close

Solution Providers

Upwork’s New “Virtual Talent Bench” is the Convergence of Direct Sourcing and Digital Staffing

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

As the Exchange frequently defines, the Future of Work movement is based on three core interconnected principles: 1) the evolution of talent engagement (and talent acquisition), 2) the advent of new and innovative technology and automation, and 3) the transformation of business thinking. While each of these attributes on its own serves a powerful purpose in the progressive world of work and talent, it’s when they intersect that businesses can drive enhanced value.

Upwork, one of the industry’s largest and market-leading digital staffing players, recently introduced its “Virtual Talent Bench” offering, which essentially converges the full spectrum of Future of Work attributes into a solution that enables real workforce scalability while optimizing how businesses get work done. The Virtual Talent Bench is a powerful offering that blends key elements of the digital staffing model (talent marketplace functionality and deep candidate networks) with direct sourcing (curated talent “benches” that can be engaged and hired in an on-demand fashion).

“Our goal is to help businesses and independent talent get work done, and done well. We know independent talent want to build long-lasting work relationships with clients, and businesses want an easy way to work with the talent they love time and time again,” said Sam Bright, chief product and experience officer, Upwork. “We launched Virtual Talent Bench to help businesses find and engage a fleet of highly-skilled independent professionals through an easier way to discover, access and organize their go-to freelancers. From sign-up to superuser, we’ve designed and created a simple experience for clients to not only find new, talented freelancers, but also remember their strengths, flag their special skills, and organize them however they like.”

Upwork’s multifaceted approach towards talent engagement and contingent workforce management allows its users to leverage the Virtual Talent Bench to develop talent pool-like “benches” of freelancers and non-employee workers that can be tapped into in an on-demand manner. The VTB places scalability firmly within its core by allowing Upwork clients to quickly reengage high-quality talent in an agile fashion. This is functionality akin to direct sourcing automation, only with Upwork’s vast talent marketplace powering the candidate engagement process and seamlessly integrating “curation-like” functionality into the Virtual Talent Bench. And, by surfacing individual talent profiles and projects based on past searches and job needs, Upwork users can derive more value from the solution’s “Discovery” module, with these results embedded within the Virtual Talent Bench for direct access when building freelance teams for future projects.

With this new solution, Upwork is firmly entrenching itself as a forward-looking platform that embraces the Future of Work. The convergence of direct sourcing and digital staffing, combined with the ways talent engagement is evolving, is one major reason why the Virtual Talent Bench is an ideal feature for the transformative world of work and talent.

“In our recent Future Workforce Report stemming from a survey of U.S. hiring managers, we uncovered that 40.7 million Americans expect to be fully remote in the next five years. What’s more, 53% of businesses say that remote work has increased their willingness to use freelancers and 71% of hiring managers plan to maintain or increase their use of freelancers in the next six months, creating more hybrid workforces,” said Bright. “Offices have reopened, but many professionals aren’t willing to give up the flexibility of working remotely. Over one-third (34%) of workers who were remote are not excited about returning to the office, and of the 10 million Americans currently considering freelancing, 73% cite the ability to work remotely or flexibly as a reason why.”

“As remote work projections remain strong and businesses plan to continue engaging more independent talent, we’re already planning to expand features in Virtual Talent Bench to enable more collaboration and better organization in the months to come, including features allowing clients to invite an entire talent bench to submit a job proposal.”

read more

Key Providers for 2021: Bench

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Background:

Given the many advancements and accelerants happening in the greater world of work and talent, the very notion of “interconnectivity” has become a critical way of businesses, workers, suppliers, and services to interact in an on-demand manner without the barriers of old. And, with digital transformation sparking many more businesses to reevaluate existing processes and systems with the goal of being more dynamic, there is increased pressure for both organizations and highly-skilled workers (and services) to “meet” each other in real-time.

Enter Bench.

Why They Were Selected:

The Bench platform, otherwise known as a “Digital Ecosystem Enablement Platform” (DEEP), is a robust solution that empowers the development of trusted networks of capabilities and services by connecting customers, businesses, partners, and suppliers quickly and seamlessly. Bench’s unique offering allows businesses to monetize supplier partnerships, consolidate talent and service networks, and complement existing products/services with well-aligned partners.

Bench excels in enabling a seamless ecosystem that promotes communication and discovery amongst an organization’s total network of suppliers, contractors, and talent…meaning that when a customer requires a complex approach to a critical project, the Bench platform can efficiently catalyze collaboration between partners whilst maximizing the value of automated time-and-materials processes, SOW management, etc.

