How to Excel Using Contract Workers
Contingent workers are vital to the success of many businesses, but managing this freelance workforce presents many challenges for managers and executives.
95% of organizations today perceive their contingent workforce as important and vital to day-to-day operations and ultimate enterprise success and growth.
35% of today’s workforce is comprised of non-employee workers, including temps, freelancers, statement-of-work (SOW) workers, independent contractors and others.
Organizations everywhere can find, source and engage independent talent in real-time through on-demand methods. Here are the top sources: Online labor marketplaces: 66%, Freelancer networks: 62%, Job boards: 61%, In-network talent: 57%, Social networks/social media: 49%
TTM, the centralized management of all enterprise talent under standardized processes and integrated systems/solutions, is taking hold as companies try to understand and assess enterprisewide talent of all kinds.
Although companies want to understand their talent, only 50% have clear visibility into their “worker footprint,” meaning visibility into all talent across the enterprise. The result: an inability to forecast, budget and plan for talent-based needs.
Respondents revealed the following challenges to CWM: Lack of intelligence and visibility: 48%, Control and mitigate compliance risk: 46%, Pressure to reduce costs and/or improve savings: 45%, Need to improve the way talent is engaged: 37%
Statement of Work-based projects (SOW) involve supplier on-boarding and off-boarding, supplier evaluations, ongoing performance management, measurement of delivery dates, milestone achievement, and project budget and expense management.
HR’s support is critical to SOW-based projects because talent forecasting and workforce management can help businesses gain control over complex contingent labor. “SOW is the next frontier,” says the report.
SOW management is not yet a strategic imperative for the respondents’ CWM programs, as the following shows: Strategic component of CWM program: 28%, Initial stages of SOW management program: 25%, Tactical component, not yet strategic: 23%, Not a focus, no plans to address SOW: 17%, Not a focus but plan to address within next 12 months: 7%
Total talent management includes centralized and standardized management of all types of enterprise talent, both traditional and non-employee. Below are key benefits according to respondents: Enhanced visibility into the total talent pool: 80%, More intelligent decision-making: 64%, Reduction of overall labor spend: 62%, Enhanced alignment between projects and the talent they require: 57%, Seamless processes from requisition to project completion: 54%, Better quality of data regarding all enterprise talent: 50%