Challenges and Successes in Managing Contingent/Temporary Labor
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.