In Their Own Words:

Companies of all sizes are reimagining every aspect of their business models, creating demand for Information, Community, and Technology (ICT) services at an unprecedented pace and scale. The intensity of competition is forcing ICT businesses to not always engage partners/suppliers to receive design input, availability and competitive pricing.

Add to the mix a rapidly changing services landscape, and many simply walk away from opportunities.

In an ideal world, these businesses need to make informed decisions, backed by robust data and real time market intelligence, to bid on opportunities with confidence.

  • Do we have the capacity and competencies in house to deliver?
  • Which partners/suppliers can augment our capacity and competencies?
  • How can we engage suppliers/partners early in the sales cycle to help shape solutions?
  • Are we getting the best price from the most qualified supplier/partner?

Unfortunately, the answers are trapped in spreadsheets, emails, and ad-hoc sales processes. Answers which are typically out of date and require considerable time and effort to find.

The net effect of this is many businesses commit proposals to customers and then hope they can deliver at the mercy of their suppliers/partners. Or worse still, they simply miss out on opportunities “leaving money on the table”.

Why? The answer is simple. There’s no fast, easy, seamless way to engage their services and partner ecosystem early in the sales cycle. Until now.

The Outlook:

Bench does not fit the “typical” mold of a modern-day digital staffing technology platform. However, it utilizes its powerful ecosystem functionality to boost the collaboration between a business, its services architecture, its suppliers, and total talent in responding to new sales inquiries. In a world that relies on digitization and dynamic technology to connect various pieces of contemporary business, Bench stands out as a truly innovative platform that has the potential to revolutionize how enterprises transform their business models.

In a Future of Work-driven world that prioritizes flexibility, digitization, and interconnectivity, Bench is well-positioned to help enterprises reimagine their services, products, and solutions with its robust digital ecosystem enablement model.

read more

Key Providers for 2021: Prosperix

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Background:

There is no doubt that the events of the past 18 months brought about a level of change to business the likes that had never been seen before. The very attributes of the Future of Work movement were accelerated, including the power of remote and hybrid work, advancements in talent engagement and talent acquisition, and the transformation of how business leaders structured their work-based strategies and approaches.

Given the symbiotic relationship between talent, technology, and evolutionary business thinking, there is added weight to how the many aspects of the Future of Work were accelerated in the face of global business disruption. As organizational leaders continue to reimagine what workforce management means to their enterprises, the accompany technology must work harmoniously with the alterations across the greater economic and labor markets.

Enter Prosperix.

Why They Were Selected:

A little less than a year ago, Prosperix operated under the “Crowdstaffing” brand; this solution was known for many of its industry-leading pieces of functionality that promoted a powerful “user experience” regarding applicant and candidate data tracking, analysis, comparison, and presentation, built on top of the solution’s foundational hiring marketplace (a built-in network of thousands of ready-to-hire talent suppliers).

The newly-rebranded Prosperix solution not only builds on these strengths, but also offers technology that truly allows its users to harness the power of the Future of Work movement and tap into the greater value of the agile workforce.

In Their Own Words:

Prosperix is a Silicon Valley-based workforce innovation company developing software for the Future of Work. Our contingent workforce and total talent management solutions enable businesses to build a powerful workforce that delivers extraordinary outcomes. The main tenets that drive the company’s philosophy are:

  • Today’s workforce must be global, empowered, agile, transparent, high-performing, and diverse.
  • The right people can dramatically impact the success of an organization.
  • When individuals and organizations are aligned, great results and outcomes are possible.
  • Innovation that combines technology and people in a meaningful way is the path to the future.

With our technology, businesses can access amazing talent from anywhere and everywhere, on-demand and without limitations, allowing them to grow exponentially by scaling their workforce quickly and easily. Our end-to-end solution includes applicant tracking, vendor management, connected talent pools, direct sourcing, artificial intelligence, real-time analytics, personal curation, and easy-to-use technology in a single, cloud-based, fully-integrated software suite.

The Outlook:

Prosperix’s messaging is incredibly unique in today’s workforce solutions market, leading with an edge that differentiates the company from others in the space. Understanding that it is the convergence between the “human” and “technology” elements of workforce management that will help both candidates and businesses prosper in the face of continued evolution across the greater world of talent and work.

