[Guide] - New Extended Workforce Strategies for HR Leaders

As the economy continues to make unprecedented shifts, many businesses will need to critically evaluate how they source talent to balance the cost of hiring full-time employees vs. the flexibility of using an extended workforce (i.e., contingent workforce, alternative workforce). Unfortunately, organizations do not have good visibility into different talent types’ data that is sitting inside and outside of various systems. In this paper, we’ll discuss the complexity of talent management that exists when you add the extended workforce into the mix, the specific challenges and opportunities of taking a broader approach to talent sourcing and the importance of talent acquisition taking a much larger role, collaborating with procurement/vendor management, to drive a more holistic view and support for bringing on all types of talent.

Key Takeaways

• Traditional HR systems and contingent workforce management/ services procurement solutions are not optimized to collect and understand more about the skills, abilities, and costs of their workforce.
  
  
• Many people seek to be part of the extended workforce because it allowed them more flexibility in their work/life balance and their careers. Now, many have become part of the extended workforce and are just looking to survive.
  
  
• It is hard to make good decisions about full-time hiring vs. leveraging the extended workforce. Most organizations are not taking a holistic approach when looking at talent sourcing across all talent types. Talent acquisition teams are best positioned to do this because of their focus on the talent needs first, not just cost. We recommend they partner closely with services procurement to embrace and own workforce planning. That will be key to making good choices and being proactive in sourcing needed talent.
  
  
• Siloed processes and systems are a significant barrier to talent acquisition taking on the strategic talent sourcing role. It also provides a poor hiring manager experience when they do have a talent need. Hiring managers should not need to become sourcing or compliance experts whenever they want to bring in new talent.