Christopher J. Dwyer, Author at The Future of Work Exchange

With the Workforce at a Breaking Point, What is the Role of Agile Talent?

Contingent Workforce Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 07/09/2021

The United States is at an interesting crossroads in relation to its total workforce: after historic unemployment and severe staffing disruption at a year ago at this time, most labor rates concerning FTEs would (typically) indicate that business is as close to a normal state. However, according to The Atlantic and stats from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “more Americans quit in May than any other month on record going back to the beginning of the century.”

A choice to move away from a steady, paying job in the midst of a global pandemic may not seem like the best of moves. Back in the earliest days of the crisis, I remember telling some close friends (as well as a family member) that were unhappy in their current roles to look past the undesirable aspects of their positions until there was more clarity regarding the continued effects of the pandemic on the global workforce. (Please note: in any other circumstance, I would never offer this once-in-a-lifetime sage advice, namely because I’m a proponent of the talent experience, employee engagement, and both contingent and full-time workers enjoying a positive familiarity with their roles and where they fit into their current organizations rather than gutting out and trudging along in a business that leaves them and their skillsets unfulfilled.)

The US is in an enviable state when compared to the rest of the world. The vast, vast majority of the country has removed coronavirus restrictions, dropped mask mandates (minus medical and specific facilities, as well as public transportation), and generally celebrating a return to normalcy (even though there are still hundreds of deaths daily and an average of ~10,000 new cases a day, but I digress). The culmination of 16 months’ worth of workforce evolution (not all of it positive) has left workers at an odd tipping point: they are not afraid to leave behind less-than-desirable roles anymore.

There are clear delineations in the overall perspectives of today’s workers that could have major ramifications in the months ahead. First off, the majority of businesses are slowly figuring out the best approach (be it hybrid, fully remote, etc.) for its workplace environment. This will surely affect how businesses view corporate real estate, and, to a larger extent, how they strategize around which modes of work result in the most productive business outcomes. Businesses are at a tipping point regarding the value of new work models; no one executive fully knows what is best for its organization after a year of uncertainty. These leaders must experiment and leverage various models until the one, screaming best result is there…and then adopt it for good.

One of the major reasons why the workforce is facing a “quitting crisis” is because so many workers became accustomed to a workplace culture that fostered empathy, flexibility, and evolving ways of measuring productivity. Going back to a 9-to-5 grind, including brutal commutes on both ends, isn’t going to cut it for those workers that thrived during the pandemic and know that their top-tier skills are in-demand. Furthermore, business leaders cannot suddenly shift their emotional attitudes from “supportive” to “drill sergeant” just because it’s safer to welcome workers back to office.

A major fallout from these aspects could be a “reawakening” to the value of the extended workforce vis a vie the realization that workers don’t need to be in the corporation’s backyard to have a critical impact, nor do talented workers have to stay put in an environment that they do not desire. Simply put: the move to remote work (and additional workplace flexibility) opened many doors for non-employee talent and its influence on how work gets done. Take direct sourcing, for example; more and more businesses were willing to invite larger numbers of candidates into their talent pools for the sheer purpose of planning for a future when things were better. When economic conditions recovered, hiring managers could scale up their workforce by tapping into talent communities or talent pools.

Agile talent will play a critical role in the future of the global workforce. Labor market data may look promising on the surface, however, digging deeper only uncovers the fact more and more workers will choose flexibility and independence over a return to pre-pandemic workplace culture. Contingent labor has always been a strategic asset, and, as it continued to evolve into a truly dynamic means of getting work done, the post-pandemic workforce will shine as a direct result of an increased reliance on agile talent.

The World is Nearing Normalcy, But Will the Workforce Ever Be the Same?

Business Leadership Talent Talent Acquisition by Christopher J. Dwyer on 07/07/2021

In mid-June, CNN’s collaboration with Moody Analytics (the “Back-to-Normal Index”) indicated that the United States economy is “90% of the way back to where it was before the pandemic began over a year ago,” a stark contrast to the heartbreaking days of last spring and summer. Air travel and transportation are actively reaching pre-pandemic levels, while some markets indicate that the global economy could mirror February 2020 by the very end of the year.