Prosperix is positioned for incredible growth and impact heading into 2022, with offerings that traverse beyond mere workforce management. On top of an already-industry-leading hiring marketplace, the solution’s direct sourcing, talent pools, and VMS offerings are aligned with the company’s overall vision and purpose: provide human, workforce, and business prosperity in a time when the Future of Work movement is table stakes for organizations that want to thrive during these changing times.

read more

Modern EOR, Agile Workforce Transformation, and the Future of Work: An Interview with myBasePay Co-Founder, Angela Alberty

Business LeadershipSolution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

myBasePay is transforming what it means to be an agile workforce management technology platform. The Future of Work Exchange is excited to welcome the solution’s co-founder and Chief Business Officer, Angela Alberty, for an engaging discussion on the Future of Work, the evolution of the agile workforce, and more:

Christopher J. Dwyer: Thanks for joining us, Angela. It’s great to chat once again. Tell us a little bit about your background.

Angela Alberty: Thank you for coordinating, Chris, its an honor to be able to join, and congrats on the launch of FOWX! Well, my background is probably consistent with most in this space, meaning: I didn’t necessarily grow up wanting to be in the staffing / human capital space. But one year out of college I quickly found myself in a position at an agency and the rest has consisted of the last 10 years in the employer of record (EOR) space, with a specialization in the contingent workforce sector for some of the largest EOR providers out there. A year ago, I had the opportunity to partner with Cesar Jimenez and co-found myBasePay. With similar backgrounds, we launched in March of this year and its been exciting to see our brand grow into one of the new waves of the modern EOR platform, with an aligned mission in representing the advocacy for the temporary worker.

CJD: One thing that I’ve experienced thus far getting to know you and the myBasePay team is the camaraderie between your executive team. How important is that level of peer engagement when it comes to MBP’s level of success thus far?

AA: Its tremendously important and in terms of gauging it adequately, its been pragmatic on what I would consider our progress thus far. We each lend different areas of insight and have leveraged a team with the same level of conscious input and subject matter expertise. Adding to that is a layer of genuine companionship that has just organically seeped into the culture we’ve established amongst our staff. So I definitely feel that there is this positive, residual effect that our internal identity has benefited from as well.

CJD: You spent time in the staffing and contingent workforce industries before joining MBP. How does that expertise help the platform solve the problems it was designed to do?

AA: Well, I’ve been fortunate to see the contingent workforce ecosystem from many different angles: working with teams of general counsels to administer contracts, communicating with brokerages to establish risk management programs and portfolios of business, onboarding and processing payroll for hundreds of temporary workers under different verticals, working in and out of various VMS platforms for day-to-day procedures and running costs analysis to build and devise implementations for teams of contingent worker types while gaining fundamental concepts of HR and compliance oversight. These are all areas that are vital to a proper formation of an EOR business model, and coupled with the expertise our team brings to tie the technology behind the user and worker’s experience within our platform, are truly what we want to enable to solve these problems.

CJD: I very much admire the main goals of the myBasePay solution: provide EOR functionality, support contingent workforce management, and connect businesses with top-tier talent. How did the team develop this unique approach?

AA: You know, I think the best way to answer this question can probably apply to so many different areas of life in general: you live and experience the problems you eventually seek out to fix. I’ve mentioned this in prior presentations of our company but we’ve lived in the shoes of the independent contractor on 60-day payment terms, the temporary-waged worker trying to make ends meet during the holidays because they don’t qualify for PTO, the staffing agency owner reading through mounds of legal language to qualify as a supplier, the processor trying to gauge the risk threshold for a worker’s classification, and the enterprise customer dealing with a retention issue in their contingent workforce management (CWM) program because the benefits are subpar (or in some cases, non-existent). These experiences have been foundational in the creation of our goals.

CJD: One major strength is myBasePay’s support of the contractor, freelancer, and gig worker community (by offering the benefits that are normally out of reach). How will this help MBP continue its differentiated approach from others in the market?

AA: You said perfectly when you mentioned the “others” in the market. The EOR concept is nothing new; it has been around for decades, in fact. But we knew from day one our differentiator was going to begin with our prioritization around the worker. Market conditions are ever more poignant on the control that the candidate has in this current climate. But beyond that, what is the indirect benefit that an enhanced benefits structure can lend itself to in a more successful CWM program? That’s exactly the sort of analytical approach we take with each new opportunity. We firmly believe and have been able to showcase through various case studies that an enhanced benefits model can improve retention, increase productivity, and establish loyalty while offering a more aligned level of proper talent curation.

CJD: We’re entering yet another inflection point for the agile workforce, especially after eighteen months of a pandemic. Where does non-employee talent go from here?

