The annual HROA awards honor those transforming the industry
By The Editors
With a theme of “BeTransformed,” the nominees for the Human Resources Outsourcing Association (HROA) annual awards represent the best of the best in the industry. These awards are the highlight of the year and an aspiration for those in HR operations and outsourcing. It is the HROA’s mission to be the leading community for improving the quality, effectiveness, and efficiency of outsourcing as part of an overall HR service delivery strategy.
The HROA would like to congratulate the following winners, who were announced at the HRO Today Forum in Philadelphia on May 2nd, and at the HRO Today Forum APAC in Singapore on May 22.
HROA Trustee Global Thought Leader of the Year: Jill K. Goldstein, Accenture
Jill Goldstein joined Accenture in 2006 after working in corporate HR and finance roles at Sara Lee, Verizon, Ford, and Spherion. She began as
Accenture’s product manager
for compensation and benefits
and has since served in all of the offering roles including leading the talent management suite of services and offering development for HR and learning BPO.
HROA Trustee Global Buyer Executive of the Year: John Scott Boston, Kimberly-Clark
John Scott Boston (not pictured) is vice president of global talent management for Kimberly- Clark Corporation. He leads all recruiting, learning and
development, organizational
effectiveness, HR strategy and 
operations, performance management, succession
planning, coaching and assessment, and HR capability-building teams.
HROA Trustee Global Provider Executive of the Year: Jason Berkowitz, Pontoon
As Vice President of Client Services for Pontoon, Jason Berkowitz has set the goal of
improving service
delivery by taking
a data-driven view
of aligning talent
on a client-by-client
basis to overcome
the barriers to
strong relationship- building, a key to successful partnerships.
HROA Trustee Global HRO Technology Innovation of the Year Honorable Mention: Virtrue
Virtrue has developed an innovative HR applicant prescreening technology that allows hiring managers
and recruiters to quickly assess the integrity of applicant resumes, verifying an applicant’s education and work history through online analysis of their data, including social network data. The standard methods to verify an applicant’s education and work history are inefficient and expensive. Virtrue has democratized this capability, allowing any company to verify any applicant at any stage of the
hiring process.
HROA Trustee Global Recruitment Customer Relationship of the Year: UnitedHealth Group and Kenexa, an IBM Company
The relationship between UnitedHealth Group (UHG) and Kenexa, an IBM Company, dates back to 2002. The close
partnership between
the two companies
has become stronger
over time as both have
evolved and grown
globally amid shifting
economic tides and the
maturation of the HRO industry, always striving to raise the bar on service levels and stand as a model of sourcing success. An 11-year mutual commitment to one anothers’ development has made each company better and holds valuable lessons for buyers of RPO/HRO services, providers and advisors on the criticality of culture match, innovation, service delivery and governance, all of which are on display in the relationship. UHG is not only a leader in its market space and an example of RPO done right, but also proactive in “giving back” to the RPO/HRO community.
HROA Trustee Global Customer Relationship of the Year: Army Continuing Education System and IBM
IBM’s 12-year relationship with the Army Continuing Education System (ACES) began with the creation of eArmyU, a program designed to ensure that eligible enlisted soldiers could fulfill their educational goals, even while deployed. The IBM and ACES relationship took a giant leap forward in 2006 with the expansion of eArmyU and launch of GoArmyEd, the U.S. Army’s Enterprise Education Solution. GoArmyEd is an innovative, full- service, online learning experience that provides soldiers access to thousands of universities and degree programs. Any eligible soldier may request tuition assistance anytime, anywhere. Tuition assistance, a valuable benefit of military service, puts a top-notch education within reach to many who wouldn’t otherwise have access. To date, 471,000 soldiers around the globe have enrolled in more than 600,000 classes annually.
APAC Customer Relationship of the Year: NBN Co. and Accenture
The Australian National Broadband Network is a $37.4 billion dollar project designed to help Australia become one of the world’s leading digital economies. In late 2009, the Australian government created NBN Co. to build and operate the network. In January 2010, NBN Co. employed fewer than 50 staff members. Accenture partnered with NBN Co. to assist them in accomplishing their ambitious business goals, including swiftly ramping up hiring and core HR services; implementing strategic activities; establishing a highly flexible workforce; and enabling benchmarking of HR quality.
APAC Customer Relationship of the Year: Procter & Gamble and Cartus
Since 2008, the P&G and Cartus partnership has resulted in relocation moves for P&G employees with no business disruption and increased loyalty and connection of P&G employees and their families to the company during this milestone in their lives. Cartus handles more than 1,200 relocations a year for P&G, including compensation planning, payroll interface, ongoing support for existing expats, and management of vendors.
APAC Recruitment Customer Relationship of the Year: Tetra Pak South East Asia Pte Ltd and KellyOCG
In May 2012, Tetra Pak (South and South East Asia) launched KellyOCG’s first multi-country RPO engagement covering hundreds of roles in both blue- and white-collar categories across seven countries and nine specific Tetra Pak entities. Prior to going live, there was an intense implementation period of six weeks to identify processes,
determine monthly
to annual headcount,
and understanding the
hiring administration
requirements that were
later compiled and documented into an RPO desk reference guide.
APAC Recruitment Customer Relationship of the Year: TMI Network and Axis Bank
TMI started the outsourcing relationship with Axis Bank in 2010 to assist them in meeting their manpower requirements for their branch expansion in South India. Axis added 100 branches in South India and each branch on average needed a minimum of six employees (one branch head, one branch sales head, one branch operations head, and three customer service officers).
