Several recent government reports show that the U.S. economy ended 2011 on a modest note of encouragement. In its release on the December employment situation, the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the rate of unemployment declining from 9.1% in August to 8.5% in December.i While the overall improvement is small, the trend was consistent over four months. This raises hope that U.S. economic activity is finally creating new jobs at a rate that will slowly reduce persistent high unemployment.
The Department of Commerce report on the Gross Domestic Product in the fourth quarter of 2011 is similarly a source of cautious optimism.ii While the full year level of economic growth was a weak 1.7%, the picture brightened throughout the 2011:
Signals of economic improvement may be consistent, but they have yet to gather the strength and momentum to impact overall temporary labor bill rates. The Master IQNdex (download now!) tells the story: aggregate temp labor prices were steady in the second half of 2011. The net change over this period was less than half a percent.
If economic expansion continues in 2012 and the ranks of the unemployed shrinks, there will likely be upward pressure on temporary labor bill rates as the pool of readily available workers grows smaller. The modest improvements in growth and unemployment so far, however, have yet to impact rates beyond a few high skill roles in technology and finance.
i. (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2012)
ii. (U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis)
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2012, January 6). Bureau of Labor Statistics News Releases. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from U.S. Department of Labor – Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf
U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis. (2012, January 27). Economics & Statistics Administration – Newsroom. Retrieved January 29, 2012, from U.S. Department of Commerce: http://www.esa.doc.gov/sites/default/files/ei/documents/2012/January/grossdomesticproductfourthquarterandannual2011.pdf
For as long as many of us can remember, we’ve all heard it said – “The devil is in the details…” But there’s a reason this saying has such staying power – I continually see evidence of its truth. It’s a common statistic that the majority of IT projects aren’t accomplished on time or within budget and many marketing claims (and let’s face it… politicians too!) sound scarily similar. It’s very often the DETAILS (“you wanted how many integrations?”) that can be the reason projects falter and claims fail to deliver.
However, a careful analysis of the facts and data behind the broad statements often yields a different perspective. That’s why the latest report from SIA on comparing the capabilities of VMS and MSP providers is a refreshingly deep-dive analysis providing enterprises with a comprehensive view of who really leads the market in capabilities that matter (integrations, reporting, etc) – and who is most experienced. Perhaps needless to say, we were pleased to receive high marks.
A couple of weeks ago I hosted a roundtable on Managing Contingent/Temporary Labor at the ISM Services Group conference in Phoenix, which focuses on different aspects of sourcing and managing procured services.
The roundtable topic was “Challenges and Successes in Managing Contingent/Temporary Labor”, and seemed to be one of the most popular topics, probably due to the inherent challenges in this services spend category. Here are the top challenges and successes that came from the roundtable of procurement professionals:
Top Challenges
Achieving visibility: How many contingent/temporary workers, where they are, what they’re doing, and tracking all the required compliance-related data.
Managing ramp-up and ramp-downs in demand: Having a fast & effective process (balancing speed vs. quality), contracting optimally (contracting for services or people?)
Measuring and Managing the process: Gathering metrics across the enterprise (all locations), achieving consistent contract terms with suppliers, getting consistently good rates.
Determining the best owner: HR, Procurement, or both?
Improving results for end-users: Overcoming long fill times, little reporting, and complaints from end-users.
Top Successes
Centralizing buying and rationalizing the supply base: Streamlined management, gained visibility into consistent metrics, and negotiated better rates.
Utilizing standard contracts: After a “rush-effort” to quickly bring on thousands of workers in a cleanup effort, went back and revamped all supplier agreements over six months, and gained savings from consistent expense-reimbursement policies.
Negotiating contracts for service levels: Addressed issues of fill-times and end-user satisfaction, and gained onsite support from top-tier suppliers.
Co-ownership by HR and Procurement for program: With leadership support, gained ability to impose a new process and vendor marketplace.
Negotiating rate ranges by different methods depending on the type of work: Negotiate markup, bill rate, and/or pay rates.