AA: Simply put: UP! In fact, the pandemic has pressed the “fast-forward” button on an already increasing segment of the market. The full-time worker model is, dare I say,  reaching antiquated levels. Tenure is dropping, the “Great Resignation” is here, generational impacts are shifting talent’s prioritization where increased skillsets, work-life balance and independence are more important than ever, and enterprise organizations are seeing the value of a more formalized CWM programs (hence the direct sourcing trend we see happening). Times are changing and many reports, including those found within Ardent Partners and FOWX, indicate more investment, participation, workforce market share, etc. being devoted to the non-employee talent segment and the formalization of the programs/departments that will need to grow in order to properly support it.

CJD: What does the Future of Work mean to you?

AA: I’ve asked and have been asked this dozens of times; it’s almost reached a level of philosophical surmise. I am simplistic on this approach: the Future of Work ends and begins with the worker and the technology that encapsulates this notion. The Future of Work is knowing that any person can go online and within seconds have dozens of opportunities waiting for them. How we enhance their working life thereafter with the technology that enterprises and third-party platforms invest in to create that optimum experience will be the ones at the top in the quest for talent. That, to me, is the essence of the Future of Work.

read more

The Mom Project’s $80M Series C Funding Represents Opportunity for Both Moms and the Digital Staffing Industry

Diversity and InclusionSolution ProvidersTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Several weeks ago here at the Future of Work Exchange, we recognized The Mom Project as one of our select “Key Providers for 2021,” an exclusive set of solutions and platforms that are disrupting the workforce technology spectrum and impacting how work is addressed and done. In that feature, we wrote:

“The Mom Project is uniquely positioned to continue its rampant growth in the market from three perspectives: 1) it is one of the most visible workforce management platforms that is actively prioritizing and truly aligning DE&I within the very fabric of its functionality, 2) it offers one of the industry’s deepest communities of gender- and ethnically-diverse skillsets and talent, and, 3) its progressive technology platform enables a spectrum of innovative talent acquisition, talent engagement, and workforce management solutions that harness the incredible power of artificial intelligence and machine learning while forming a foundation of total talent management automation.”

So, in essence, it may not be so surprising that last week, The Mom Project secured $80M in Series C funding that will bolster the solution’s standing in the digital staffing marketplace, help it enhance its already-robust suite of functionality, and, most importantly, continue to connect talented mothers with open jobs, roles, and positions. This top-tier level of funding will augment the company’s teams and add additional headcount while boosting product development, a critical factor in an ever-evolving industry.

“We’ve demonstrated to the market that betting on moms is good business,” said Allison Robinson, CEO and Founder of The Mom Project. “We’ve seen 20x growth over the last three years and are eager to leverage this momentum and the trust and equity we’ve earned with moms and our customers and partners to continue building and expanding the reach of category-defining solutions that reshape how work evolves to meet the needs of modern families.”

FOWX analysis of this major market activity finds that the Leeds Illuminate-led funding (with participation from existing investors  7GC, Initialized Capital, OCA Ventures, Citi, High Alpha, Grotech Ventures, and Silicon Valley Bank) for The Mom Project is both an opportunity for both moms and the digital staffing industry at-large:

  • This sizable level of funding, more than anything else, puts the focus on getting talented mothers, women, and diverse candidates back into the workforce. Just a couple of days ago, we wrote that 309,000 women left the workforce in September alone (on top of the tens of thousands of job losses across other backgrounds and races). The Future of Work Exchange fully expects The Mom Project to boost the power of its deep and diverse talent community, which was already a sizable component of its overall offering. With thousands of new and talented individuals added each day, the added investment will certainly help the platform expand its global reach, as well.
  • The Mom Project will be able to enhance its market-leading functionality in 2022 and beyond. AI-led neural network engine, equitable self-learning technology, functionality that takes into account DE&I and customer culture in candidate-matching and workforce planning…the Series C level of funding will allow The Mom Project to build on these innovative features as well as its unique WerkLabs solution, which harnesses the power of predictive analytics, workplace data, and talent experience intelligence to help enterprises design and develop the most inclusive and productive workplace environments.
  • This investment reflects the continued growth and impact of the digital staffing industry, which includes both digital staffing platforms and on-demand talent marketplaces. Ardent Partners, which has been covering the digital staffing space for nearly a decade, has found that there has been a 7x increase in the utilization of digital staffing solutions over the past six years, with more and more businesses opting to augment their greater talent acquisition strategies with on-demand talent channels that provide highly-qualified, pre-vetted, and project-aligned workers. A digital staffing outlet such as The Mom Project (which offers both workforce management functionality and a deep community of talent) securing $80 million in funding reinforces just how powerful digital staffing can be in the evolving world of talent and work. As businesses develop more flexibility into how they structure their workforce, digital staffing will become a relied-upon range of technology to enhance talent engagement.
read more

Key Providers for 2021: Workforce Logiq

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Background:

Several years ago, Ardent Partners predicted in its annual State of Contingent Workforce Management research series (now re-titled under the banner of the Future of Work Exchange) that the world would eventually experience a workforce in which 50% was comprised of non-employee talent (including freelancers, temporary workers, independent contractors, gig workers, and professional services). Today, that number sits at 47% and shows no signs of slowing down in terms of growth and impact, meaning that the “50% threshold” is fast approaching the world of business.

