CWS 3.0: December 10, 2014

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Why contingent is not the right term, think complementary workforce

The Evolution

Contingent workforce management is becoming more visible to businesses that rely on temporary labor to enable and deliver the results they want, often in unpredictable global markets and in response to urgent labor demand.

The traditional business objectives of a CW program — cost savings, regulatory compliance, visibility into contingent labor use and workforce agility — are as valid today as they were a decade ago. But as contingent labor moves beyond decentralized management practices, preferred supplier lists, master vendors and MSPs, new business objectives have augmented the traditional and placed non-employee programs on a clear path to strategic importance, workforce optimization and leverage as a competitive differentiator.

The Blending

However, with greater visibility comes greater scrutiny, and many programs are transforming themselves at the request of enterprise leadership teams. Inevitably, this is leading to a blending of traditional employees and the temp workforce. The result is an emergence of total talent management as a concept. Employees have traditionally focused on job security, benefits, training and opportunity for advancement, cultural fit and work/life balance as key considerations when choosing where and with whom to work. Contingent workers have focused on workplace flexibility, speed of onboarding, interesting project work, experience and career portfolio building, when making the same decision.

These expectations are no longer valid. As worker confidence grows, more people are aware they have an ability to earn a living as a free agent and often treat traditional employed positions as temporary. This is fuelling the so-called war for talent, a term coined by Steven Hankin of McKinsey in 1997. With an aging population in most advanced economies and hordes of baby boomers retiring in increasing numbers, this war has placed talent acquisition and retention at center stage for today’s companies.

“What separates an average company from a great one is talent,” says Wade Burgess, VP of talent solutions for LinkedIn. And the lines between contingent and employee talent models have blurred, more and more companies now consider contingent labor, how it is organized and managed, as core to their business “brand” and an integral part of their corporate reputation — so much so the term “contingent” is no longer the best description. Rather, the term “complementary” is seen as a better, more accurate, way to shape and communicate a company’s talent engagement brand.

Holistic Talent Model

A complementary workforce is combined with the employee workforce in such a way as to enhance or emphasize the qualities of each other. The result is a positive workforce synergy which is the overall strategic goal of a holistic talent model.

The effects of talent scarcity are well known: decreased market share, decreased competitiveness, decreased sales, delayed product development, decreased workforce productivity, increased product time to market. With half of North American and a third of European companies looking to recruit more people on a temporary or contract basis to mitigate the consequences of talent shortages, it is becoming ever more urgent to view contingent as complementary and create holistic talent synergy strategies beyond cost savings. Companies that do are on track for greatness, while those that don’t will find it difficult to persuade candidates to take their calls, accept offers and become productive workers.