Consumers are certainly taking advantage of the COVID-19 vaccine boom, spending more and more of their funds on the goods and services that were mainly out of the question less than a year ago. This activity, perhaps, is the strongest indicator that we are, albeit slowly, getting things back to some level of what we could call “normalcy.”

However, the pandemic and its ramifications left an indelible mark on the workforce; the below shifts represent the fact that even though some elements of the world and businesses may return to normal, the workforce will never be the same:

The next mass exodus of women from the workforce is happening right now. Back in March on the Contingent Workforce Weekly podcast, The Mom Project’s co-founder and COO, Greg Robinson, predicted that we may see another mass exodus of caretakers from the workforce, especially moms. And a Washington Post article found that after the early COVID shutdowns, nearly 11.3 million jobs held by women “vanished almost immediately, as women are over-represented in the retail, restaurant, travel and hospitality sectors.” Add in the need to be home without proper, in-person schooling, and this is a recipe for disaster for women in the workforce…something that could take upwards of two-to-three years to return to pre-pandemic levels. Companies like The Mom Project are certainly helping to alleviate this issue (check out our conversation this past week with the solution’s Donna Yelmokas), and the advent of digital staffing solutions and talent marketplaces are enabling moms and other caretakers access to roles that fit within their schedules. However, it is also incumbent on today’s business leaders to cultivate a culture that is founded on flexibility and empathy to get back to those pre-pandemic points even faster and allow women, moms, and caretakers to bring their incredibly valuable skills back to the workplace.
And, speaking of flexibility and empathy, business leadership will never be the same. As the world evolves into a “new normal” (or whatever you want to call it), both longtime FTEs and extended/contingent workers are going to place evermore emphasis on the overall “talent experience,” a concept borne from an application of employee engagement and employee experience attributes applied to both employee and non-employee workers. Aspects like remote work, flexible hours, and an inclusive culture are all critical concepts for talented individuals seeking their next role (be it a full-time or contingent project). Business leaders must look to a “culture of flexibility” as the foundation to how they lead. Ardent’s upcoming State of Contingent Workforce Management 2021 research study also finds that 82% of businesses will provide more flexibility regarding worker lifestyle issues, including childcare/daycare, schooling, etc., in the year ahead.
“Alternative” channels of talent become primary means of talent engagement. Even though direct sourcing and talent pools were high-priority strategies going into 2020 (and before a worldwide pandemic), they became even more crucial when traditional means of talent acquisition (such as proper interviewing) weren’t possible. Today, direct sourcing represents an ideal means of converging top-tier skillsets and expertise and on-demand talent engagement in the same package, allowing businesses to funnel the best-of-the-best into segmented talent pools and talent communities. Too, the talent nurture aspects of direct sourcing enable businesses to foster strong communication with their candidates, ensuring a positive candidate experience even before these workers are engaged for a particular role or project. The “next normal” will see an exponential rise in the utilization of direct sourcing, for sure.
New and evolved work models form the foundation of the Future of Work movement. This all-encapsulating concept brings together the brightest of innovation from learnings over the past year, and the approach is multi-pronged: 1) understand which modes of talent engagement are best for the business based on the levels of skillsets required, 2) apply an analysis that can determine whether positions, roles, and entire divisions should be distributed/remote, 3) innovate around how productivity will be measured (with an edge towards outcomes rather than hours worked), 4) implement whichever new safety and health precautions that are required (which, yes, includes whether or not COVID-19 vaccinations are mandatory), 5) foster and cultivate a workplace environment of flexibility and empathy, and, finally, 6) determine the best possible alignment between digitization and human-led processes.

Contingent Workforce Weekly, Episode 601: A Conversation with Jan Jedlinski, CEO of Candidately

Podcast by Christopher J. Dwyer on 07/07/2021

The Season Six premiere of Contingent Workforce Weekly, sponsored by DZConneX, a Yoh company, features a discussion with Candidately CEO Jan Jedlinski. Jan and I chat about the transformation of staffing, the need for a more digitized approach towards talent acquisition, and what’s in store for the Future of Work movement in the months ahead.

