CWS 3.0: October 22, 2014

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Want a seat at the table? Become more strategic

At the CWS Summit two weeks ago, much of the discussions pertained to the evolving role of the contingent workforce. Part of that evolution is the increasing profile of contingent workforce managers. While in the past the contingent workforce has been viewed as a tactical solution to an operational problem, many companies now see contingent workforce management as a strategic imperative to market competitiveness.

With this new mindset comes the expectation contingent workforce managers must also evolve. These managers can no longer rely on tactical or short-term solutions to organizational problems but instead must focus on “getting a seat at the table” privy to strategic discussions. But making that move from tactical to strategic is hard to accomplish and difficult to understand in concrete terms.

So what does it take to become a strategic resource within your company? There are several key activities that can translate to creating a strategic role from a tactical one, among them: developing acute organizational IQ and driving for transformational change.

Develop Acute Organizational IQ. In any company, there are the written policies and procedures that exist in a handbook and then there are the actual policies and procedures everyone follows in order to get things done. Maybe it’s something as simple as understanding who in the IT department can get a technical issue fast-tracked to solution as opposed to calling the help desk. Or maybe it’s understanding how you can work with facilities to get a critical resource to the front of the line when it comes to onboarding. It’s these little nuances that can set you apart as a resource when somebody needs something done.

Drive for Transformational Organizational Change. By definition, transformational change is major change — the type of change that alters the landscape of your company. The CW manager is a change agent, but it can be difficult to drive large-scale change and to attain buy-in required to do it. So we find ourselves being incremental, where we test pilot solutions for too long or hold off on larger much-needed solution implementations (which may not always be bad). While the realities of business mean we may not always be able to execute with a big bang, we can still create a compelling vision of the future. The stakes need to be as high as possible to really motivate transformative change. Build a vision of the future where the role of your contingent workforce fundamentally changes the day-to-day experience of your clients, your coworkers and your competition. Do your best to show you can effectively tie your contingent workforce strategies to altering the balance of power in your industry. It’s not an unrealistic leap of logic to assume having better, speedier access to the right kind of talent at the right price can become a market differentiator.

In the end, your results will be the best indicator that you deserve to have a seat at the table. But by really becoming the go-to source for organizational execution and creating a transformative vision for your company, you can almost certainly guarantee your program and your career will be set up for long-term success.

These are just two activities the contingent workforce manager can undertake to make the role more strategic. I will cover more activities in future issues of Contingent Workforce Strategies 3.0.