Within the framework of modern contingent workforce management, enterprises across the globe realize that the age of merely managing staffing suppliers as an alternative workforce is long dead and gone. The current landscape of CWM dictates that organizations blend traditional temporary labor, complex contingent labor and independent contractors (as well as other sources of contract talent) into an amalgamation of talent that represents a significant portion of their overall workforce.

Ardent’s landmark Contingent Workforce Management Framework includes a series of insights into how the contemporary enterprise should manage their complex contingent labor, which includes SOW-based projects, services and similar labor types. While this category of the CWM Framework remains a top area of high-quality talent, there are a series of competencies that must be leveraged in order to effectively manage the delicate balance of costs, visibility, control and quality.

We’ve identified three strategic capabilities that matter as enterprises work towards complex contingent workforce management success:

• Onboarding and offboarding. We’ve previously covered why onboarding and offboarding should not be overlooked, but it bears repeating: if there’s one “crossover” capability that CWM showrunners can take from the human capital management world, it’s onboarding and offboarding. In an age where contract talent (in all of its forms) are consistently coming into and out of the modern enterprise at a rapid clip, it is imperative for the average company to ensure that new suppliers, services, contractors and other temp workers understand their goals and delivery dates. Consequently, it’s also important to apply the same level of rigor when offboarding these same resources. Contractors, consultants and similar talent often have access to major enterprise systems, sensitive financial information and intellectual property, and without strong offboarding capabilities, companies are leaving the door open for a variety of risks.
• Regular tracking of expenses and budgets related to projects that utilize contract talent. While this may seem more of a tactical capability than a strategic one, the fact is that most organizations fail to apply this mode of thinking to critical enterprise projects that leverage contingent labor. The very goal of utilizing contingent labor is to avoid the financial and benefit ramifications of traditional, full-time talent; by failing to institute regular measurement of project expenses against budget (as well as performance against key milestones and delivery dates), enterprises are negating the value that contract talent brings to the greater organization.
• Supplier performance management. There’s no shortage of procurement principles in the modern-day contingent workforce management program; the very crux of managing complex contingent labor is the application of rigorous supplier management capabilities, particularly supplier performance management. Professional services and SOW-based labor (which comprise the CCL category of the Contingent Workforce Management Framework) are often relied upon to tackle critical enterprise projects. Robust supplier performance management (SPM) capabilities can ensure that current and future projects utilize suppliers and services that are of the highest quality.

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Tagged in: Ardent Partners Research, Christopher Dwyer, Complex Categories, Contingent Workforce, Lists, People, Process, Supplier Performance Management