CWS 3.0: December 17, 2014

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Don’t turn your back; CW workforce is also HR’s responsibility

According to our 2014 Buyer Survey, HR is becoming more involved in the management of CW programs. Some programs reside solely under HR, while HR and procurement share ownership at some others. Procurement teams that once had complete ownership express resounding agreement that HR should be involved.

The belief is that talent management is HR’s area of expertise, whereas procurement’s expertise aligns with the pricing, risk management and agreement side of the equation. So far, this type of partnership has worked for the CW program management office.

Having spent the majority of my career on the HR side of the equation, I cannot agree more. The contingent workforce is a key resource for getting work done, enabling organizations to deliver economically. Often, organizations find the contingent worker has a more critical role for a deliverable than an employee. Yet some HR groups still hesitate to engage and take a role in optimizing the organization’s use of CW talent. This can be for a number of reasons, including the fear of “co-mingling” full-time employee management along with contingent worker management. Often, this is fueled by a less-than-confident legal team’s concerns over co-employment risk. 

So what can a procurement team or program owner to do if the HR team is not willing to play a role? First, they have to understand why HR is resistant to the consideration and be able to provide data, statistics or best practices insight to help HR see why their resistance needs to be reconsidered. What can one provide to help support their cause?

Legal pushback. Perhaps the legal aspect is causing them concern. If this is the case, engaging with the legal team is critical. Share with them various white papers, invite them to webinars that address the topics or even have them attend various industry events to provide insight to the real risks and how to minimize them. Another option is to arrange for them to have conversations with legal teams from other organizations that have allowed their HR departments to share in the program management. Lawyers know how to talk to other lawyers.

Unclear value. It could also be HR truly does not know what to do when it comes to the contingent workforce and the impact they have on the organization. However, the conversion rate of CWs to full-time equivalents can have an eye-opening effect for HR to realize the percentage of FTEs that were once contingent workers. Think of the impact HR could have if they were involved from the very beginning of the CW talent screening. For example, wouldn’t it be nice to have the salary expectations addressed prior to the offer being rejected by a potential hire?

Territorial. As a previous recruiter, I know that I was very territorial about “my” customers and “my” roles I was responsible for. If the conversion rate is something that is tracked and it is a successful (some organizations have upwards of 20 percent conversion rate), there may be a concern that the recruiters role may not be as important or even possibly needed if we are finding the talent through other means. Show how working together creates opportunities for the recruiters to focus on roles that allow them to utilize their “true” recruiting talent and expertise. The fact is, multi-channel sourcing of talent is a competitive operating procedure for today’s successful talent acquisition strategy.

Contingent workers comprise 15 percent of large companies’ total workforce, according to our Buyer Survey (survey respondents with 1,000 or more employees), and respondents expect that to grow. If these trends continue, some organizations will have a quarter of their workforce comprised of contingent workers. Those numbers could be staggering at large organizations and would require HR talent management expertise be involved to ensure the value delivered by this workforce is aligned to the company’s brand, annual goals and mission.