close

Christopher J. Dwyer

The Age of Extended Workforce Technology Innovation

General InsightsSolution ProvidersTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Nearly five years ago, the merger between Vendor Management System (VMS) giants Beeline and IQNavigator was a monumental event in the workforce management solutions industry. Two-and-a-half years earlier, software conglomerate SAP purchased Fieldglass for $1B, by far the biggest transaction in the VMS technology arena up until that time. And, just three years ago, business spend management leader Coupa purchased DCR Workforce, with the solution now integrated into the platform’s core offering and known as Coupa Contingent Workforce.

These were watershed moments in the history of workforce management software, with four major VMS players undergoing mass-scale transformations that would forever shape the future of the industry.

Late last week, enterprise software giant Workday announced that it agreed to acquire fast-growing VMS solution VNDLY in a $510M deal. The monetary terms of the soon-to-be-confirmed transaction sent shockwaves throughout the industry; VNDLY’s “vendor-friendly” and API- and integration-flexible software quickly became an enterprise-grade platform in a short period of time (it was founded in 2017), impacting the world of work by presenting both HR and procurement practitioners (as well as Managed Service Providers) with another technological option in a fairly mature software space.

The acquisition of VNDLY certainly seems like a market-shifting event, however, the world of work and talent is markedly different than it was even three years ago. Thus, we need to look at this event from a different lens than the ones we traditionally use to measure the impact of a major market acquisition.

Yes, this is a major score for Workday, no matter how we view the deal today. Workday invests half of what SAP did over seven years ago for the one the industry’s fastest-growing and most flexible VMS platforms. VNDLY’s strengths lie in its advanced cloud infrastructure, incredibly strong provisioning tools, robust SOW management and service procurement modules, truly agile analytics, and real-time workforce visibility. And, its core automation is incredibly configurable and designed to be a flexible VMS platform. The opportunity for Workday is clear: sell their HR clients on the merits of bringing procurement-led vendor management automation into the HR tech fold. A tall task, for sure, considering that one of several visions for the original SAP Fieldglass deal revolved around the synergies with SAP SuccessFactors (many of which have not yet been realized).

However, the workforce solutions industry is different than other business software realms. When SAP bought Fieldglass (remember, for a BILLION dollars), it was market-shifting. There were a handful of leaders in the space that felt the impact immediately. It was the same for the Beeline-IQN merger; it transformed the market heading into 2017 and opened the doors for a new way of looking at vendor management software. Coupa buying DCR was a move that spoke directly to the company’s appetite for addressing a major gap in the procurement technology market.

The VNDLY acquisition, and especially its price-point, are eye-popping. This is amazing news for the workforce management space, especially for a team that grew from startup mode to enterprise technology faster than anyone else. They deserve major kudos and the future is indeed bright for VNDLY and its technology as it arms itself with the power of Workday’s vast global reach (and deep, deep R&D resources). We cannot, however, get too focused on “prisoner of the moment” analysis here; there’s so much more to our industry than a single provider changing hands to the tune of a half-billion dollars.

It is critical to remind ourselves that we are truly living in an age of workforce technology innovation. Utmost is redefining the concept of total talent management and providing near-unrivaled workforce visibility to its clients. PRO Unlimited is actively transforming itself into a forward-thinking, end-to-end platform for all talent and workforce activity. Beeline morphed fundamental pieces of itself by offering extended workforce technology that traverses beyond its powerful VMS platform (and tapping into the reach of its talent technology ecosystem to do so). Platforms such as ELEVATE, Eqip, and Pixid are bringing unique viewpoints to the market.

We also need to look no further than the direct sourcing technology arena for even more instances of workforce management innovation. WorkLLama is one of the most exciting and groundbreaking platforms in the industry. LiveHire’s direct sourcing automation is revolutionizing talent pool strategies. Opptly is bringing a new technological voice to the market based on decades of workforce management expertise.

Companies like Upwork are reconceiving the role of digital staffing by blending a deep talent marketplace with innovative, end-to-end workforce management functionality. The Mom Project’s robust technology, deep talent marketplace, and focus on DE&I positions it as a truly unique and inventive solution. Talmix is bringing to market a unique blend of talent marketplace and direct sourcing functionality. Platforms like Prosperix are bringing a Future of Work dynamic into the workforce solutions fold.

To dig even further into what others in the space are doing, let’s revisit PRO Unlimited’s past 12 months of activity: the company bought leading rate management solution PeopleTicker, expanded its European MSP reach with the acquisition of Brainnet Group, entered into the industry’s first partnership with the unique Eightfold AI, bought fellow market-leading MSP/VMS hybrid Workforce Logiq, and then, most recently, acquired the dynamic direct sourcing platform WillHire.

