The new presence and local capability enable Cielo to respond to the growing demand for its RPO services in the region. In Latin America, new entities in both Brazil and Colombia aim to increase our program design capabilities, strengthen relationships locally and better support our clients both onsite and in-country.
We also acquired Talent Function, a consulting company helping organizations with comprehensive talent strategies and technology solution deployments to deliver ROI and business performance. This acquisition will help us continue to empower our forward-leaning HR and TA client partners.
Growing Services to Support Client Need
The demand for Cielo’s unique expertise increased in 2020 as organizations addressed their need for consulting, executive search, technology, high-performance employer brands.
We now have the largest technology function in RPO. Our teams expanded to include full-service technology consulting, robotic process automation, data architect & engineering, client success and global support.
Our Employer Brand team doubled in size to accommodate the spike in global demand for brand strategy and communications, including diversity, equity and inclusion messaging. The team’s partnerships with TPx Communications and Wellstar Health System resulted in three honors at the Employer Brand Management Awards 2020. They were also recognized with a MarCom Award for their work with Wellstar Health System. The talent acquisition campaign aimed at recruiting nurses, which was launched before and again during the pandemic.
Also, Cielo Executive Search continues to challenge the industry with our approach to search, research & insight, and projects. We are seeing increased traction with our global infrastructure supported by a technology and knowledge-based approach, which resulted in a record year globally for Cielo Executive Search and increased our logos by over 20% in 2020.
Earning Top Analyst Rankings
Cielo’s dedication to strong client partnerships and service excellence was recognized by several top analyst rankings in 2020:
- Cielo was named the top overall RPO provider on the HRO Today 2020 Baker’s Dozen list, a prestigious annual global ranking based on client satisfaction surveys.
- For the seventh consecutive year, Cielo was ranked No. 1 for healthcare RPO on provider on the HRO Today 2020 Baker’s Dozen list.
- NelsonHall NEAT identified Cielo as a leader in all categories of its 2020 NEAT vendor evaluation for RPO, which assesses both the ability of RPO providers to bring immediate benefits to clients and prepare them to meet their future talent acquisition needs.
- Cielo once again earned the position as a Leader on Everest Group’s RPO PEAK Matrix Assessment, demonstrating our reputation for innovative and agile talent acquisition solutions that deliver results for clients.
During a year like no other, our team acquired 54 new clients globally across our service lines and delivered impactful business results for our clients. We are confident about the continued adoption of RPO as more organizations see the value in the innovation and expertise that comes from external partners. With the excellence of our teams and the trust with our client partners - this will be a strong year. Here’s to 2021!