Tune into Episode 601 of Contingent Workforce Weekly below, or subscribe on Apple Music, Spotify, Stitcher, or iHeartRadio.

Continuing its Unlimited Evolution, PRO Unlimited Announces Acquisition by EQT Partners

Contingent Workforce Direct Sourcing Diversity and Inclusion HR Procurement Solution Providers Talent Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on 07/01/2021

Earlier this week, contingent workforce management (CWM) solution PRO Unlimited announced that it has partnered with EQT Partners, who will acquire the company from Harvest Partners and Investcorp. When the acquisition officially closes in the second half of 2021, EQT Private Equity will be the majority shareholder, with Harvest Partners continuing as a large shareholder and management retaining a minority stake in the company.

This major transaction follows a year of aggressive market activity by the veteran MSP and VMS suite of solutions, which has undergone a seismic transformation since mid-2020. A longtime leader in the CWM technology arena, PRO continues to deliver on its promise to reimagine the end-to-end offerings of its core services and automation and become a true “platform” for agile workforce management activity.

“The team at EQT has been following the macro trends around the world of talent and work. They, much like us, see the contingent workforce segment growing at a rapid rate and becoming more and more strategic,” said Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of PRO Unlimited. “PRO was uniquely positioned here because we have the technology, the data, the analytics, coupled with the people / service assets in place, which has been a cornerstone of our MSP business, to not only satisfy the elements of what enterprises need today to manage their agile talent, but also having all of those critical elements inside the same platform.”

In several discussions with Akeroyd over the past several months, PRO’s CEO outlined an assertive range of objectives that mainly included a technological revamp, more dedicated offerings within the diversity and inclusion arena, and on-demand facilitation of data, intelligence, and workforce agility. The acquisition by EQT will allow PRO’s executive team to capitalize on an evolving market while enabling quicker time-to-market for burgeoning offerings for SOW/services procurement and direct sourcing, as well as its unique RatePoint solution.

“This is going to allow PRO to do what we want to do much faster and on a larger, global stage,” Akeroyd told CPO Rising. “EQT didn’t come here to change us or alter the fundamentals of who we are or what we want to accomplish. The vision that we had last year (becoming an end-to-end platform for all things contingent labor) can be realized much quicker with the investment from EQT.”

Historically, PRO Unlimited has not been known for major M&A activity, but that line of thinking changed when Akeroyd joined the organization last year, setting off a string of market-shifting moves that positioned the veteran solution for a major transformation in the months afterwards.

“Our organization went nearly 30 years without a major acquisition. It wasn’t until recently [Editor’s note: PRO acquired PeopleTicker and the Brainnet Group in 2020 and 2021, respectively] that the company started to shift its acquisition strategy,” Akeroyd said. “With EQT as a partner, we can accelerate M&A activity much more aggressively. If we need to buy, we can do that. If we need to build, they’ll support us. And we’ll have the power to partner with those solutions that are complementary to PRO’s end-to-end suite.”

The acquisition is certainly timely, as upcoming Ardent Partners research finds that the agile workforce continues to grow in size, impact, utilization, and prominence: nearly 47% of the average organization’s total workforce is now considered “extended” or “non-employee,” reinforcing the notion that businesses require more comprehensive, dynamic tools to effectively converge traditional aspects of contingent workforce management with the deeper elements (such as direct sourcing, services procurement, etc.) required to maximize the inherent value of the agile workforce.

“The contingent workforce is going to lead the economic recovery. If you look at the numbers and employment data regarding traditional workers and FTEs, they aren’t going up…but the agile workforce is,” said Akeroyd. “The Global 2000 enterprise is alive and well, and they’re largely thriving in this market due to their reliance on white-collar, remote, highly-skilled extended talent. PRO is enabling the average enterprise to achieve this level of success on the contingent workforce front; we are a leader in this solutions industry and what EQT has done is allow us to be a bigger, more impactful part of how businesses harness the power of their agile workforce across the globe.”