Simply put: the workforce solutions arena is in a much different place than it was several years ago. Innovation is rampant today, and, the greater workforce technology ecosystem (VMS, EWS, direct sourcing, digital staffing, talent marketplaces, etc.) are collectively reimagining how businesses 1) drive efficiencies around the engagement and management of the extended workforce, 2) derive workforce scalability through dynamic engagement automation, 3) augment the inherent flexibility of extended talent, and, most critically, 4) aid how businesses get work done.

On the Thursday afternoon edition of Mad Money (with Jim Cramer), Workday’s Chief Strategy Officer, Pete Schlampp, stated that the focus on the VNDLY acquisition was “attaching to this trend in the pandemic; workers want more flexibility and companies want to have more control over their extended workforce.” He added that businesses want “to be able to flex and expand quickly” and the VNDLY acquisition will allow Workday users to execute total workforce optimization.

Schlampp is correct in the sense that businesses want more scalability and that workers want more flexibility, however, linking these major workforce attributes solely with the COVID-19 pandemic is absolutely selling short the continued growth, evolution, and impact of the extended workforce over the past several years, as well as the vast amount of innovation that has been developed and offered by a wide variety of platforms for the years before the public health crisis hit. Consider that:

  • Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research pegged the penetration of the extended workforce at 43% of all business talent…before the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, that statistic has grown to 47% and will soon hit 50%.
  • Our research found that, prior to March 2020, 21% of the average company’s workforce was working remotely or in a hybrid model (with that number expected to double by the end of 2021, according to those same businesses).
  • “Workforce agility” was the main focus of workforce and talent management for consecutive years in Ardent and FOWX research dating back to 2017 through our most recent research study (summer 2021), and;
  • “Total workforce management” and “total talent management” have, for the past decade and long before the pandemic, been major goals for businesses that want to blend contingent workforce management with human capital management and truly optimize how talent is found, engaged, sourced, and managed. As we learned with SAP Fieldglass and SAP SuccessFactors, just simply owning two distinct pieces of that total talent management puzzle does not equate to a easy “switch” that can be turned on for businesses that want to manage all enterprise talent under a single solution.

The ultimate point is this: today, it’s not just about managing suppliers and vendors and merely augmenting a contingent workforce management agenda on the world of talent, but rather looking at how to manage the workforce effectively in optimizing how work is done. Several years ago, a VNDLY acquisition by Workday would be the biggest transformative shift across the workforce management technology landscape. Today, it represents one of many innovative approaches to getting work done.

read more

FOWX Notes: November 19 Edition.

General Insights by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Some picked-up pieces from around the world of talent and work:

  • Big news out of the workforce management solutions arena yesterday afternoon, as Workday announced that it had agreed to acquire VMS provider VNDLY for $510 million. There are several implications of this deal (which is expected to close in early 2022), including the “total talent management” factor (HRIS functionality plus VMS technology), VNDLY adding an HR edge to its core range of contingent workforce-led offerings, and how it enhances VNDLY’s integration- and API-friendly platform. (Additional coverage of this deal will be featured on the Future of Work Exchange next week.)
  • Elevated Resources’ flagship VMS product, ELEVATE, recently announced its Customer and Supplier Automation Platform, a staffing platform as a service (SPaaS) that is aimed to enhance candidate sourcing and engagement management for the staffing supplier industry. “Customers are demanding more intuitive automation as they look towards the Future of Work and how they interact with staffing firms. ELEVATE is providing its staffing suppliers with a delivery platform for their customers that do not already have a VMS in place. With this enhanced platform, staffing providers can manage the entire fulfillment lifecycle,” said Rob Morris, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at ELEVATE.
  • Twenty months into the pandemic and there are still major discussions of in-person vs. remote work. However, now that (most of) the dust has settled on what works and what doesn’t work in the hybrid work environment, there’s an overlooked discussion at hand that could play a significant role in the continue volatility: geo-differentiated vs geo-neutral compensation. In short, companies that allow their staff to work remotely could alter salaries based on where their talent lives (Facebook was one of the first major enterprises to float this idea back in 2020). A London-based tech startup may not want to pay London-based rates for a worker that lives across the world in Iowa, however, what some executives fail to realize is that this mode of thinking is a literal backpedal to the candidate experience. Companies that are feeling the burn of the so-called “Great Resignation” need to eliminate this idea…immediately.
  • The four-week rolling average of unemployment claims has been hovering around 272,000, which would be a pandemic-era low. This is yet another encouraging sign that the labor market, in theory, has technically “recovered.” However, with millions more job openings and hundreds of thousands of workers quitting/resigning monthly, the ground gained just doesn’t feel as welcoming as it should.
  • Dr. Ashish Jha, Dean of Brown University’s School of Public Health, writes in The Atlantic about why vaccine boosters will be required for all adults moving forward. “[Boosting adults] in the United States makes sense as a matter of both minimizing risks to individuals and protecting the health of the population as a whole,” he writes. This also makes sense from the business standpoint, as well; last winter’s COVID surge was horrific, with nearly 250,000 daily cases, thousands of death each day, and unimaginable disruption. If businesses want to keep whatever momentum they have right now flowing into the colder, darker months of winter, it would behoove them to encourage fully-vaccinated workers to consider a booster dose. The one tool that we did not have last winter that we do now will be the strongest weapon to ensure businesses weather the next coronavirus surge.
read more

