Contingent Workforce (CW) Program Game Changers
These forward-thinking contingent workforce management professionals are evolving the global world of contingent work through their innovation, determination, and ability to change the game.
Christy Covington
honoree profile
As the external talent strategy lead for the Americas in Accenture’s Procurement Plus organization, Christy Covington partners with supply chain partners and client account leads to source the contingent employees they need for their projects, from blue-collar workers to highly skilled technical resources.
Covington is proud of a recent Brooklyn, New York-based project that required diverse talent. She led a strategic engagement with a supplier that specializes in working within economically disadvantaged communities. Together they hired, trained and deployed 30 people for entry-level technology work, including helpdesk and Java development. The project will scale to 90 people in the next three to six months and may continue to grow after that. “Supporting meaningful collaborations with our supply chain partner and business stakeholders was essential to the success of this engagement,” Covington says.
Covington originally joined Accenture as a contingent worker herself, building out a cost-saving direct-sourcing recruitment team. She says the experience let her see both sides of the coin: recruiting and partnering with recruiters. “It’s very important to build the right relationships with the supply chain.”
Covington works with staffing firms now, but her experience with direct recruitment has served her well. She developed a communication and engagement strategy that helps new contingent workers through the onboarding process; the extra care has yielded a 37% increased show rate from the beginning of the project to present day, helping projects get up and running faster.
That higher show rate has also helped Covington manage costs. When more recruits turn into on-the-job contingent workers, projects happen faster and with lower turnover.