Is your organization looking to gain complete visibility into how it recruits, pays and manages its contingent workforce? Doing so can lead to huge benefits, from reduced costs, improved workforce quality and better insights into staffing agency performance.
But how exactly does your business gain visibility and control over its contingent workforce?
Some organizations try to track their contingent workforce staffing program through manual spreadsheets, but this is time consuming and prone to human error - completely destroying your company’s visibility into the program performance.
In fact, many companies believe they are falling short in how they manage contingent workers. Only 9 percent of companies in the Sapient Insights 2020-2021 HR Systems Survey believed they were "excellent" at managing gig or contingent workers, while 17 percent said they were "poor" at managing that segment of the workforce.
The key to successfully managing a contingent workforce in-house is the use of technology.
With that in mind, in this blog we look at some of the top contingent workforce management technologies and what purpose they serve when it comes to managing the contingent workforce and staffing agencies.
The top contingent workforce recruiting technology
Vendor management system
A vendor management system is the most robust piece of technology for contingent workforce management, ensuring organizations with contingent spend can gain complete visibility and control over their contingent workforce program performance and spend.
A vendor management system, or VMS, empowers HR, procurement teams and hiring managers to better manage the contingent workforce through the centralization of data recording as well as the automation of rigorous contingent workforce processes.
Essentially, a vendor management system acts as a centralized hub for a company’s entire contingent workforce management program, giving businesses complete insight and control over the contingent workers they hire and the staffing agencies they use to source those workers.
Direct sourcing technology
Direct sourcing technology is a standalone software platform that supports the management of a company’s direct sourcing program - which differs from the traditional method of hiring contingent workers where organizations use staffing agencies, instead, focusing on building a pool of freelancers, consultants, and temps that can be hired directly.
Direct sourcing technology helps businesses to build internal talent pools of contingent workers, as well as automate the processes around engaging and managing those workers. This technology also centralizes that talent pool in one centralized platform, making it easy for hiring managers to source direct contingent talent.
By curating contingent workers into talent pools and sending that talent regular communication, businesses can use direct sourcing technology to build a highly-engaged contingent workforce that can be sourced directly in rapid time.
Freelancer management system
Similar to the functionality of direct sourcing technology, a freelancer management system is designed specifically to centralize information and data specifically regarding freelance talent used by an organization.
Freelancer management systems, also known as an FMS, are used by HR professionals to manage the lifecycle of freelancers, from onboard freelancers, tracking their progress, storing contracts, and managing invoices and payments.
This type of technology is often used by companies that don’t have any really contingent workforce volume, and only freelance a relatively small amount of tasks to freelancers. Typically, companies that use a freelance management system are generally looking to source less mainstream hot skills in the creative industry - like graphic designers or copy writers.
Human resource information systems and enterprise resource planning systems
Rather than investing in contingent workforce-specific technologies, some organizations are using traditional HR platforms (such as human resource information systems and enterprise resource planning systems) to recruit, track and manage contingent workers.
The problem here is that these platforms are historically designed to only manage data connected to full-time employees, and often don’t have the contingent workforce functionalities that are required to truly gain control of your contingent workforce program.
The management of staffing agencies and contingent workforce compliance can often become risky when the contingent workforce is managed through a core HR platform. The contingent workforce should be managed separately to your employees to avoid worker compliance issues.
Are you interested in learning more about how technology can help your business better manage its contingent workforce program? Book a demo of the innovative Conexis VMS platform today, and learn how we can help!