Beeline’s Tech Expo Reinforces the Growth and Impact of the Extended Workforce

Contingent Workforce HR Solution Providers Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 06/28/2021

Going into 2020, 43.5% of the average company’s workforce was considered “non-employee,” a figure that was vastly larger than it was only several years ago. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated many of the Future of Work movement’s most transformational attributes, including a renewed focus on digital transformation, diversity and inclusion, direct sourcing, and workforce agility. Today’s extended workforce, representing nearly 47% of the total workforce, has become a force unto it own, pushing businesses into a new realm of work optimization that promises to forever alter the alignment between talent and corporate initiatives.

Veteran Vendor Management System (VMS) provider Beeline has long been an innovator in the contingent workforce management (CWM) solutions arena, bringing progressive technology to an industry that continues to evolve in the face of incredible market shifts. Last week, the organization hosted its Technology Expo, which featured a series of demonstrations of its core product line and some early peeks at newer offerings, as well as a firm reinforcement of its recently-unveiled Extended Workforce Platform. (Check out our coverage of this recent news 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. Tweaking its name just slightly to include “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 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.

Beeline’s dedication to the technological revolution happening within the world of talent and work was on display during last week’s Expo, including remarks by longtime CEO Doug Leeby regarding “where” the company was in relation to the market’s powerful transformation. “Doesn’t matter how you get paid…in the end, it’s all about people,” said Leeby. “There’s myopia when we think about what VMS is, and we’re so much more than that. Resource tracking, SOW, contingent labor…those pieces are all vital. We just want to be a piece of something greater that has total focus on the individual and the talent.”

One of the highlights of the expo was the “high-volume workforce” session (led by frequent Contingent Workforce Weekly podcast guest Brian Hoffmeyer), which recapped Beeline’s recent acquisition of JoinedUp and how the new solution will help businesses better facilitate and manage its shift-based workforce. Beeline also reaffirmed its dedication to Future of Work movement attribute diversity, equity, and inclusion, with discussions around its deep Diverse Talent Cloud (DTC) offering (partnering with The Mom Project).

As businesses navigate the “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.

“Every person, given the right opportunity, has the potential for greatness,” said Leeby. “We want to put a spotlight on that talent. Every business, given the right talent, can truly drive great outcomes.”

Future of Work Friday: A Collection of Thoughts

Business Leadership Diversity and Inclusion HR Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 06/25/2021

From time-to-time, it’s beneficial to take a moment to collect random thoughts regarding the Future of Work movement, since there’s so many varied pieces of the complex, evolving puzzle that is the world of talent and work. It’s been a whirlwind year thus far (can you believe it’s already JUNE!?), but the next six months promise to be even more impactful when business leaders think about talent, their workforce, and how work gets done.

This week, CNN reported that although unemployment rates are at their lowest since before the pandemic hit, there are still over 8 million job vacancies across the country. Retail, hospitality, light industrial, restaurants, etc. are the particular industries where the vast majority of these roles are open. Much of the discussion revolves around the deeper conversation of wage and compensation (and rightfully so), however, businesses in these sectors should seriously consider direct sourcing as an avenue to get candidates into the door, even if they’re not for full-time/longer-term positions.
My wife has worked in the veterinary industry for nearly 20 years. Over the past year, this industry has faced their biggest mass exodus of workers in its history. The main culprit? Employee burnout. Hospitals are so short-staffed that many roles in veterinary medicine, from doctors to specialists to veterinary technicians, are clocking incredible hours, all the while dealing with pandemic restrictions (clients not allowed into the building, hospital employees must come outside and retrieve animals, etc.). This is not the only industry in which its workers are facing extreme burnout. While much of the focus of the past year has been on the rollercoaster of boom-or-bust workforce scalability, business leaders should never forget that the biggest piece of the overall talent experience is whether or not its workers are running on fumes. Worker mental health and well-being should be at the top of the priority list when it comes to how executives manage their total workforce.
Last year, Ardent Partners predicted that the global business landscape would experience a sharp uptick in the utilization of non-employee labor as a direct result of the pandemic’s sweeping organizational ramifications. Going into 2020, 43.5% of the average organization’s total workforce was considered “contingent.” Today, that number sits at 46.5% and promises to grow as the transformation of talent and work continues. Furthermore, 82% of businesses direct state that the challenging times of 2020 created a bigger need for extended and non-employee talent. If there is one thing that the past 12 months has revealed, it is that workforce scalability is essentially linked to economic survival in the now-chaotic, hyper-competitive world of global business.
In mid-March 2020, safety took precedence over anything else in regard to traditional workplace environments across the world. Stay-at-home advisories, social distancing recommendations, and curfews/lockdowns ruled the day and forced businesses to push the vast majority (or all, in some cases) of its workers into a remote setup. I’ve been reading so many articles recently that state that the hybrid model (mix of in-person and remote work) won’t survive past the end of the pandemic. Well, these pundits couldn’t be more incorrect. Ardent’s research finds that businesses are expected to double the amount of its staff working remotely moving forward, a factor which not only takes into accounts the productivity and efficiency gains experienced over the past year via remote and distributed teams, but also the incredible flexibility that these setups offer.
Ninety-three percent (94%) of business leaders in Ardent’s upcoming State of Contingent Workforce Management 2021 research study stated that their agile or extended workforce is a critical and strategic facet of their organization. If anyone ever had doubts about its continued growth, this finding should alleviate that concern. By the end of 2022, nearly half of the global total workforce will be considered agile/contingent/extended.