Key Providers for 2021: PRO Unlimited

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Background:

“Evolution” and “disruption” are not often mentioned in the same discussion. However, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and its wide-sweeping ramifications on the business arena, the two are now interchangeable dimensions that are actively transforming the way work is addressed and done. The world of contingent workforce management has changed forever, with progressive attributes placing equal emphasis on the talent and innovation components of how the modern-day worker is engaged and sourced.

As the Future of Work continues to leave its indelible fingerprints on the wide world of talent and work, both HR and procurement executives will require a unified technological approach that can seamlessly connect the most critical pieces of workforce management.

Enter PRO Unlimited.

Why They Were Selected:

Future of Work Exchange research finds that 84% of businesses aimed to “reimagine” workforce management heading into 2021, given that they spent the better part of a year facing the worst public health crisis of their collective lifetimes that caused undue disruption to traditional processes and strategies related to the growing and evolving non-employee workforce. While that statistic continues to prove itself out in an ever-changing business arena, what also stands out is that (also according to FOWX research) nearly 70% of enterprises are also focused on better managing the many technological gaps in the ultimate coverage of the total workforce.

PRO Unlimited has been one of the most aggressive and disruptive workforce management solutions in the market over the past year, owed to a “platform” vision that would see it become a dynamic nexus for agile workforce innovation. In just a short amount of time, the solution expanded the depth of its data ocean (acquisition of PeopleTicker), expanded its commitment to DE&I (exclusive partnership with EightfoldAI), announced a direct sourcing solution and added progressive functionality to it within months (the new Direct Sourcing PRO offering combined with the acquisition of WillHire), and expanded its total managed service provider reach with the acquisition of Workforce Logiq (also named a “Key Provider for 2021” here on the Exchange).

In Their Own Words:

Servicing hundreds of the world’s most recognizable brands, PRO Unlimited offers modern workforce management and a partner ecosystem supported by data, software, intelligence, and services to meet your flexible workforce needs. PRO’s Integrated Workforce Management Platform can adapt quickly to regional or industry economic shifts, and provides the speed, scale, flexibility, transparency, and expertise to serve as the holistic platform for the modern workforce. Headquartered in San Francisco, PRO has helped global brands and organizations achieve operational and financial success for more than 30 years.

The Outlook:

PRO Unlimited, quite simply, is a solution that is tailored for the Future of Work. Consider the pieces of its end-to-end offering:

  • Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) are built into the fabric of its core platform and especially its direct sourcing module (Direct Source PRO) through its exclusive partnership with Eightfold AI.
  • The acquisition of Workforce Logiq wasn’t just an expansion play, but rather a way to tap into the solution’s unique, intelligence-led offerings, particularly ENGAGE Talent, which has the potential to revolutionize talent engagement combined with the power of the PRO platform.
  • Direct Source PRO, in a short period of time, became one of the industry’s strongest direct sourcing offerings. The addition of WillHire’s deep functionality will only aid in pushing this facet of the PRO solution to new heights.
  • The recent partnership with Glider AI (also a FOWX “Key Provider”!) will further enable a range of digital recruitment and candidate assessment capabilities that are designed to assist PRO clients with the necessary, on-demand intelligence to enhance predictive talent modeling, improve the quality of talent channels, and optimize direct sourcing strategies.

