CWS 3.0: April 3, 2013

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Incorporating SOW Outside the US

Given the dynamic nature of contingent workforce management, it is sometimes challenging to identify upcoming trends. Staffing Industry Analysts’ contingent workforce buyer survey is a great source of information on macro market trends and identifying what companies plan to do in the future; however, the survey participation often comes from the more mature programs. Arguably, the CWS Council represents the largest single collection of mature programs found anywhere. So the question becomes what your programs do as they move to the next level.

To glean more information from our membership, we release an instapoll during council meetings. These are short, targeted questions that we ask of the membership and collect in real time. The questions are submitted by the membership and serve a dual purpose from a research perspective. One, they help us to identify what’s most important and top of mind in the market — what CW managers want to know. Two, they reveal anecdotal information about what is happening in the mature contingent workforce program. 

Here are two recent questions about the inclusion of statement of work in a  VMS program. We asked a simple program question, “Do you include statement of work in your VMS within the U.S.?” and, “Do you include SOW in your VMS program outside the U.S.?”  The results were quite interesting. Of the responding council members, 42 percent include statement of work within their VMS in the U.S. and an additional 33 percent are planning on it, meaning only 25 percent of the membership do not have SOW within their VMS and no plans to do so.  Looking outside the U.S., there’s a relatively similar number of companies that have SOW in their systems at 39 percent; however, just 9 percent have plans to do so. The rest — more than half of all responding members — just don’t. So what does this mean? 

While many companies are actively looking to expand the scope of their contingent workforce programs in Europe, they are still relatively nascent in the adoption of VMS and MSP approaches. So it’s safe say that while inclusion of statement of work has a very bright future within contingent workforce here in the U.S., the next step for contingent workforce management abroad will not see the same levels of explosive growth.

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