As the ever-evolving attributes of the Future of Work movement cascade into how businesses find, engage, source, and manage their total talent, it is critical that they leverage the next-generation solutions that can effectively transform workforce intelligence and drive long-term value from the agile workforce.

Enter Workforce Logiq.

Why They Were Selected:

Workforce Logiq has come a long way since its days under the ZeroChaos brand, a Managed Service Provider (MSP)/Vendor Management System (VMS) hybrid that had massive staying power across various global regions and large sectors and industries. The rebrand to Workforce Logiq in early 2019 wasn’t just a simple swap of corporate names, but rather a true technological transformation that heralded a new age of total talent intelligence and workforce management innovation.

Today, Workforce Logiq is a leading workforce management solution provider that effectively blends deep human expertise with next-level artificial intelligence and total talent insights. Its predictive analytics engine is an industry differentiator, enabling their customers to leverage on-demand data to execute more educated talent-based decisions in a time when agility is paramount. In fact, Future of Work Exchange research finds that 64% of businesses plan to leverage AI-led tools to support talent retention and related issues within the next two years.

In Their Own Words:

Workforce Logiq provides predictive workforce management solutions powered by an unmatched combination of human and data-driven intelligence.  We help organizations reimagine and transform how they achieve greater management, performance, and financial control over their global workforce and talent supply chains. 

Our global solution portfolio includes: Managed Service Provider (MSP), Vendor Management System (VMS), Statement of Work (SOW), Employer of Record (EoR), Direct Sourcing, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO), and Employment Screening.

The Workforce Logiq Total Talent Intelligence® platform is a proprietary combination of predictive analytics, expert guides, and proprietary technology powered by sixteen patented and patent-pending innovations, including: 

  • Talent Retention Risk (TRR) Score: benchmarks employment volatility within a company, and potential worker interest in unsolicited recruiting approaches.
  • IQ Location Optimizer: identifies the best and biggest pool of available contingent and full-time talent – at the best cost.
  • IQ Rate Optimizer: benchmarks how much an organization needs to pay to attract and win contingent and full-time talent based on unique, company-specific workplace characteristics.
  • IQ Talent Diversity: predicts gender and ethnic statistics on our recruiting database of 100 million professional and knowledge worker candidates – helping organizations make smarter, confident, and more proactive decisions on how to boost employee representation. 
  • And more!

In today’s hyper-competitive talent market, we are committed to helping companies make more informed talent decisions faster, earlier, and more cost-effectively.

The Outlook:

One of the most impressive pieces of Workforce Logiq’s deep technology stack is its ENGAGE Talent offering, which provides real predictive intelligence regarding active and passive candidates while allowing users a real-time picture of how talent is situated across the world. Combined with Workforce Logiq’s longstanding commitment to workforce and data insights (which permeate throughout the entirety of both its MSP services and VMS platform), the solution will continue its reign as a mature and powerful workforce management solution.

Building on top of already-robust SOW management, services procurement, and direct sourcing offerings, Workforce Logiq was already primed for continued success in the months and years ahead before it was acquired by PRO Unlimited over the summer. The two organizations, together, will provide an even deeper end-to-end solution that truly encapsulates the evolution of the Future of Work movement.

read more

Key Providers for 2021: Beeline

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Background:

With non-employee talent workforce comprising 47% of the total global workforce, businesses across the globe are actively finding that they require advanced tools and next-gen solutions to effectively manage a sector of talent that is growing in both size and prominence. Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research has long pointed to the continued evolution of the Vendor Management System (VMS) technology platform as the relative “nexus” of agile workforce management.

As the Future of Work continues to accelerate how work is addressed and done, it is critical that businesses harness the power of robust VMS technology that can drive visibility into total talent, support control over contingent workforce spend, and serve as an effective extension of the enterprise’s overall extended workforce management strategy.

Enter Beeline.