Simply put: 2022 will be a massive year for PRO Unlimited and the delivery of its innovative vision. The company is consistently unveiling pieces of a larger puzzle that are ultimately designed to facilitate a new era of optimization within the realms of workforce intelligence, DE&I, direct sourcing, talent acquisition, and agile workforce management.

read more

Contingent Workforce Weekly, Episode 608: The Impact of “Fatigue” on the Future of Work

Podcast by Christopher J. Dwyer on

An all-new edition of the Contingent Workforce Weekly podcast highlights the growing impact of “fatigue” on how work gets done, from pandemic fatigue to fatigue from the constant stream of change that permeates through the personal and professional lives of today’s workforce.

Tune into Episode 608 of Contingent Workforce Weekly below, or subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, Stitcher, or iHeartRadio.

read more

Key Providers for 2021: ZoomInfo Recruiter

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Background:

There is a talent revolution happening across the world, with millions of highly-skilled workers reevaluating their roles, career journeys, and other facets of their lives in the wake of 18 months of both personal and professional uncertainty. For HR executives, talent acquisition leaders, and hiring managers, filling positions has become one of the hardest things to accomplish in business today.

Recruiters, staffing agencies, and hiring managers are actively finding that they need an additional array of tools, strategies, and solutions to uncover the talent they need to effectively get work done. No longer having the ability to contend with a “simple” labor market that is over-saturated with skillsets, these business leaders must harness the power of information, intelligence, and next-level insights to navigate an evolving talent landscape that requires a formidable, data-driven approach towards recruitment.

Enter ZoomInfo Recruiter.

Why They Were Selected:

Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 70% of businesses plan to leverage advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, and predictive data to augment how they pipeline candidates. Furthermore, another 64% state that they plan on using AI and similar tools to support talent nurture and candidate experience processes.

ZoomInfo Recruiter, on the surface, is the seamless convergence of ZoomInfo’s industry-leading market intelligence platform with cutting-edge recruitment automation. The ZoomInfo Recruiter solution enables users with personalized outreach tools to enhance passive candidate attraction and directly communicate with talent directly within the tool. This innovative blend of direct sourcing-esque automation with deep market intelligence is a unique mix of functionality that can aid recruiters and hiring managers in the ongoing war for talent.

In Their Own Words:

In a competitive hiring environment, ZoomInfo Recruiter provides data and tools to source candidates, create talent pipelines, and automate engagement with passive job seekers. It provides recruiting and talent acquisition teams the ability to connect with top talent beyond professional network sites.

ZoomInfo Recruiter allows recruiters to access a continuously enhanced contact database that saves recruiters time when sourcing candidates. Contact data paired with ZoomInfo Recruiter’s Reachout extension makes sourcing and contacting candidates simple.

In the ZoomInfo Recruiter platform, search filters narrow candidates from a talent pool of thousands. Recruiters can source passive candidates, build diverse talent pools, and more. Features such as the “Likely to Listen” filter can flag candidates who are 30% more likely to be in a new role in four months, and diversity and inclusion filters can help increase diversity in the talent pool.

Using automated and multichannel talent flows, recruiters can build outreach flows using email and phone, and they can call lists of candidates to leave pre-recorded voicemails. Recruiting teams using “Projects” for pipeline management can collaborate on the hiring process. From sourcing candidates to engaging with them, ZoomInfo Recruiter empowers recruiters to get candidates into the interview process..

The Outlook:

The talent engagement industry is rife with innovation today, owing its progressive nature to not only an unsettled labor market and evolving talent economy, but also the major Future of Work accelerants that are actively transforming the ways businesses find, engage, and source critical talent. Today’s recruitment and talent acquisition professionals require advanced tools to augment how they fill the candidate pipeline, with passive candidates fast-becoming a crucial element in the ultimate optimization of how work is done.

The ZoomInfo Recruiter platform integrates candidate data with company intelligence, resulting in a deeper dynamic of talent knowledge that allows users an added edge in passive candidate recruitment. The solution’s innovative mix of market data and interactive organizational hierarchies, combined with progressive functionality such as its “Scoops” feature (which tips off recruiters to possible employment shakeups), positions ZoomInfo Recruiter as a forward-thinking and data-led platform that is an ideal disruptor for evolving world of work and talent.

read more

The Link Between Workplace Safety and “The Big Quit”

Business LeadershipTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

When the Future of Work Exchange launched its flagship research study earlier this year, nearly 90% of business executives stated that they expected operations to return to “normal” within six months-to-a-year. The timing of our research data collection (Q1 2021) meant that by early 2022, the vast majority of enterprise leaders anticipated a better working environment that, in theory, would somewhat resemble pre-pandemic life. That key statistic reflected the hope and optimism brought by three major vaccines that were available to the general public at the tail end of winter. Phrases such as “Hot Vax Summer” were thrown around in anticipation of a return to summer glory after a 2020 that featured lockdowns, social distancing, and, presumably, many canceled vacations and trips.