Why the Extended Workforce Is Now a Permanent Fixture of Business Agility

Contingent Workforce by Christopher J. Dwyer on 06/18/2021

As stated numerous times here at The Future of Work Exchange and in Ardent’s Future of Work research, the vast majority of businesses cite the “shift towards an agile culture” as their top priority. Business agility as a desired state is entirely warranted; as business leaders strive to respond dynamically to real-time pressures and challenges. In regard to talent and work, this “agile culture” follows the ultimate convergence of new technology tools, innovative ideas and strategies, and, yes, a truly agile workforce that can be leveraged dynamically as unique needs arise.

The challenging events of 2020 proved that an agile culture separated those organizations who both survived and thrived last year and those that are still struggling or faltered completely. The initial, early months of the COVID-19 pandemic were a convergence of unease, uncertainty, and doubt about the future; very few businesses were well-equipped to tackle the rigors of the first global pandemic in more than a century.

As supply chains were knocked off course and the first lockdowns were initiated, the business world was at a unique crossroads: work needed to be done but the unprecedented nature of the pandemic was seemingly throwing wrinkles into organizational planning on a weekly basis given political guidance and governmental mandates. Some industries went boom while others went bust. Those in the middle were merely focused on treading water. Caught in the midst of this chaos was the foundation on which every organization sinks or swims: its workforce.

Over the next three years, nearly 70% of businesses expect their total workforce to be truly “agile” in nature, with both traditional full-time workers and non-employees contributing equally to critical projects and initiatives. This encouraging outlook takes into account the various shifts happening in world of talent. While there are still enterprises today that believe the contingent or extended workforce will always be “augmentative” in scope, the truth is that the many economic, social, political, and cultural transformations occurring in the greater business landscape are developing the necessary dynamics for independent workers to thrive in changing times. Health care reform, virtual and unified communications, distributed enterprise teams (and remote work), the laser-like focus on skills…these are all powerful omens that the agile workforce will become a dominant business legion in the decade ahead.

Ardent’s upcoming State of Contingent Workforce Management 2021 research study found that 70% of businesses believed their non-employee workforce contributed to and supported business continuity (70%) during those challenging times, essentially serving as an “anchor” during moments of uncertainty. With many internal functions in some level of disarray due to work-from-home setups and social distancing/lockdown orders, an unfortunate statement still rang true: “The show must go on.”

In essence, work still needed to get done and the organization still required to move forward regardless of what was happening around it. Contingent labor helped organizations adapt to changing times by providing a ready-to-engage channel of talent that could be sourced on-demand and without the worry of traditional recruitment processes (particularly in-person interviewing). If roles needed to be filled to ensure the business could address both tactical and strategic tasks, there were talented individuals ready to perform.

