Attracting qualified, dedicated, loyal and hardworking employees for your light industrial business is challenging. With an incredibly high turnover rate in the industry, keeping them is even more difficult.
That’s why many light industrial businesses are turning to the contingent workforce and hiring temporary workers and contractors to fill their needs. The companies that are doing this, are reaping the rewards.
This method, however, doesn’t come without its challenges. Sourcing, engaging and managing temporary workers is complex and comes with thousands of data points that you must manage properly if you want to build a highly-effective non-employee workforce.
To help you get started, Conexis VMS has created this two-part blog which will look at everything your business needs to effectively manage a temporary workforce in the light industrial sector.
In the first part of this blog, we will be discussing the growing skills gap and why temporary workers are a necessity for any business in the light industrial sector.
The second part of this blog, we will dive into why you can’t rely on manual management processes when building your temporary workforce, and how new technology specifically designed for the mid-market can revolutionize how you manage non-employee workers.
The skills shortage and why temp workers are a necessity for light industrial businesses
The shortage in skilled labour is an issue for almost every single industry in the world, and, with turnover in the industry being incredibly high, this problem is even more challenging in the light industrial sector.
In fact, according to Korn Ferry’s Future of Work research, by 2030, the global talent shortage could reach 85.2 million people - costing companies trillions of dollars in lost economic opportunity.
With unemployment figures rising since the start of 2020 due to COVID-19 and many organizations still being forced to lay off their workers to survive, you may be under the impression that the skills shortage won’t last long in the current climate.
This would be correct for many industries, where companies have had to lay off highly-skilled employees (who are now looking for remote and temporary work), but it’s far from the truth for the light industrial sector.
Hot skills in the light industrial sector are still difficult to find, depending on the industry and the skill type. In most cases, general labour in the light industrial sector is hard work and the remuneration isn’t always great.
Why would an employee go back to work when emergency COVID-19 benefits are paying them almost as much as a full day of work? As a result, businesses in the light industrial sector are finding it increasingly difficult to access top talent.
That’s where the creation of a non-employee workforce comes in
Hiring the right talent for your organization is the key to success, but what happens when those skills are getting scarcer every single day? To beat the skills shortage and access talented workers before your competitor, it’s likely that you have turned to staffing agencies and begun to build your own pool of non-employee temporary workers.
When managed correctly, temporary workers can help your business access top talent and beat the skills gap, all while saving your organization money and improving your ability to adapt to changing marketing conditions.
Despite these benefits, the management of a non-employee workforce is incredibly complex and it’s crucial that your business has access to a technology solution that ensures you have complete visibility into your temporary workforce and the vendors who provide them.
For further information on what technology you need, we will discuss this in the second part of our blog (stay tuned..).
Do you have any questions about managing a non-employee workforce within your light industrial business? Contact Conexis VMS today. Our team of contingent workforce management specialists and vendor management system developers are ready to help.