There’s an interesting angle, though, when we break down that core research data: dig a little deeper into specific verticals and industries, and the picture changes tremendously. Ninety-eight percent (98%) of healthcare businesses believed that normality was, at the earliest, two years away. Retail? 75% stated two years. Distribution and logistics…nearly the same mindset (70% stating two years to normality). Nearly 65% of travel and hospitality concur, as do 62% of those in the education sector.

An article at Business Insider caught my attention for two reasons: 1) it perfectly encapsulated an overlooked reason for the so-called “Big Quit” or “Great Resignation,” and, 2) it struck so close to home, since my wife is a 20-year veteran of the veterinary industry and has been an essential worker since Day One. Human and veterinary medicine are two industries that consistently produce close encounters, crowded surgeries and exam rooms, and nearly no way to adhere to six-foot social distancing guidelines…which means one thing: vaccinations are ever-important in businesses that rely on close worker-to-worker contact to facilitate core operations.

Retail, distribution/logistics, travel, restaurants, education…all sectors that cannot leverage remote or hybrid work at the same scale as an industry like financial services or consulting. And thus, a new trend emerges: workers resigning or quitting due to health and safety concerns. Yes, there’s a talent revolution occurring today and that is something that cannot be overstated; however, in the greater scheme of talent and work, basic health and safety should never be a reason for a worker to voluntarily leave a position. The fact that this is a contributing factor to the ongoing series of resignations across the country means that any conversations around “normality” are shrouded in uncertainty.

Lagging vaccination rates, even in the wake of the Delta variant’s summer-to-fall rampage, mean that those workers that are vaccinated could be anxious regarding their own safety. After a typical shift (or one that careens into overtime hours, which is a reality when there’s a staffing shortage), any onset of sniffles, coughing, or subpar physical feelings can set off a wave of concerns regarding possible COVID exposure. Only 45% of businesses in the Future of Work Exchange Report for 2021 stated that the pandemic forced them to reevaluate their own processes for monitoring health and safety precautions, a far cry from the bigger pressures that businesses experienced over the past 18 months, including the reimagining of workforce management and the increased need for contingent and extended talent.

It’s no secret that many businesses have never taken the pandemic seriously. And it’s also not a surprise to hear that many business leaders have been prioritizing a return to the office for months, even though caseloads began to skyrocket during the summer months and, now, after a decline in October, are beginning to climb once again. Even the most vaccinated states in America (such as Massachusetts, where I live) have seen consistently-high coronavirus caseloads, which means that as more and more businesses push for normalcy, they will be putting their talent directly in harm’s way.

A common refrain regarding unvaccinated workers and those that don’t prioritize the pandemic’s wide-sweeping ramifications is often simple: COVID may not cause serious harm because of their age and vitality, so why mandate vaccines? Why take such rigid precautions? Well, the answer is clear-cut: COVID is caused by a novel virus that was discovered only two years ago. The threat of “long COVID” or passing along the illness to an immunodeficient relative/family member should always be top-of-mind. With the way the Delta variant changed the overall outlook for the pandemic, the government had no choice in instituting a nationwide vaccine mandate that would ensure that workplace environments are safe.

So much attention has been paid regarding the worker revolution happening within the business world, with more and more talented professionals are choosing different career paths, reevaluating their existing journeys, and/or holding out for better compensation. “Workplace standards” have always been a part of the conversation but not the center of this “talent revolution” discussion.

If a worker has no choice but to commute to a physical location and interact with other people, there should never be a question regarding workplace health and safety standards. Any worker that has to come home to children or immunocompromised individuals should not have the added stress of worrying about whether or not they’re bringing a vicious virus into their personal space. And, those workers that have pre-existing conditions that could cause a severe reaction to the coronavirus must be assured from their leaders that they either 1) have alternative work options (such as remote work), or, 2) are working in a facility that promotes social distancing, vaccinations, and actively enforce COVID restrictions within the workplace.

