CWS 3.0: October 29, 2014

Print

Don’t call them temps. You could be losing out on quality talent

The time may have come when the contingent workforce industry should downgrade or even eliminate the adjectives “temp” and “temporary” from its daily business lexicon. Today’s engagement of contingent workers/non-employees is increasing and becoming more long-term in nature. For many organizations, contingent talent resources have become a strategic and permanent operating method of delivering competitive value in the marketplace.

More and more, we see business managers engaging contingent talent for longer tenures of time; aggressively engaging vetted, “safe harbor” talent on multiple, contiguous projects; and engaging these workers for very strategic purposes and roles in their organizations. In the past, contingent talent was merely engaged for specific non-core roles in an organization and available economically to flex up or down depending on business demand. The engagement value proposition has expanded, with the strategic need to effectively engage quality CW talent/skills in an ongoing, managed period of time, at a competitive engagement cost.

Hence, the question: What is so temporary about this emerging CW engagement behavior?

Industry clarion calls have rallied on instituting more quality management in the marketplace’s CW management programs. These quality initiatives are driving efficiency, cost-effectiveness and process reliability for the multiple stakeholders of the CW program. But the ultimate target of today’s quality management efforts is attracting better quality CW talent. One step toward that goal would be to stop labeling and treating this talent as commodity talent, in other words, as temps. More and more organizations are describing this talent as part of the strategic virtual team and offering recognitions to that effect.

Obviously, some companies will have customized, co-employment concerns with even labeling and the word temporary part of their segmentation firewall to mitigate perceived risks. But as we have seen in specific talent verticals, the war for talent is back in full force and creating an attractive, competitive CW engagement brand and environment matters. Forcing CW talent to park in the farthest, unpaved parking lot may not go down well in supporting a competitive, welcoming engagement environment.

Some organizations are even becoming more aggressive in their management of contingent talent. Among their strategies: allowing contingent workers to use company gym facilities and offering them access to internal skill development resources. Some organizations are willing to participate in tactical performance management issues to rejuvenate a sputtering engagement and actually hire talent relationship management/CW liaison experts to their CW program. Try to compete against that investment while trying to attract and continually reengage the best quality CW talent in the marketplace.

Limiting the use of the words temp and temporary can help in engaging CW talent more strategically. Many of them are now actual experts and skilled professionals that extend the competitive capability of the organization. They would prefer to be called consultants, specialist, professionals, or at least skilled, non-employee talent. Being positioned as commodity resources that are not part of the “team,” and can be easily/swiftly dismissed, may turn off the best, quality talent available in the marketplace.