Why They Were Selected:

Beeline represents the forward-thinking VMS that has consistently evolved alongside the customers it has been serving for over two decades. As the greater contingent workforce industry shifted from “commodity-led” to “talent-led,” Beeline made the necessary advancements to help its users adapt to changing industry standards. And, as the market continued to evolve to include Future of Work-era innovations such as artificial intelligence, direct sourcing, advanced analytics, and extended workforce management, Beeline transformed its end-to-end solution suite to map directly to these new requirements.

Beeline’s sheer breadth of offerings represent an ideal mix of functionality for managing the nuances of today’s growing and thriving agile workforce, including SOW management, services procurement, talent acquisition, talent pools, and total workforce management.

In Their Own Words:

For most companies, human capital constitutes the largest single cost of doing business. Organizations that once relied on internal workforces of direct employees are increasingly supplementing their full-time staff with an agile extended workforce of contingent workers, independent contractors, consultants, and service providers, allowing these companies to adapt quickly and flexibly to market threats and opportunities.

To connect businesses to the rich diversity of talent within the global extended workforce, Beeline creates and implements innovative and sophisticated contingent workforce management solutions. Beyond simply tracking and managing a company’s non-employee workers, Beeline Extended Workforce Platform automates the entire process, sourcing and managing all categories of non-employee talent while providing advanced analytic tools, augmented by artificial intelligence (AI), to deliver the insights organizations need to make better staffing and business decisions.

In the last 20 years, Beeline has become the world’s largest independent provider of solutions for sourcing and managing the complex world of contingent labor. With the deepest, most seasoned team of contingent workforce solution professionals, Beeline delivers innovative technology, end-to-end global and localized customer engagement services, and value-added capabilities which help many of the world’s largest enterprises, including more than 300 Global 2000 clients worldwide, meet their most critical talent needs.

The Outlook:

Beeline has long been a dominant player in the workforce solutions market, often owing its long-term success to dedicated talent-first functionality that supports the overarching goal of true enterprise agility. Even before the company announced its Extended Workforce Platform earlier this year, Beeline was already on a crisp path towards harnessing the full technological potential of the Future of Work movement through an industry-leading talent tech partner ecosystem, an overlay of AI and machine learning to boost the depth of real-time analytics, and a continued commitment to the high-impact realm of services procurement.

As a provider of next-generation agile workforce functionality, Beeline will continue to evolve, adapt, and transform the way its clients harness its powerful solutions to effectively optimize how work is done in 2022 and beyond.

read more

Unlimited to the Core: PRO Unlimited Bolsters Direct Sourcing Technology With WillHire Acquisition

Direct SourcingSolution ProvidersTechnology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Just a few years ago, many business leaders were aware of the benefits of direct sourcing but had not yet fully embraced its value. In 2019, direct sourcing as an extension of non-employee workforce management caught steam when enterprises realized that they could drive both hard and soft benefits through direct relationships with known and vetted candidates; by bringing these workers into curated pools and internal talent communities, enterprises had a cost-effective and on-demand way of injecting new, top-tier talent into their projects and initiatives.

Going into 2020, direct sourcing and talent pools were, respectively, the top two priorities for businesses entering a new decade. Although the early months of the pandemic may have put a damper on many talent acquisition and contingent workforce program initiatives, the truth is that direct sourcing (and its many unique attributes) emerged as an ideal means of both keeping top-tier candidates engaged and positioning the greater organization with workforce agility. And today, direct sourcing has become one of the preeminent means of driving higher talent quality and supporting true workforce scalability. Nearly 55% of businesses across the globe, according to Future of Work Exchange research, have a proper direct sourcing initiative in place today (compared to only half this figure just two years ago).

MSP and VMS provider PRO Unlimited has long demonstrated its direct sourcing efficacy, with its DirectSource PRO offering one of the market’s strongest solutions for direct sourcing. While the provider’s end-to-end power is industry-leading, achieving the “platform” vision that CEO Kevin Akeroyd laid out last year would not be possible without both organic growth and aggressive market activity to bolster the solution’s already-impressive range of innovative functionality.

“Direct sourcing is no longer a “hype cycle” topic, it is a mission-critical priority for enterprises and one that is finally being invested heavily in and adopted. The historical problem has been the utter fragmentation and immaturity of solutions,” said Kevin Akeroyd, CEO of PRO Unlimited. “Large global brands have needed MSP services, curation Services, direct sourcing SaaS, VMS SaaS, analytics SaaS, market rate data, and payroll just to get off the ground. So, they’ve gone out and hired seven small vendors that each do their own little piece, and that large brand spends the next several years doing nothing but managing people/process/systems integration and vendor management instead of driving business outcomes, winning the war for talent, and driving hundreds of millions of savings out of their organizations every year. DirectSource PRO has solved that; it’s the one holistic platform that does everything, at scale, globally, and provides that single platform and system of record for direct sourcing…Hence the adoption of over 40 Fortune 1000 clients adopting it just in the last five months (with that number expected to be over 80 by the end of the year).”