Government mandates will soon curb some of those poor conditions in non-remote, non-hybrid industries, especially as major retailers, medical facilities, warehouses, etc. push for mass vaccinations in the wake of the Biden administration’s new regulatory policies. However, that “return to normalcy” that every business aims for in 2022? Not going to happen if talented professionals continue to leave their positions over workplace safety concerns.

read more

The Extended Workforce is a Piece of the Total Talent Puzzle

Contingent WorkforceTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

For years, the very topic of “total talent management” (“TTM”) was an eye-raising and polarizing discussion, given the fact that the very underlying concepts around TTM involved several distinct sets of processes and capabilities (i.e., procurement, spend management, contingent workforce, HR, etc.) that did not historically mesh given their focuses on “commodities” versus “talent.” However, as the growth of the contingent workforce continued to expand within the total workforce (now sitting at 47% of all talent), strategies to have standardized, centralized, and aligned approaches and competencies for managing all types of talent, no matter the source, became ever more critical. And, with contingent workforce utilization continuing to grow and approaching nearly half of the average enterprise’s total workforce, it is incumbent on procurement leaders, HR executives, and contingent workforce management program heads to maintain clear visibility into the entire collection of organizational talent to execute better-informed and more intelligent decisions regarding the future use of labor.

Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 70% of businesses want to address key technological gaps in the greater coverage of the total workforce. This includes having full visibility into total talent, a state we refer to as “total talent intelligence,” which enables organizations with the ability to make real-time hiring decisions as new needs and project arise. Based on available talent and their skillsets and expertise, be it FTEs, staffing suppliers, or known/vetted candidates in talent pools, hiring managers can harness the power of total talent intelligence to make real-time talent judgments. This attribute is perhaps one of the strongest links to true business and workforce agility.

With the contingent workforce evolving over the past several years to encompass additional channels of non-employee talent, the language best used to describe it has also changed. This natural progression has led to another term: the extended workforce.

Shakespeare’s famous line, “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” is apt and appropriate here – no matter what we call the evolving contingent workforce, its underlying impact is still that of a powerful, market-shifting force that drives competitive value and supports overall business agility. AS the contingent workforce, size scope, and strategic impact has expanded, new terminology that captures this evolution makes sense. “Extended” is yet another natural progression for this industry; contingent workers are sometimes thought of as mere line-items or “faceless” workers across the greater organization. Calling this spectrum of non-employee talent the “extended workforce” reflects the symbiotic link between an enterprise and all of its workers and how that relationship enhances the very idea of how work gets done.

As businesses navigate the so-called “next normal” ahead, they will require strategies, solutions, and technology that can effectively manage the full facet of its extended workforce in order to maximize the inherent skillsets and expertise offered by non-employee talent.

read more

Key Providers for 2021: WorkLLama

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Background:

Just a few years ago, direct sourcing was a niche strategy employed by a small percentage of enterprises that desired to harness the power of private talent pools. Today, direct sourcing is one of the hottest priorities in the world of talent and work, becoming a top-three priority within workforce management (alongside talent intelligence and workforce agility).

Direct sourcing is a key contributor to the overall success of extended workforce management, especially in the face of the monumental change that has occurred in the world of talent and work over the past 18 months. The impact of direct sourcing automation adds an additional layer of impact to the average direct sourcing initiative; these platforms assist companies in targeting the right candidates, ensuring that enterprise requirements are aligned with targeted skillsets, and, most importantly, supporting the overall adoption of direct sourcing processes and strategies across all functional realms. Too, referral management is a powerful weapon for businesses that desire to push additional candidates into the funnel. Some direct sourcing solutions today offer robust candidate referral functionality, which is also enabled and optimized within mobile applications, that can drive additional talent engagement without the organization spending more of its time or resources.

Enter WorkLLama.

Why They Were Selected:

Future of Work Exchange research finds that businesses that leverage direct sourcing automation significantly reduce time-to-fill rates, boost overall workforce cost savings, and enhance the relative quality of total talent. By curating talent into private talent pools (that are then segmented by geography, skillsets, etc.), hiring managers are enabled with unfettered access to top-tier candidates without recruitment or staffing supplier fees. However, while the “first phase” of direct sourcing (“Direct Sourcing 1.0”) continues to drive incredible value, today’s direct sourcing platforms offer more than the traditional processes associated with direct sourcing initiatives.

“Direct Sourcing 2.0” is the next generation of direct sourcing strategies and is fundamentally rooted in the linkage between key technological arenas, a renewed focus on the candidate experience, and a seamless connection between talent pools and the projects and roles that require specific expertise. Just as the market itself evolves in the wake of continued worker resignations, a greater emphasis on the candidate and hiring manager experience, and the need for deeper assessment and validation of skillsets, businesses must begin to build on their existing direct sourcing strategies and programs to effectively develop “Direct Sourcing 2.0” capabilities.

