Frequently Asked Questions

Contrax is a leader in contingent workforce and staffing agency management. With years of experience in the contingent workforce and procurement across the U.S.A. and Canada, we use our contingent category expertise to help organizations better manage their externally-sourced workforce program and to strategically manage their staffing agencies. We have a range of solutions to help you better manage your contingent workforce program and achieve your workforce goals, from the implementation of Vendor Management Systems, full MSP programs, master vendor models or even project recruitment that scales up your workforce during peak season.

Contrax is a leading provider of contingent workforce management solutions in North America. By improving how organizations manage their externally-sourced workers and staffing agencies, we help businesses improve their access to talent, discover new cost savings, gain complete visibility and control over their contingent workforce, manage contingent workforce risk, ensure compliance, automate processes and strategically analyze their vendors.

The contingent workforce is a pool of nontraditional workers who are hired by a business on an on-demand or project-by-project basis. Contingent workers are not employees of a company. Instead they work under contract or on a temporary basis. The contingent workforce is an umbrella term for a range of workers, including contractors, freelancers, consultants and temporary workers (also known as temps).

Organizations today are turning to the contingent workforce to meet their workforce objectives. That’s because non-employee workers bring a range of benefits, including increased business flexibility, improved access to skilled workers, decreased time-to-hire, and lower workforce costs.

Managing a contingent workforce is highly complex. It can involve a huge number of temporary and contract workers, various staffing agencies and a range of data points that cross every department within your organization. To gain complete visibility and control over these processes, businesses must implement a contingent workforce management program that uses both technology and contingent category expertise to improve workforce quality, consolidate staffing agencies, reduce spend and make smarter staffing vendor decisions. No more fragmented processes or data recorded on spreadsheets!

For companies that don’t want to manage their contingent workforce program internally, there are a number of outsourced programs in which all, or some, of their contingent workforce programs can be managed by a third-party expert. The two most common outsourced solutions are a Managed Services Provider (MSP) program, an MSP Lite program, or Supplier Consolidation Services. 

Do you need to access high-quality workers in a short period of time? Scaling up your workforce for seasonal demands and fluctuations can be difficult. Outsourced project recruitment can help parachute workers into your organizations for a required time period, helping to ensure your business fulfills its workforce needs.

A Managed Services Provider (MSP) is an outsourced organization with deep expertise and experience in the contingent workforce category.  An MSP will take over the entire responsibility of a company's contingent workforce management program, helping them to set up the program, manage staffing agencies, measure vendor performance and take on the responsibilities of managing externally-sourced workers (from sourcing, onboarding, to approvals and payments).

There are various types of MSP models, from outsourced Vs. in-house, neutral Vs. non-neutral, master vendor and ad hoc programs. We can work with your business to find the solution that works best for your specific goals and requirements.

A vendor neutral MSP will work with a number of vendors who all have equal opportunity to fill a position within a specific time. The MSP is not owned or affiliated with a staffing agency, and they will recommend a Vendor Management System based on the requirements and goals of your organization.

An MSP Lite program is typically one vendor that tackles everything on behalf of your organization, and you simply carve out a piece of business for them. Our MSP Lite program is a scaled-back version of a full MSP program. We don’t participate as a vendor, and the program is specifically designed to be implemented into your business faster, without the full suite of services that an MSP typically contains.

The time it takes for MSP implementation depends on a number of factors, including the complexity of the program, the volume of contingent workers, and the number of locations a business has. While the average MSP implementation takes around three months, Contract can stand an MSP program up in as little as 4-6 weeks.

Our MSP Lite program is far quicker to implement than a full MSP. Our MSP Lite program has no system integrations, limited customization, and does not absorb existing vendors or contingent workers for onboarding, so they can be implemented for rapid results.

A Vendor Management System is a completely cloud-based portal that automates the entire lifecycle of the source-to-pay process. It Allows an organization to facilitate, automate and consolidate all of the processes and data associated with managing both staffing agencies and externally-sourced workers. A VMS consolidates all information and gives businesses complete visibility and control over their contingent workforce. A VMS allows for the management of the entire contingent workforce lifecycle, and enables the broader managed program solution.

An MSP will typically help your organization find and implement the right Vendor Management System for your company’s specific requirements and budget. The combination of a Managed Services Provider and VMS can completely revolutionize your contingent workforce program, bringing your benefits such as contingent category expertise, improved program visibility, cost savings and so much more. The MSP is the work and expertise behind the program, and the VMS enables the entire solution.

In some cases, VMS implementation can be complex, time-consuming and offers way more functionality than you would ever need. But the key to a seamless VMS implementation is to work with a provider that only offers the functionalities to meet your requirements and workflows. Some Vendor Management Systems, with little customization, can be implemented into your organization’s contingent workforce management program in as little as 48 hours Standard enterprise products flooded with complexity can take up to a year.