Does your organization experience seasonal or market fluctuations or is it growing rapidly? In this article, we look at ways you can stay in control of your contingent workforce, if you have a portfolio of contingent workers that you expect will flunctuate with market demands or your changing business needs.
No matter the size of your business - whether you are a small growing business, mid-market organization or even a larger enterprise - adjusting to changing market demands or business growth is a crucial strategic priority.
As your business changes, successfully overseeing your contingent workforce program becomes even more important.
Implementing an Effective Contingent Workforce Program
If you don’t focus on implementing an effective contingent workforce management program as the number of contract workers you utilize increases, your business could soon start suffering from issues such as:
How can you stay in control and gain visibility of your contract workers?
Let's look at the top 3 ways to stay in control and gain visibility of your contract workers; and how implementing a Vendor Management System (VMS) can be essential for achieving clear visibility and control over your contingent workforce program.
What is a Vendor Management System?
A vendor management system is a software platform, which is typically web or cloud-based, that acts as a mechanism for organizations to facilitate all of the processes involved in managing a contingent workforce program.
A VMS will centralize, automate and consolidate your entire contingent workforce processes in one easy-to-use software solution. This tech solution will allow you to manage vendor relationships and measure vendor performance, as well as procure, manage and pay non-employee workers sourced either through a staffing agency or another sourcing avenue.
By acting as a system of record for your company’s contingent workforce, a vendor management system will capture and store the data you need to make better vendor and hiring decisions in one centralized location (as opposed to being fragmented across your entire organization).
3 ways to manage your contingent workforce through market growth or changes
#1 - Centralize your contingent strategy in one system
As your contingent workforce grows, so does the amount of data that you need to store to manage it effectively. Using spreadsheets, emails and Share Point-like websites to store that information is an unsustainable method as you grow.
Storing data manually is not only incredibly time-consuming, it also leads to fragmented processes that reduce your visibility into your contingent workforce program. Hiring managers across your organization will save data on their own spreadsheets, and you’ll quickly lose visibility into the program. The result will be hiring managers engaging staffing agencies on their own terms and at their own price, and a complete lack of visibility into how your program (and your vendors) are performing.
How a VMS Can Help: To gain complete visibility into your contingent workforce program and to ensure all hiring managers are following standardized processes and the overall contingent strategy, a VMS is an easy way to store all contingent information in one centralized database.
#2 - Save time by automating processes
As your company grows, so does the amount of time that your HR and procurement teams spend on managing contract workers. Yet, since these teams are likely balancing multiple tasks, there’s a chance they’ll cut corners and give less attention to some administration over higher value tasks.
But when that happens contingent workforce data isn’t stored correctly. That results in inaccurate data that leads to poor decision making, the loss of control of your entire contingent strategy and increased risks that seep into the program.
How a VMS Can Help: A vendor management system automates processes such as sourcing contingent workers, onboarding, time entry and approval, payments and so much more. Your HR and procurement teams can save a huge number of hours - allowing them to both effectively manage the contingent workforce and spend more time on the high value tasks that really help your business grow.
#3 - Gain data and insights that improve program performance
As your business grows and scales up, you’ll need to find the right workers that help you achieve your goals. You can’t do that unless the staffing agencies you partner with are helping your business to meet its workforce requirements.
To make sure they are fulfilling those targets, it’s important to measure and analyze vendor performance. A vendor management can help you do just that.
How a VMS Can Help: A VMS will give you key insights into metrics such as time-to-fill, time-to-submit, turnover and much more. The more metrics you have around staffing agency performance, the better you develop your contingent workforce strategy in the future to ensure your vendors are helping you meet your targets.
Getting Started with a Vendor Management System
Learn more about the Benefits of a Vendor Management System and what to look for when choosing the best VMS for your organization. Download our Free VMS Buyer's Guide here:
Take the Next Step with Conexis VMS
Conexis is an award-winning VMS tailored specifically for mid-market contingent workforce programs. Leveraging the latest technology, Conexis delivers the expertise, reliability and security of enterprise systems, while offering the flexibility, user friendliness and tailored service you require. Conexis delivers enterprise level software - without the enterprise level complexity and cost.
Learn more about our Company and why organizations Choose Conexis VMS.
Contact Us
Whether you are looking to change your VMS solution, or just getting started, we are here to help. Contact Us for a Free No-Obligation Consultation to discuss your workforce challenges (and get immediate actionable insights). See how easy Conexis is to use by taking a quick 2 minute Self-Guided Tour, or Book a Personal Demo Today!
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