Yesterday, PRO Unlimited announced that it had acquired WillHire, one of the industry’s leading direct sourcing technology offerings. The acquisition allows PRO to reinforce the strength of its DirectSource PRO solution and tap into additional functionality; this acquisition also enables PRO to leverage WillHire’s comprehensive end-to-end campaign management technology for recruitment marketing, as well as its “marketing automation-like” self-scheduling and communication with talent. Other highlights of this acquisition include:

  • PRO Unlimited, WillHire, and Eightfold are a winning trifecta for direct sourcing. PRO’s direct sourcing technology was already a leading solution due its innovative stack and partnership with Eightfold. The addition of WillHire not only bolsters the total power of the DirectSource PRO offering from a pure functionality perspective, but also complements the DE&I and candidate assessment data that is funneled through the Eightfold partnership.
  • WillHire brings an added layer of repeatable “Direct Sourcing 2.0” technology to PRO’s existing functionality. One of WillHire’s core strengths (as written about in Ardent’s 2021 Digital Staffing Platforms Technology Advisor) is its ability to enable “Direct Sourcing 2.0” capabilities, such as recruitment marketing, automated referral management, and deeper candidate matching algorithms. This acquisition will surely increase the overall power and impact of Direct Source PRO.
  • WillHire’s relationships and integrations with major job boards and career sites will deepen the overall talent reach of DirectSource PRO. The very crux of direct sourcing is building a repository of known, vetted, and top-shelf talent; WillHire’s existing integrations with leading industry job boards translates into a more robust swath of high-quality candidates. This will fortify DirectSource PRO’s talent engagement reach.

“Adding WillHire enables us to add large-scale digital talent board/network/FMS integrations, deeper AI/MBL matching, candidate/worker recruitment marketing and ongoing engagement, and skills assessment to the platform,” Akeroyd added. “And, as importantly, it is robust across ALL job types – including shift workers, light industrial, not just white collar, so it allows us to enable direct sourcing for an enterprise’s ENTIRE contingent worker population.”

read more

Key Providers for 2021: GRI

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Background:

The Managed Service Provider (MSP) model has long been a powerful solution in the workforce management industry, its longevity owed to decades of success in transforming how companies think about their talent, how they structure contingent workforce management (CWM) initiatives, and how they ultimately drive value from their extended workforce.

Today’s MSP offerings have evolved mightily in recent years to provide their clients with a slew of services designed to facilitate end-to-end management of SOW/services procurement, direct sourcing, payrolling, talent acquisition, and more. In fact, many leading MSP solutions are reimagining their services suites to reflect the dynamic changes occurring in the greater world of work and talent.

GRI is one of those solutions.

Why They Were Selected:

Many of the globe’s market-leading managed services offerings have a similar slew of products that are only slighted differentiated based on such attributes like service model delivery and sector-specific aspects. One key differentiator of those MSPs that stand out from the pack is the ability to provide its customers with not just traditional value, but true workforce and business agility through a focus on talent, technology, and transformative thinking.

Geometric Results, Inc. (GRI) has long been a household name in the MSP space, and for good reason: its Envision Analytics is a self-service portal that blends powerful business intelligence with real-time talent data. Predictive analytics, neural machine learning models, and hundreds of data sources position Envision Analytics as one of the contingent workforce industry’s deepest, most robust reporting-led offerings.

In addition, its “Managed Direct Sourcing” approach allows customers to build flexible direct sourcing programs and strategies that traverse beyond simple talent pools; GRI’s MDS product is one of the market’s most forward-thinking direct sourcing offerings and positions clients’ direct sourcing programs with a 360-degree brilliance of agility through a strong convergence of industry expertise, human-led processes, and Best-in-Class automation.

In Their Own Words:

GRI works exclusively for our customers and transcends the industry standards. The client comes first and our role as an exclusive advocate is absolute and unbiased.  We are the only MSP that is (1) singularly focused (2) vendor-neutral, (3) free of all channel conflict, and (4) not controlled by a staffing company.