Prosperity in the Future of Work: Interview with Sunil Bagai, CEO of Prosperix

Contingent Workforce Direct Sourcing Solution Providers Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 06/10/2021

The Future of Work is founded on change, whether that change is natural evolution or innovative progression. The world of talent and work has been changing at a rapid clip with the advent of new talent acquisition strategies, shifts in how enterprises optimize how work gets done, and the overall transformation of global business.

Crowdstaffing, a longtime market leader in digital staffing and workforce management technology, was an early pioneer with its Future of Work-driven offerings. Just recently, the company rebranded as Prosperix, a solution that aims to “fuel human, workforce, and business prosperity.” I had the opportunity to chat with the provider’s CEO, Sunil Bagai, about the rebrand, the evolution of the platform, and his outlook on the Future of Work movement.

Christopher J. Dwyer: Sunil, thanks for chatting with us. For our readers, tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

Sunil Bagai: I have over 25 years of tech experience at companies like IBM, Sun, and EMC, as well as multiple startups. I’ve been working in the talent acquisition space since 2005, and what I love most about it is the intersection between people and technology. Just like in the early days of the Internet, where hardware infrastructure was essential in providing everyone online access, I believe we are in the early stages of deploying similar infrastructure technology that will make it much easier to build and manage a workforce. We’re entering a very exciting time.

CJD: Let’s start with the big news first: Crowdstaffing has officially rebranded itself as Prosperix. Give us the lowdown on the evolution of the solution, the new brand, and what it all means.

SB: When we started Crowdstaffing, we wanted to emphasize the value of building network effects and how the power of the crowd can help in building scalable workforces. While that’s still core to what we do, we’re now inspired by a mission that’s even greater. We believe that hiring can play an instrumental role in helping businesses achieve their dreams and aspirations. Simultaneously, there is an opportunity to influence the design of the modern workforce so it can achieve a level of prosperity that hasn’t been possible in the past. With that in mind, we chose the name Prosperix to align with our long-term vision and mission of helping businesses build an extraordinary workforce and achieve outstanding outcomes.

The good news is that Crowdstaffing is not going away; It’s being transitioned into a product name for our Crowdstaffing Hiring Marketplace and Crowdstaffing VMS offerings. In addition to these core offerings, we have added new offerings to the Prosperix solutions suite, including Direct Sourcing, On-Demand Talent Pools, and a wide range of Workforce Services such as MSP, Payroll, and IC Compliance.

CJD: What strikes me as a major differentiator for Propserix is the sheer breadth of its offerings, from direct sourcing and talent pools to VMS technology.

SB: Our strategy has always been to solve the end-to-end problem of hiring and workforce management. Most clients have a very difficult time using multiple technologies. Not only does data end up living in different places, but you get a poor user experience and it’s very challenging to manage the entire workflow when you use different systems. We believe it’s better to provide a single solution that solves for all facets of workforce management, including talent branding and attraction, sourcing, candidate engagement and nurturing, applicant tracking, candidate assessments, vendor management, onboarding, and redeployment.

CJD: Why do you believe it’s so powerful to have a solution that can literally offer end-to-end workforce management functionality, from talent engagement to total workforce management?

SB: There are many advantages to an end-to-end workforce management solution. First, you simplify the hiring process substantially when you use a single technology rather than several disparate technologies. More fundamentally, you are able to access and utilize data far more effectively to achieve better hiring outcomes. For example, the best candidate can come from a supplier, an internal talent pool, or a variety of public talent pools. When you can see candidates across the entire ecosystem of hiring channels, whether it’s in your VMS, ATS, Talent Pools, etc., you can match candidates more effectively to open jobs, speeding up time to hire.

This is just the beginning. There are multiple other use cases that you can unlock, including large network effects, that are only possible when you impact the entire value chain.

CJD: We’re experiencing a much different summer than we did last year thanks to the business world somewhat returning to normalcy. How do you think the world of talent and work respond to the major shifts it experienced over the past year?

The new normal means that remote work is here to stay. Many businesses are hiring workers remotely even for core positions, especially if they are having a hard time finding talent in their local geography. To hire remote workers more effectively, businesses are requesting a more nuanced way to outline their needs, by specifying whether a position is Local Only, Remote with Local Access, Remote Only, or Offshore.

