Managed service providers (MSPs) can manage a wide range of aspects within your business, from IT to payroll. Within the last few years, however, their importance to contingent workforce management has been undeniable.

Organizations that partner with an MSP that has experience in contingent workforce management will realize significant benefits. By leveraging years of experience alongside personnel with specialized skill in contingent workforce management, an MSP can help your business to quickly establish a fully functional and effective contingent workforce management program.

An MSP will create a program specifically designed for your business and your unique talent acquisition requirements. This management program will give you access to top talent,save your business money, improve efficiencies and plug any gaps in your contingent workforce hiring processes.

If you read the first blog in our “‘Introduction to Managed Service Providers” series then you should hopefully have a slightly better understanding of what exactly a managed service provider (MSP) is and how a specialized company can help your organization to manage and improve its contingent workforce management program.

But what exactly are the benefits of outsourcing the management of your contingent workforce to an MSP? HCMWorks has listed our top five advantages here:

1 - Reduce administrative burdens

Managing a large contingent workforce is no easy task. In fact, it’s actually extremely difficult. There’s a huge range of tasks to complete from onboarding, time-consuming compliance measures, invoicing, contracts, risk management and much more.

This complex nature of managing the contingent workforce means it’s hugely difficult for small HR and procurement teams to keep up with everyday duties, let alone think about creating a unified program across your entire organization.

An outsourced MSP partner will implement a contingent workforce management plan into your organization, and will assume responsibility for these management tasks. This will take administrative burdens off of your company’s plate, allowing you to focus on your core business.

2 - Cut costs

Not only will your business save money from a well-managed workforce and more efficient operations, an MSP can also help you save money directly on hiring processes. No longer will you need to pay the costly expenses associated with full-time hiring practices, such as job adverts and time-consuming interviews.

Furthermore, with an MSP you will be able to consolidate all your staffing service providers under one central (VMS) solution, which fosters increased competition and gives you access to real market prices, thus dramatically lowering your labour costs.

3 - Access to innovative vendor management systems

An MSP will be able to implement a vendor management system (VMS) into your business processes, with the exact tools your organization requires. A VMS is a cloud-based or SaaS software that acts as a central hub for your company to record every detail about your contingent workers and the vendors who provide them.

Data recorded on a VMS will include management, payment, the method of sourcing, worker classification, analytics and much more. This information helps you to gain visibility and control over your contingent workforce, leading to improved efficiencies, better compliance management and significant cost savings.

4 - Gain visibility and control

To be able to make more effective talent acquisition decisions, it’s crucial that your company has visibility and control over non-permanent employees - and this means an approach that is unified across your entire company rather than fragmented and disjointed.

By partnering with an MSP, and through the use of a vendor management system, your company can successfully create, monitor and analyse data that directly affects your key performance indicators (KPIs).

Increased transparency into how much you pay non-permanent workers and how each worker is performing will allow you to gain visibility over key processes such as hiring quantity, cost, talent quality, workforce best practices and much more. This will improve your contingent labor strategy across all departments.

Once a strategic plan is put in place that looks at both your current and future business requirements, your company will be able to avoid potential and unexpected issues such as a skills shortage.

5 - Acquire top talent

Through partnerships with other companies within the contingent workforce sector, MSPs have a vast talent pool to draw from. This means your company will be able to not only quickly secure talent, but you’ll also be able to source the most talented workers within your industry - giving you an edge over your competitors.

An MSP will allow your company to recruit and engage non-permanent workers in a more timely, targeted, strategic and cost-effective manner. When compared to traditional hiring processes, your business will have access to higher quality talent at a much fast and cheaper rate.

These are just a few of the many benefits an MSP can have on your contingent workforce management program. Want to learn more? Contact HCMWorks today for more information and to learn how we can assist your business.