WorkLLama’s end-to-end workforce management platform reflects the greater innovation happening within the direct sourcing technology landscape, offering a vast array of functionality not only related to the continued enhancement of direct sourcing and its ultimate adoption within enterprises across the world, but also in the way that it promotes “Direct Sourcing 2.0” automation through candidate experience management, hiring manager experience automation, next-generation talent nurture capabilities, and offerings that speak directly to the direct sourcing revolution.

In Their Own Words:

WorkLLama is a talent community platform that helps companies leverage their brands to create powerful candidate, employee and client experiences to source, engage and retain top talent. Its technology makes it possible to foster meaningful, more human connections with talent, leading to exceptional and inspired branded talent communities that fuel business success. WorkLLama drives digital transformation through social referral management; seamless candidate engagement; Sofi, its AI conversational bot; integrated, omnichannel communication; on-demand staffing; and direct sourcing solutions. 

WorkLLama’s vision is to give recruiters and employers the how (and why) of putting candidates first. We automate and optimize the hiring process to create time/space for real human connections to grow. We want to see employers, staffing firms + recruiting tech get serious about serving people’s needs with bolder, more meaningful human experiences. To put a bold underline under the HUMAN in human resources.

The Outlook:

Direct sourcing today means so much more than it did just a couple of years ago. Businesses must understand that there are various “layers” to direct sourcing (beyond talent curation and talent pooling) that require nimble and innovative technology (especially candidate referral management, talent nurture processes, candidate assessments, etc.). WorkLLama has demonstrated its powerful ability to transform workforce management through an agile convergence of adaptable direct sourcing technology and next-generation functionality, as well as its firm commitment to both the candidate and hiring manager experience.

WorkLLama’s innovative platform represents the next progressive wave of direct sourcing, in which “2.0” functionality, strategies, and capabilities push these programs and transform them into perhaps the most crucial workforce-oriented initiatives in the evolving world of work and talent.

read more

For HR, The Path Forward is Clear: Optimize How Work Gets Done

Business LeadershipHRTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Future of Work has many extensions, all of which touch various enterprise functions in some profound manner. As this movement became more associated with the evolving world of talent, enterprise functions such as HR and talent acquisition found that much of the focus on the workforce-related elements of the Future of Work fell to them to enhance.

HR sits in a unique position within today’s transformative business arena: they have the ability to influence how works gets done through a mixture of extended workforce management, its expertise regarding human capital, and, most importantly, total talent intelligence. For the past decade, the very realm of “total talent management” has been mired in conversations around “myth vs. theory vs. reality,” with many organizations believing that there is no true secret formula to managing all workers through a single, centralized umbrella of strategies, solutions, and systems. However, the concept of total talent intelligence, in which businesses have broad-range, on-demand visibility into its total talent network, allows them to effectively understand which resources or skillsets are required for a new project, role, or initiatives.

In essence, total talent intelligence is the “gateway drug” to total talent management. Just a couple of weeks ago, I joined extended workforce management system provider Utmost for a webinar that also featured VP of Marketing (and longtime friend), Neha Goel, who succinctly stated that total talent intelligence served as an ideal gateway for businesses seeking to develop total talent management programs.

The webinar also highlighted the five strategies every HR executive needed to include in their 2022 planning, such as the recalibration of the Future of Work, building towards “talent sustainability,” and reimagining “HR psychology.” Another nugget from the webcast: the fact that 61% of HR executives are actively building towards “talent sustainability” translates into a greater desire to have the appropriate skills for when unknown future needs arise (and, of course, developing a self-sustaining flow of expertise when combined with direct hire and other recruitment strategies).

The event also highlighted the “talent revolution” muddying today’s evolving staffing landscape and how it translates into an escalated war for talent. A multifaceted talent engagement approach for HR moving forward, as Neha and I discussed, must include brand, culture, purpose, and flexibility. HR and hiring managers must blend human and digital elements in navigating this evolving talent landscape to truly encapsulate the notion of work optimization.

For the HR function, this is the true Future of Work. The revolution of talent occurring in the labor market today necessitates that HR leaders inject innovation, transformative thinking, and next-generation technology to spark a renewed emphasis on how work is addressed and done. [Click here to check out a recording of the Future of Work Exchange webinar with Utmost.]

read more

Mental Wellbeing’s Critical Role in the Future of Work

Business Leadership by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Over the past 18 months, empathy and wellness became two of the most critical Future of Work attributes amongst concepts that have (for several years) been accelerating the art of work optimization. Mental wellbeing, however, was often considered an afterthought in pre-pandemic times as many business leaders remained focused on more traditional aspects of the greater organization (as well as the more technology-led aspects of the Future of Work movement).

