The contingent workforce has grown significantly over the past decade, and, according to research from Ardent Partners, currently sits at around 41.5 per cent of the average company’s overall talent pool.
In fact, the contingent workforce has grown by roughly 2.5 times over the past decade due to several important factors, according to the same body of research, including:
Despite the plethora of benefits that this workforce brings your organization, its management comes with a wide range of challenges that must be properly addressed.
With labour being one of the biggest expenses for your business, it’s only natural that your organization would turn to the contingent workforce for an innovative way to get work done more efficiently at a lower cost.
A contingent workforce management program, however, is about much more than hiring non-permanent workers and reaping the rewards.
In fact, it’s unlikely that your organization will have the in-house expertise and know-how to effectively implement a contingent workforce management program.
That’s because contingent workforce management programs are complex, time-consuming and require highly-skilled managers that have expertise in the contingent workforce and how to manage it.
A contingent workforce management program should improve your business in four key areas - quality, efficiency, cost and risk - and should manage/oversee everything from your recruitment process, the onboarding process, analyze staffing suppliers, invoice and pay workers, compliance management, program reporting and much more.
A successful program will lead to benefits such as access to top talent, an improved bottom line, more efficient processes, increased workforce agility, consistent non-employee hiring processes across your entire organization and much more.
To access these benefits, companies outsource their contingent workforce management programs to a managed services provider (MSP). But what are the pros and cons of the three most common outsourced MSP program models?
MSPs can be either be partnered with a staffing supplier or completely independent. MSPs that are truly independent, void of any staffing affiliation (i.e. do not engage in any recruitment activities) , are considered true vendor-neutral MSPs.
A vendor-neutral MSP will ensure it implements a vendor management system that supports your unique workforce objectives - with no ties to any staffing vendors, alternate service providers or technology firms.
A master supplier/vendor MSP program assumes the overall responsibility for providing a client with temporary workers. All requisitions and orders go directly to the master supplier, which can then fill them or distribute them to sub-contract suppliers.
A hybrid program is a contingent workforce management strategy in which an MSP will blend the vendor-neutral and master supplier sourcing models. This would see an organization engage a single provider for some services but multiple providers for others.
Want to learn more about managed services provider programs, and how they can significantly benefit your organization’s contingent workforce management strategy? Contact HCMWorks today.