With the competition for workers intensifying as a result of ‘The Great Resignation’, many organizations are turning to the contingent workforce to fill open positions and acquire talented workers.
By leveraging the power of freelancers, consultants, contractors, temporary workers and other contingent workers sourced through staffing agencies, businesses are able to fill gaps in their workforce both cost-effectively and quickly.
Yet as more businesses utilize the contingent workforce, non-employee workers have more choice when it comes to the jobs they accept and the companies they work for.
To improve the performance of your contingent workforce management program and to ensure that your business is able to fulfill its workforce requirements and engage the best non-employee talent, it’s important to build a company culture that helps attract, engage and retain contingent workers.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when building a company culture that boosts the performance of your contingent workforce program.
Make sure you have an effective contingent workforce management program in place
All too often, businesses that utilize the contingent workforce don’t have a proper management program in place. While this leads to a range of problems for your business, including a complete lack of visibility and control over your contingent workforce, it also leads to contingent workers having a poorer experience with your brand.
If you want the best contingent workers in your industry to work with you time-and-time again, you need to ensure that the entire process is seamless and enjoyable. That involves making sure you have an efficient contingent workforce management program in place.
There are a few ways you can do that. You can manage your contingent workforce internally with a Vendor Management System (VMS), or you can outsource the management of your externally-sourced workforce to a third-party with expertise in the contingent category such as a Managed Services Provider (MSP).
Whether you choose to manage your contingent workforce internally or outsource it to an MSP, a successful contingent workforce management program will ensure your contingent workers have a smooth and frictionless experience with your company - improving the chance they’ll want to work with you again in the future.
Align your contingent workers with your permanent team
Even though contingent workers are only with your business for a specific period of time or until the completion of a particular project, it’s important that they are aligned with the rest of your team and your business goals. By ensuring contingent workers are aligned with your values and goals, they’ll know exactly what it is they are helping your brand achieve and they’ll feel like a valuable part of your business as they help you to reach your goals.
Keep communication lines open
Since contingent workers come into your organization for a specific role or time frame, it can be all too easy to operate in a way that makes them feel like outsiders. If you want their work to truly help your company grow, and if you want to increase the chance that you’ll be able to engage their services again in the future, then it’s crucial that you develop a strategy for communicating with contingent workers.
By communicating meaningfully with your contingent workforce, your business will be able to ensure that contingent workers feel valued by your brand.
Your agency experience, your employment branding (don’t ignore contractors), your candidate experience (how you treat workers in process, timely response, feedback) and a good experience of your brand throughout the process matters a lot. This will drive repeat assignments and can even help position your company as an “employer of choice” among the contingent workforce community.
Extend the value you offer your contingent workers
Contingent workers accept jobs on an assignment and time basis, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t also looking for career growth. These workers still want to further develop their skill sets and advance their career, even if it’s not solely for one company.
By extending your value to contingent workers, your business is improving their experience with your brand and increasing the chance they’ll work for you again in the future. You can do this by offering contingent workers the opportunity to work on future projects as well as work with team members that they can learn from.
Be careful here though, if contingent workers are offered training, the ability to attend company events and any additional benefits, it’s possible they are falling under the risk of misclassification.
Interested in learning more about how you can improve how you source, engage and retain contingent workers, or simply want to learn how to build a more strategic contingent workforce management program? Get in touch with Contrax today. Our team of contingent category experts would love to answer your questions.