One common thread in the conversation was the need (fortunately filled by VMS/Services Procurement solutions) for a new system of record that provided visibility and control into a revamped process for managing the various types of contingent labor, anywhere around the world.
IQNavigator manages over ten million hours of temporary labor every month in the United States. This provides a broad-based, timely view of trends in temporary labor bill rates. Each month these trends are summarized in the IQNdex.
We release an in-depth report on IQNdex findings every quarter over at IQNtelligence.com; now, to add to that, we plan to release a monthly data sheet that will give insight into each month’s change. You can download a copy of December’s US IQNdex Data Sheet here (it covers November’s trends).
Here’s a sneak peek of the highlights:
Year-over-year comparisons show rates trending higher in all regions and all job sectors in 2011 versus 2010. The Professional-Managerial job sector is up 10 percent, largely due to rate increases for accounting and finance assignments. Regionally, the Northeast and South are up over 7 points
In the four U.S. geographic regions, only the South showed a significant uplift in rates. This continues a year-long trend; the South index value has risen seven points since the start of the year. The November increase in the South was led by jobs in finance.
Technical-IT job sector rates were flat in November. The rate increase shown in October was not sustained. IT roles focused on design and planning, such as Software Architect, were the exception and showed modest rate increases.
For the full story download the data sheet and subscribe to receive monthly US IQNdex updates.
Also, feel free to leave thoughts and questions as comments to this post and we’ll do our best to engage with you.
Each new @IQNavigator Twitter follower will help raise money for Champa House in Denver
Apparently, Twitter can be VERY good – and not just for business. I love the “global-ness” of the IQNavigator team – we are growing almost daily with clients and employees from around the world. However, we still have a soft-spot for our Colorado heritage here at headquarters and every holiday season our company lends a helping hand to a local charity that is close to our hearts. This year Jill Shadwell, our Executive Director of IQNavigator’s Implementation Center of Excellence, introduced us to the Denver Rescue Mission’s Champa House.
The Champa House is a two-story building with nine apartments where single women and their children can live to escape the cycle of poverty and homelessness. Once a vacant and broken down building, the Champa House was renovated and then donated to the Denver Rescue Mission in December 1988 with the specific purpose of converting it to a women’s facility. Former Colorado First Lady Bea Romer inaugurated the program in June 1990.
Families live at the Champa House for one to two years as the women go through a self-sufficiency program to learn a variety of life skills including budgeting, nutrition, parenting, relational issues, and job readiness. In addition, Champa House offers an innovative financial incentive program. Upon graduating from the program, each woman has accumulated a savings account that she will use to become self-sufficient. For kids, Champa House offers a structured childcare program, tutoring, children and family therapy, and a mentoring program. All of these services work together to provide a safe, educational and nurturing environment in which the children can learn and grow.
Jill has been volunteering with the Champa House for years so we quickly embraced the cause to offer our support. Several team members here at IQNavigator have adopted families for the holidays and will donate wrapped presents in time for Christmas. Here in the marketing department, we are kicking off a first at IQNavigator with our first-ever (and hopefully not the last!) social media giving program.
Starting today, Monday, Nov. 21, IQNavigator will donate $1 for every new follower to the @IQNavigator Twitter account throughout the holidays until January 3, 2012. If you are on Twitter please follow our account and tweet this message:
By following @IQNavigator $1 will be donated to the @DenverRescue Mission’s Champa House to support single mothers and their children
We look forward to growing our advocacy for Colorado-based charities that are meaningful to IQNavigator employees and we hope you’ll help us spread our efforts by simply following us @IQNavigator and tweeting our message!
We release an in-depth report on IQNdex findings every quarter over at 
Families live at the Champa House for one to two years as the women go through a self-sufficiency program to learn a variety of life skills including budgeting, nutrition, parenting, relational issues, and job readiness. In addition, Champa House offers an innovative financial incentive program. Upon graduating from the program, each woman has accumulated a savings account that she will use to become self-sufficient. For kids, Champa House offers a structured childcare program, tutoring, children and family therapy, and a mentoring program. All of these services work together to provide a safe, educational and nurturing environment in which the children can learn and grow.