The truth is that so many of us were historically focused on hardline metrics and benchmarks regarding productivity and how work was addressed and done that many business leaders forgot about the most critical component of all when it comes to the Future of Work: the human element.

While there are many lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, ranging from the viability of the hybrid (and remote) work model and the continued impact of agile talent (as well as how crucial digitization is in managing operational enterprise processes), there is one experience that should become a permanent foundation for how business leaders manage moving forward.

Mental wellbeing should be front-and-center in every leader’s plans for 2022…and every year after that. In fact, mental wellbeing within the workforce goes hand-in-hand with the trends towards empathy and empathetic leadership; empathy and wellbeing together, then, form a Future of Work-led convergence of non-technological elements that can truly transform the way workers structure their careers and better manage work-life integration.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) estimates that nearly 44 million people in America experience mental illness on average every year. And, to boot, NAMI also estimates that roughly 75% of all chronic mental illnesses begin by age 24…coincidentally, the age when most adults are at the very beginning of their career journeys.

If we are going to look at the impact of mental wellbeing from an archaic point-of-view, fine, let’s do that (but for only a moment): workers that are suffering from a mental illness are more likely to be disengaged from their work, less productive within the scope of their roles, and more likely to miss key milestones and delivery dates. The more important thing to do, though, is look at this from a human element: workers suffering from mental illness are more likely to have the problem exacerbated by stress from their jobs, more likely to require professional and medical assistance, and, unfortunately, more likely to engage in extreme and self-harmful behavior (such as drug and alcohol abuse, and, unfortunately, suicide).

That’s why viewing mental health at work from purely a productivity standpoint goes against the grain of being more “human” in how we manage the workforce. As the pandemic lingers and the collective trauma weighs on those suffering from mental illness, now is the time to build the business response to this epidemic:

  • Provide (and communicate the availability of) mental health support through wellbeing resources. Businesses will often state that they have built-in resources for workers to leverage if needed. However, there has been a collective failure on the part of leadership to actually (and consistently) communicate the availability of those resources to their staff. Amongst many lessons learned over the past 18 months, there is a clear need for enterprises to invest in mental resources in order for their workforce to feel supported. Does the business healthcare plan cover tele-therapy? Are psychiatrists and LMHCs part of the overall medical network? Workers require fast and easy answers to these questions.
  • Eliminate the negative stigma around mental health and related conversations. The very concept of mental health is still unfortunately a taboo topic in both the personal and business arenas. However, it doesn’t have to be, nor should it be. Mental health is just as critical as physical wellbeing; for far too long, many people (both within the personal and business realms) considered mental health to be far less important than physical health, when, in fact, the two are inherently linked. It is encouraging to see public figures, such as Atlanta Falcons star wide receiver Calvin Ridley and tennis hero Naomi Osaka, step away from the globe’s biggest sports to focus on mental health. As mental health and mental illness become destigmatized, there is hope that more and more individuals will speak up when they need to refocus on their own emotional wellbeing without fear of negative feedback from colleagues and managers.
  • Involve various stakeholders in the architecture of mental wellbeing strategies. It shouldn’t fall solely to the HR group to facilitate the development of workplace wellbeing, especially as it concerns mental health initiatives. While human resources can be responsible for the foundation, other key stakeholders should provide their best perspectives. At its core, a mental wellbeing strategy should revolve around core mental health policies, execution of those policies, and ways that illness can be monitored so the appropriate steps can be taken for intervention and support. The ultimate point is this, however: whatever strategy or program is built, it needs a strong backbone that is supported by various groups across the enterprise. If mental health is to be taken seriously, then business leaders across all functions need to be prepared for issues as they arise and understand that aspects such as risk mitigation are just as critical as worker rehabilitation.
  • Understand that mental wellness takes many forms, particularly depression, anxiety, burnout, etc. Mental wellbeing isn’t just linked to an imbalance of emotions, but rather a full “tree” of conditions that are all linked to overall mental health. Depression and anxiety may be pre-existing illnesses that are likely to be exacerbated by working conditions, while burnout occurs in even the most stout of workers that may not have historically shown signs of mental illness. “Accommodation” is ultimately the key here; business leaders must understand that mental wellbeing is a critical attribute of the Future of Work, and thus doing what they can to support and accommodate workers as they experience mental illness is a foundational way to ensure that talent can get the help they need and be ready to contribute to the greater organization when they are ready to do so.
read more
1 … 33 34 35 36 37 … 44
Page 35 of 44