GRI focuses solely on delivering innovative, Best-in-Class workforce solutions as an independent MSP provider. And in an industry that largely lacks transparency, and is steeped with channel-conflict, no other workforce solutions company can back up this claim!

We offer a direct sourcing solution that is native to our MSP. It creates meaningful cost savings and reduced time-to-fill beyond the typical program while improving worker quality. It works well because we are motivated and incentivized by its success; no other MSP can confidently stake that claim.    

We actually innovate — it’s not just an overused and largely misunderstood word at GRI. The ‘box’ doesn’t direct us, and therefore it’s much easier for us to think outside of it. And to think instead about technologies, talent acquisition models and processes as well as the collective ecosystem that will most benefit our clients.

The Outlook:

GRI is positioned as an MSP that will thrive in the years ahead due to its commitments to flexibility, innovation, and the Future of Work. Its unique Managed Direct Sourcing offering balances the necessary human elements with a deep technology stack and platform ecosystem, while its Envision Analytics tool is one of the industry’s finest talent intelligence solutions.

As the world of talent and work continues to evolve and adapt and require talent- and intelligence-led offerings, GRI will continue to establish itself as a preeminent source of workforce management innovation.

read more

Key Providers for 2021: Utmost

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Background:

The contingent workforce has been growing in both size and impact over the last several years, now comprising 47% of the average company’s total talent and showing no signs of slowing down. The concepts of the “agile workforce” and the “extended workforce,” two terms used frequently in our industry, represent the relative evolution of the contingent workforce in regard to its ability to foster dynamic means of getting work done.

Now also referred to colloquially as the “extended workforce,” this wide-scoping range of on-demand talent is defined by the Future of Work Exchange as the natural evolution of the contingent workforce and reflects the agility driven by contractors, freelancers, gig workers, talent pool candidates, professional services, and other forms of non-employee talent. The extended workforce is enabled by advancements in talent acquisition, such as direct sourcing, talent pools, digital and on-demand staffing, and talent marketplaces.

With extended talent comprising nearly half of the global workforce, it is now critical for businesses to drive deep “total talent intelligence” into how these workers are situated in addition to pushing HR-led best practices into the world of contingent workforce management (CWM).

Enter Utmost.

Why They Were Selected:

Utmost was originally designed as a progressive workforce management platform for Workday users, however, in a short amount of time, the company has proven that it has the global expertise, innovative tools, and next-generation functionality to be a true catalyst for extended workforce management.

Utmost’s total talent intelligence offering is considered a market-leading attribute of the platform, with a global dashboard that enables real-time visibility into the many dynamics of the extended workforce, including the makeup of non-employee talent within any given region, project/work status, compliance and risk mitigation measures, and more. Utmost’s forward-thinking way of approaching the burgeoning agile workforce has allowed its users to effectively execute traditional contingent labor operations with a solid backbone of deep talent intelligence for superior decision-making.

In Their Own Words:

Utmost Extended Workforce System is a talent-focused, next-evolution of vendor management software. We are a single, global platform built to manage and engage all classifications of workers — that’s one system, one set of integrations, one single source of truth. Our worker-centric solution allows organizations to manage and engage external resources as they do their employee human capital — with full control and visibility of individuals, skills, and spend.

Built exclusively for Workday customers, Utmost allows enterprises to track, report, source, and manage spend for all categories of the extended workforce, regardless of worker classification (i.e., contractor, project-based worker, outsourced worker, freelancer, independent contractor, etc.), whether employee or non-employee. Our investment, road map, and product strategy were built with Workday customers in mind, and we extend that experience across everyone who works for or with an organization. This allows companies to manage all talent for optimal business outcomes in a scalable way.

The Outlook:

Utmost may be a relatively young organization (founded in 2018), however, their consistent valve of innovation has thrust them firmly into the discussion of today’s top workforce management platforms. It latest feature, Front Door, is a fully-agile and end-to-end solution that optimizes the talent engagement process while guiding hiring managers to best-aligned candidate fit for the project, task, or role at hand. For Workday customers, Front Door represents an opportunity to find, engage, and source total talent through an optimized channel that serves as a single point of entry for new requests.

Utmost has a bright future ahead as it continues to offer innovative tools and technology to the workforce management solutions market. As more and more businesses bring a human capital and HR focus to the world of extended workforce management, Utmost’s wide-scoping range of functionality will help it thrive in these evolving times.

[Editor’s Note: Join Chris and the Utmost team for an exclusive webcast next month, “Five Things Every HR Executive Should Include in 2022 Planning.”]

read more
1 … 6 7 8 9 10
Page 8 of 10