Editor’s note: Interested in learning more about how the contingent workforce will continue to evolve in the year ahead? Make sure to join us on Tuesday, February 17 at 2pm for a webinar (sponsored by Beeline) that will highlight the necessary best practices for managing this category. Click here to register for the webcast. You won’t want to miss this event!
While the month of February is typically reserved for thoughts, insights, and predictions regarding the new year, today’s article is designed to be a discussion-starter for all of those executives that are tasked in some way with managing non-traditional or non-employee talent at their organizations. The questions highlighted today should be a starting point for collaboration with other key stakeholders, technology or solution enhancements, and a “kickstarter” for 2015 contingent workforce management (CWM) success.
The beginning of any year is always an ideal time to correct past mistakes and begin new initiatives that hope to spark business growth and corporate development. However, while it’s easy for any executive to merely list out new business resolutions, executing on them is a much different story. The world of CWM requires a level of rigor and prowess unseen in other enterprise categories; in fact, as this space continues to evolve and grow, the companies that leverage non-traditional talent will find themselves consistently developing new strategies to handle the intricacies of the 2015 CWM program.
Whether the ultimate responsibility for CWM falls to procurement, finance, or human resources (or other internal stakeholder), there are three questions every enterprise should ask itself as it continues to leverage and manage non-traditional talent in 2015:
- At any moment in time, do we have real-time visibility into our talent? Visibility may be an overused term in the business world, however, in the content of CWM, many forms of talent are floating throughout the average organization…which requires that executives maintain real-time visibility into talent-based resources, performance within projects, budgetary issues, etc.
- Are we at current or future risk for non-compliance? Compliance isn’t just an internal concern for the contemporary enterprise; federal audits and reclassification procedures are real ramifications of a general failure to continually monitor and assess relationships with independent and freelance talent. For the typical large enterprise, reclassifying thousands of temporary workers can result in millions of dollars in back taxes, Social Security, benefits, etc.
- Are we prepared to leverage new sources of talent? Staffing suppliers and personal networks remain the primary sources of non-employee talent in today’s business environment, however, other options, such as online labor / freelancer marketplaces, and social networks are emerging as viable sources of non-employee talent. In an age when work migrates to where it is done best, the modern-day CWM program lead must always be on the forefront of new talent engagement portals to find the best-fit resources.
More so than any other complex spend category, contingent labor is a true strategic force that must encompass a slew of next-generation strategies and solutions for effective management. As this industry places more emphasis on “talent” instead of the past “commodity” focus that dominated in years past, those tasked with managing CWM programs must not only shift their thinking into new ground, but also ensure that they hold clear visibility into the many intricacies (i.e., multi-level compliance, labor effectiveness, etc.) that are now part of the CWM arena.
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Tagged in: Christopher Dwyer, Complex Categories, Contingent Workforce, Lists, People, Process