CJD: What’s the long-term vision for Prosperix?

SB: Our long-term vision is to fuel human, workforce, and business prosperity. We plan to accomplish this by developing innovative solutions that help businesses build and manage an extraordinary workforce.

An Unlimited Future: Inside PRO Unlimited’s Technology Transformation

Business Leadership Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on 06/07/2021

The world of talent and work seemingly reinvents itself frequently. Changes in the global economy amidst other major worldly events (including, of course, a pandemic) routinely force businesses to reimagine how they get work done. Over the past decade, the workforce management tech marketplace, which includes Vendor Management Systems (VMS), Managed Service Providers (MSP), digital staffing marketplaces, direct sourcing automation, etc. has undergone a seismic revolution alongside a shifting global talent economy. Throw in the major workforce management shifts accelerated due to a global pandemic and its economic, digital, and staffing ramifications, and, well, the position is clear: workforce management technology has to evolve just as quickly as the world around it.

Last year, veteran VMS/MSP hybrid PRO Unlimited announced that Kevin Akeroyd would join the solution as its new CEO, who immediately touted a transformative approach to the provider’s future: become a de-facto “platform” for contingent and agile workforce management.

“This workforce segment is becoming a large spend category and is now an enterprise valuation driver. Over the past 30 years, the industry has transformed from a small temp-staffing niche to a C-suite strategic priority. This shift not only includes changes within HR, talent acquisition and strategic procurement programs, but also highlights an explosion of innovation and new technology platforms like we have never seen before,” Akeroyd said. “Unfortunately, the established procurement/spend management and HCM platforms have not addressed the full contingent workforce management lifecycle. Furthermore, they are not capable of managing its complexity or harnessing the data to provide analytics and intelligence on companies’ contingent workforce segments that executives demand. The industry requires a comprehensive platform that can deliver the technology, data/analytics and managed services to optimize the full contingent workforce program. This is going to help organizations exceed both their contingent workforce goals and their broader organizational objectives. Being the platform that seamlessly interoperates with ERP, HCM, HRIS, P2P, and data and analytics systems will be paramount, and PRO Unlimited is uniquely positioned to become that holistic platform for the industry.”

Shortly after Kevin dropped by the Contingent Workforce Weekly podcast and spoke to us as part of our Future of Work Influencer series, PRO announced that it acquired rate management solution PeopleTicker, a global provider of comprehensive compensation data that relies on crowdsourced intelligent, machine learning, and data science resources. This acquisition helped burgeon PRO’s commitment to helping its users manage its workforce with a data-driven approach, allowing customers to tap into an “ocean of data.”

“To use an age-old analogy, even the best motorcycle, car, plane, rocket ship… simply is not effective if you don’t “fuel” it. And the higher quality, higher octane the fuel is, the better performing the vehicle is. Data is today’s “fuel,” said Akeroyd. “Having the highest quality, highest coverage, most up-to-date data is a mission-critical component of the platform. It fuels the software, service, and analytics/intelligence offering the Enterprise relies on today. PRO not only has the largest, broadest, most accurate first-party asset in the world, we have augmented this with third-party data partnerships, including our acquisition of data assets like PeopleTicker, the industry’s one true provider of global contingent rate data for over 160 markets across thousands of job titles. Having exclusive data, packaged with PRO’s solutions and comprehensive platform, will enable and benefit our clients immensely. And competitively, it will further differentiate PRO from our point solution competitors. Finally, data is the fundamental underpinning of all machine-based learning (MBL) and artificial intelligence (AI). We are very excited to deliver MBL/AI applications in the near future as a result of having the best, most accurate and largest training data sets on the planet.”

And, PRO Unlimited’s transformation continues today with an announcement that it has secured an exclusive partnership with Eightfold, an artificial intelligence solution that offers a multifaceted blend of technology, including talent experience management, candidate comparison and evaluation, bias prevention, and deep employee lifecycle management support via AI-led neural networks.

