Total talent management has direct benefits for end-users including contingent workforce program managers, HR business partners, and line managers.
Historically, companies have only included employee headcount into planning activities and full scale operations. The contingent workforce was treated as a procurement function or a siloed HR exercise but rarely prioritized in talent management activities.
Employee headcount approval, recruitment cycles, productivity measurements, performance reviews, and attrition have meticulously created service level agreements and rigorous focus. Meanwhile, the non-employee workforce escapes much scrutiny as long as the budget is approved. While employee data is tracked, contingent workforce data is loosely captured among a variety of systems, if at all, making it difficult to understand the larger picture of how work gets done.
Companies miss out on productivity and quality-to-value measures from only looking at one side of the talent coin. With one place to see all workforce data, a company is able to make true data-driven talent decisions, whether that’s better understanding talent spend, if they have the right talent channels available, or simply seeing a full org chart for the first time.
Total talent visibility is the ability to see the full picture of your extended workforce alongside your employees. Total talent management is the ability to see, make strategic decisions and act upon them. Critical data components include headcount, classification type, location, job titles, skill sets, hierarchy, cost and quality of work.
Strategically, knowing the full details of your entire talent ecosystem allows you to conduct more accurate workforce planning, build more agile operations and proactively remain compliant. Total talent management enables cross-functional alignment between HR, Procurement and Finance; as well as a variety of tactical benefits for HR business partners, contingent workforce program managers, and business managers.
How the Contingent Workforce Program Manager Benefits
Contingent Workforce Program Managers are one of the easiest roles to imagine a total talent management approach benefiting. For example, with this approach, one can finally:
- Understand the active, cumulative and new EW headcount at any given time, how it’s changed, and why it’s changed.
- Identify recruitment and talent trends of employee and extended workforce talent channels by any organzanational split
- Track and manage risk according to location, skill set, and classification from one system
- See at a macro level what's really happening within the organization
Some other key business outcomes are only possible if you take this approach to your entire workforce:
IT Controls. For example, to help reduce the loss of intellectual property and confidential information or pass financial control audits, it is critical to offboard all workers and revoke all access as quickly as possible. This is increasingly difficult with the more sourcing channels involved and more systems you have to manage.
Internal to External Supply Chain. Want to better identify preferred vendors and leverage volume discounts for specific locations and skill sets? Want to better understand how outsourced projects align with internal team goals or which teams have overlapping skill sets? Using a total talent approach illustrates whether teams are leveraging a supply base to enhance its internal talent or priorities, or not.
Compliance. Country and classification specific guidelines, restrictions and statutory requirements mandate the ability to easily see the different types of workers you have. Whether it’s a simple tenure limit, entity set-up, onboarding or training requirement, pension deduction audit, wage and hour requirement or the like; proactive management requires a full view.
How HR Business Partners benefit
HR Business Partners (HRBPs) historically focus on employees first, but in groups where there is a large talent sourcing and management mix, there are some key questions a HRBP can answer with this visibility:
- Management
- What’s the ratio of employees to extended workforce on this team?
- How is productivity measured for the teams and are they meeting it?
- Should we consider restructuring how work is getting done? Should we move projects to contingent workers or move projects back in to employees?
- Are individual contributors who manage suppliers and external workers ready for promotion to people manager?
- Cost-to-Value Association
- What's the cost difference between employees and contingent workers for a certain skill set?
- Are we getting the quality-to-value from this supplier? How do we know?
- Sourcing
- How long does it take to recruit an employee vs. finding a contractor, freelancer or consulting group?
- Which sourcing method brings longer tenure and higher performance?
- Do we convert a percentage of our contractors? Is it a good talent channel for any specific skill set or location?
- Geographies
- Where should we plan to hire next? Where do I see talent (employee or extend workforce) working?
- Are we creating products in locations we have the legal right to work?
- Workforce Planning
- Do we see ourselves hiring the same types of workers during the same season next year?
- What levels of talent are we building vs. buying?
- When we deny headcount, is the deprioritized work being done another way?
Without the right data across the entire workforce, these valuable business decisions are made with just half the story. This can have negative implications as workforce spend escalates and inefficiencies develop with redundant resources. If you want to best leverage your talent and reduce redundant work, then visibility across the organization is key.
How a Line of Business Manager Benefits
The direct manager is generally focused on their specific departmental needs and objectives. Increasingly so, quality, time-to-fill and cost matters to this group. For managers:
- Is my team currently focused on the administrative tasks of recruiting, contracting and interviewing? Training and Onboarding? Or Producing? At what point is the team at in the storm, norm, or perform cycle?
- What’s the fastest way to bring this talent in?
- How quickly can I get budget or headcount approved?
- Do I have the necessary skill sets on my internal teams or do I need to outsource?
- Is the more expensive person performing at a higher level?
- Can I leverage someone else’s supplier relationship to find good people vs. starting from scratch?
Productivity and quality matter to all managers, but data limited to employees alone won’t give them an accurate perspective. Extended workforce quality, efficacy and efficiency directly impacts the team goals and the bottom line.
Total Talent Matters
Focusing solely on employees has significant detrimental impacts to the business. Building a program with a modern approach and full visibility will increase productivity, save money and allow you to make true data driven talent decisions. Save your organization countless hours moving across disparate systems, unorganized spreadsheets, and redundant work by moving to a world of total talent management; a one view advantage.
