Editor’s Note: Today’s article is another peek at the new Contingent Workforce Management: The 2016 Technology and Innovation Outlook Report, written by Ardent’s resident non-employee workforce expert, Christopher J. Dwyer. Click here to download the full report, and be sure to check out Christopher’s podcast, Contingent Workforce Weekly, for deeper discussion of the major themes highlighted in the new report.

Contingent workforce management (“CWM”) programs in 2016 are often complex, multi-layered structures that depend on spend, workforce, supplier, and talent management principles in order to maximize the benefits of non-employee labor while also maintaining a balance of compliance, cost, visibility, and quality. The technology of today, including Vendor Management Systems (“VMS”), online talent platforms, human capital management (“HCM”) software, and spend management automation, plays a pivotal role in several key areas of the modern-day CWM program, including:

• Finding and engaging talent. The world of on-demand talent includes a variety of labor-based sources, from social networks and media to internal talent pools (comprised of alumni, colleagues, and “silver medalists”) and online talent platforms. Today’s automated solutions help organizations understand the current available outlets of talent while also building effective engagement capabilities that are in line with skillset and guideline requirements.
• Supporting talent-sourcing processes. Effective talent-sourcing is often dependent on both lead time and quality standards: as a business, how quickly can top-tier talent be sourced to support ongoing projects and initiatives? While the “legacy” approaches of the past (e.g., recruiters and staffing suppliers) may never become fully obsolete, the fact is that today’s CWM programs can regularly source non-employee talent via automated means and with limited human intervention.
• Onboarding and integrating talent. When the realm of contingent labor was beginning its recent resurgence (2009 to 2010), the concept of “time-to-productivity” was a crucial metric to track and monitor. Although this performance indicator is not as significant as it once was, today’s businesses are still laser-focused at finding talent quickly and ensuring it is onboarded and “up-to-speed” as quickly as possible. As mid-sized and large enterprises continue to increase their usage of non-employee talent, onboarding and integrating workers into projects becomes an even more important capability.
• Tracking and measuring performance. The very idea of “quality” in contingent workforce management has become a critical measure; as more and more non-employees are integrated into a business, it is crucial for the responsible function (e.g., procurement, HR, etc.) to gauge the actual quality of the work completed by this type of talent. This is an especially critical attribute in managing “complex” contingent labor, which includes SOW-based projects and services. (To help enterprises measure the quality of its non-employee workers, Ardent Partners developed a unique metric, the Quality Index Score, to help organizations better understand the impact and performance of non-employee labor.)
• Offboarding. Many of today’s professionals are brought into an organization to assist with technology implementations, projects that leverage enterprise systems (e.g., ERP and accounting), and data-led tasks. Offboarding becomes a critical part of ensuring that non-employees are properly “separated” from enterprise systems, sensitive and financial information, and, most importantly, intellectual property.
• Administering back-office processes. Automation of tactical and back-office processes often has incremental value across the entire enterprise. Aspects such as invoicing and payment, when automated via CWM technology, can alleviate some anxiety over repeatable processes that, while still critical, should be bottom-of-mind if automated and error-free. By reducing resources spent on tactical activities, businesses can drive more value from their programs.
• Supporting “Big Data” initiatives and visibility efforts. By now, most business professionals tire of the “Big Data” phrase. However, the hard truth is that this notion is no fad; enterprises that promote and prioritize visibility are the ones that can truly become more agile organizations that are fit to meet ever-changing and shifting business requirements and demands. Today’s non-employee workforce “touches” many corporate areas: procurement, HR, finance, operations, sales, IT, core business projects, etc. Not only is visibility crucial for these arenas, the intelligence gleaned from automated systems can help the greater organization better forecast, plan, and budget for the future based on the information of today. And, as the utilization of non-employee talent continues to grow in size and complexity, businesses must be able to manage and evaluate their programs more broadly by mining the data captured by CWM solutions.

As CWM programs continue to expand, and as the non-employee workforce remains on a sharp path of growth, technology (and the ecosystem around it) will play a critical role in the years ahead.

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Tagged in: Ardent Partners Research, Christopher Dwyer, Complex Categories, Contingent Workforce, Innovation, People, Process, Strategy, Technology