The new partnership has massive implications for the workforce management solutions landscape, as PRO’s exclusive union with Eightfold will allow the veteran provider the ability to “lift and shift” comprehensive total talent intelligence into its existing and forthcoming offerings. For example, Eightfold’s unique neural network-led skills data could be applied to direct sourcing initiatives to better target specific, high-expertise candidates for enterprise talent pools.

“Many organizations around the world will be hiring contingent workers ahead of the economic recovery while prioritizing areas within hiring, such as retention and D&I initiatives. However, many of these same companies do not have the technology and data in place to identify, engage and secure the best contingent talent in the world, while attaining diversity goals,” said Akeroyd. “This exclusive partnership with Eightfold aims to solve this problem with their advanced talent intelligence and our contingent workforce management platform, which also includes the world’s largest global market rate data repository. This partnership is truly a game changer for the industry as it will transform how our customers, which include some of the largest brands globally, source, develop, and redeploy their workforces while lowering costs as well as offer an unparalleled suite of diversity offerings for the contingent workforce.”

With PRO’s new Direct Sourcing and SOW Management tools on the horizon for later this quarter, the solution’s recent, aggressive moves prove that the provider is truly committed not only to its goal of being a centralized talent management platform, but also meeting the evolving requirements of the ever-changing world of talent and work.

Future of Work Friday: A Collection of Thoughts and Insights

General Insights Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 06/04/2021

This week, CNN reported that although unemployment rates are at their lowest since before the pandemic hit, there are still over 8 million job vacancies across the country. Retail, hospitality, light industrial, restaurants, etc. are the particular industries where the vast majority of these roles are open. Much of the discussion revolves around the deeper conversation of wage and compensation (and rightfully so), however, businesses in these sectors should seriously consider direct sourcing as an avenue to get candidates into the door, even if they’re not for full-time/longer-term positions.
My wife has worked in the veterinary industry for nearly 20 years. Over the past year, this industry has faced their biggest mass exodus of workers in its history. The main culprit? Employee burnout. Hospitals are so short-staffed that many roles in veterinary medicine, from doctors to specialists to veterinary technicians, are clocking incredible hours, all the while dealing with pandemic restrictions (clients not allowed into the building, hospital employees must come outside and retrieve animals, etc.). This is not the only industry in which its workers are facing extreme burnout. While much of the focus of the past year has been on the rollercoaster of boom-or-bust workforce scalability, business leaders should never forget that the biggest piece of the overall talent experience is whether or not its workers are running on fumes. Worker mental health and well-being should be at the top of the priority list when it comes to how executives manage their total workforce.
Last year, Ardent Partners predicted that the global business landscape would experience a sharp uptick in the utilization of non-employee labor as a direct result of the pandemic’s sweeping organizational ramifications. Going into 2020, 43.5% of the average organization’s total workforce was considered “contingent.” Today, that number sits at 46.5% and promises to grow as the transformation of talent and work continues. Furthermore, 82% of businesses direct state that the challenging times of 2020 created a bigger need for extended and non-employee talent. If there is one thing that the past 12 months has revealed, it is that workforce scalability is essentially linked to economic survival in the now-chaotic, hyper-competitive world of global business.
In mid-March 2020, safety took precedence over anything else in regard to traditional workplace environments across the world. Stay-at-home advisories, social distancing recommendations, and curfews/lockdowns ruled the day and forced businesses to push the vast majority (or all, in some cases) of its workers into a remote setup. I’ve been reading so many articles recently that state that the hybrid model (mix of in-person and remote work) won’t survive past the end of the pandemic. Well, these pundits couldn’t be more incorrect. Ardent’s research finds that businesses are expected to double the amount of its staff working remotely moving forward, a factor which not only takes into accounts the productivity and efficiency gains experienced over the past year via remote and distributed teams, but also the incredible flexibility that these setups offer.
Ninety-three percent (94%) of business leaders in Ardent’s upcoming State of Contingent Workforce Management 2021 research study stated that their agile or extended workforce is a critical and strategic facet of their organization. If anyone ever had doubts about its continued growth, this finding should alleviate that concern. By the end of 2022, nearly half of the global total workforce will be considered agile/contingent/extended.