Contingent worker quality effects are far-reaching for Lilly

By John Heigl

It is possible you or someone close to you are the end customer of Eli Lilly and Company’s contingent worker program, because these individuals may be involved in the process of making the medicines you or your family members take. They may also be involved in the discovery and development processes to find new medicines to address devastating illnesses such as Alzheimer’s and cancer. Lilly needs the finest minds discovering and making medicine because our patients expect quality. As a result, Lilly must not only be the employer of choice for full-time workers, but also the assignment of choice for contractors and the buyer of choice for staffing suppliers — and at competitive wages.

Buyers in any industry and their staffing suppliers should agree to a list of practices focused on keeping the contractor and their requestors happy and successful.

Transparency. It’s easier to be successful when you know the rules and what is important. Buyers should provide, maintain and share understandable documentation of candidate eligibility requirements, onboarding requirements, safety information and expectations as well as rules for being a contractor on assignment at the buyer. Suppliers in turn should commit to understand and comply with these rules.

Clear requirements. Buyers must take time to define the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and describe work environment and duties. They should provide information about the company and culture. Finally, buyers should allow recruiters to ask questions about a unique request — either via a facilitated qualification call or direct contact with the requestor. Suppliers in turn should provide easy-to-read documentation that shows their candidate meets 100 percent of those needs.

Talent. Buyers should commit to having no more than five preferred staffing suppliers competing for each request unless the title is hard to fill. This keeps recruiters engaged because they know they have a reasonable chance of getting a placement. In turn, suppliers should commit to providing at least one candidate per request. The result is a program management office can say with confidence the requestor will have at least as many candidates as there are suppliers on each request.

Speed. The sourcing process must be done quickly because the best candidates are the first to find work elsewhere. Buyers should provide status updates on the requests and candidates, while suppliers should immediately remove candidates who are no longer available or interested. Buyers should explain why candidates are not shortlisted or selected after interviews, and suppliers should detail why they can’t find candidates or why their candidates withdraw. This process may be as simple as selecting standard codes in a VMS. Finally, buyers should extend an offer within a day of the last interview. Suppliers in turn should immediately begin the onboarding processes upon offer acceptance.

Pricing. Nobody likes unfavorable price changes. Buyers should not ask for a reduction once a candidate is submitted and a supplier should not ask for an increase for a candidate. Because contracts can be for several years, suppliers are incented to build a buffer into their pricing to deal with uncertainties over that timeframe. By minimizing uncertainty, buyers should be able to get a lower price. More specifically, statutory changes (such as to SUTA or FUTA rates) or significant changes in market rates should be addressed by adjusting bill rates up or down accordingly.

Invoicing. Staffing suppliers need to be paid on time and buyers don’t like surprises. So buyers should agree to a time period where time and expenses that have been submitted but not approved or rejected become automatically approved. Likewise, a timeframe should be set where time and expenses that have been submitted are no longer reimbursable.

Are you willing to treat the buyer and staffing supplier relationship as a partnership? If yes, then consider adopting the principles I have outlined here.

John Heigl is a consultant for Eli Lilly and Company’s Global Flexible Staffing Services.