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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.

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.

What Does 2021 Hold for the Agile Workforce and the Future of Work? (Part II)

Contingent Workforce Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 05/24/2021

Last week, we discussed the many tenets of the Future of Work that will play invaluable roles in 2021, including diversity and inclusion, direct sourcing, new talent channels, the depth of transformational business thinking, flexibility- and empathy-led leadership, and the overall impact of new technology and innovative solutions.

I once again spoke with several contingent workforce, HR, and talent acquisition technology leaders over the past week to gain their perspectives on what’s in store for the Future of Work and the agile/extended workforce in the months ahead:

Murali Mazhavanchery, VP of Product, Utmost

“The Future of Work is here. Clearly, we now know that new business models and workforce dynamics are needed – and that means almost all of what we know is not useful. Agility in all dimensions is the only certainty – and that starts with the talent to run these businesses. What is the talent profile I need, how much, when, and where do I need them, and what do they cost? The organizations that thrive in 2021 and beyond will be the ones that embrace flexibility in talent – using a mix of employees and extended workforce, direct employment, direct sourcing, staff augmentation, and strategic services – and have extreme elasticity in logistics such as location, hours, and qualifications. This requires enterprises to define a continuous, always-on process that involves multiple channels, pipelines, and worker scenarios. To enable this transformation, there’s an acute need right now for modern, purpose-built technology that manages large ecosystems of workers and worker channels that each look and act very differently.”

Geoff Dubiski, Chief Solutions Officer, Workforce Logiq

“Leveraging a unified brand, remote and agile work engagements, and the prospect of a boundary-less talent pool – Contingent, FT, and Gig – allows organizations to challenge traditional hiring mindsets; the benefits of total talent acquisition is closer than you think.”

Sunil Bagai, CEO, Crowdstaffing

“We are seeing trends that businesses are increasing their use of direct sourcing to take advantage of their existing talent pools like their Career Website, ATS, Alumni and Referral Networks, and Silver Medalists, as well as extend their reach into additional talent pools like online marketplaces, job boards and other digital sources to more effectively search for the right candidates across a variety of available talent pools. Not only does direct sourcing improve hiring outcomes, but it provides tangible cost savings.”

Mike Wachholz, CEO, Geometric Results, Inc. (GRI)

“As organizations wrestle with the “post-pandemic” work paradigm, those companies that are best positioned to bring relevant jobs at the right moment to candidates will win the competition for top talent. In addition to flexibility in work location, and perhaps more importantly, is how organizations find, engage, vet, and attract the right talent. By leveraging a Direct Sourcing model and proactively developing and cultivating private talent pools, companies will be on the front foot in 2021 when it comes to talent engagement.”

Chris Johnson, Director of Industry Strategy, Checkr

“Jeff Bezos once said, “Customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied. Even when they don’t yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf.”

This intense focus and desire to meet our growing consumer expectations has conditioned the world to expect access to instant data driven results in the palm of their hands. The most successful retailers have sophisticated systems that enable real time access to availability, pricing, peer reviews, and additional product recommendations that give us insights that simply can’t be had in the brick-and-mortar experience.

This expectation has become table stakes for all of us in almost everything we do from ordering food to finding a vacation rental. Think about names like Uber, Amazon, and AirBnB…now think about how integrated these brands are in our daily life. We “Uber” to work, we “Prime” a red dress, and we stay at an “AirBnB” on vacation.

You can use any of these services with just a few clicks and in less time than it takes to order a coffee. They have compressed processes that took multiple steps and people into ones that take minutes and are now self-service – This is the “Sign up Culture” and what the modern candidate expects.

Staffing agencies are now adapting to this world of dissatisfied consumers. The growth of signup culture combined with the unprecedented digital shift of 2020 has changed the job market forever. Agencies that want to keep up need to understand what has changed and how it impacts them. You have a split second to capture a candidate’s interest. That means staffing recruiters have to think like marketers.”

Tim Meehan, Global Head, Innovation Lab at Pontoon Solutions

“When it comes to talent pools or, Talent Rivers, as we call them at Pontoon, finding talent with a just-in-time approach is the most effective way to proactively establish, develop and maintain a selection of screened, pre-selected candidates for our clients. Talent Rivers incorporate workforce demand, D&I targets and strategic routes to new candidate markets.”

Joey Frasier, Co-Founder and CEO, Shortlist

“Shortlist has always been a family-first organization out of necessity but also believe that in order for our talent to bring the best to our customers they first needed to be ‘whole’ themselves – mentally and physically. The challenges of 2020 demonstrated more than ever that getting the best out of people isn’t about balancing work and life but instead integrating our family into our work. The pandemic, economic crisis, social injustice debates have made it clearer than ever that organizations can’t treat people as ‘just workers’ but need to focus on talent as whole individuals. I feel confident that the organizations that will be most successful in the year(s) ahead will be those that decide that a family-first culture, where health is the top priority, and that is a manager’s top focus day-to-day.”

“The past year has unfortunately shown us how “at risk” contingent labor can be as most organizations made quick cuts to contractors as they were the easiest line item in the budget to reduce spend in. That said, there is a new recognition that global health crises, global social unrest and related or unrelated global economic disruptions can all affect businesses and their supply chains more rapidly than ever before. Therefore, in the year(s) ahead, I believe that organizations are going to be more focused on improving their Capital Workforce Agility – or simply stated, the amount of total talent spend that is flexible and agile (contingent) vs fixed (full-time employees) is going to continue to increase in favour of flexibility and agility. This isn’t a negative but a positive for talent. Organizations will need to enhance their focus on improving how they engage with this non-full-time workforce and how they ensure mutually beneficial relationships with this talent as they’ll want to be the “first choice” or talent when multiple opportunities come up. Workforce capital agility and overall workforce capital efficiency will be a top C-Suite priority across all functions with a priority place on HR and finance.”

Taylor Ramchandani, Product Manager, VectorVMS

“Something we have been asked more frequently about by our clients is how to move from having diverse suppliers to having a more diverse candidate base. I foresee over the next year increasingly more interest in tracking and measuring diversity and inclusion in the contingent workforce and using that data to identify gaps in not only engagement but attraction of candidates.”

“We have seen organizations work in interesting ways over the past year to keep up with the changes that have been thrown at us. We have seen our clients turn to talent pools to help them manage furloughed staff, create pools of pre-credentialed healthcare staff, and bring back alumni talent to reduce ramp-up time and save cost.”

Bernie Caputo, President of Contingent Workforce Solutions, Atrium

“Imagine the strength of talent acquisition when you connect our dedicated recruiters to your brand influence and existing resources to rapidly fill temporary roles — without additional overhead, but with significant cost savings.”

Kelly Couto, Vice President of Enterprise Solutions, Atrium

“As the rise of remote work removes sourcing barriers, and social responsibility shifts corporate mindsets from value streams to valuing the people who influence them, the possibilities of a flexible workforce are boundless.”

Marlon Rosenzweig, CEO and Co-Founder, WorkGenius

“Digital staffing and traditional staffing models are converging. Talent is working remotely and online platforms process W2s just as well these days. Finding the right talent is key and while humans may have an edge at it, that edge is declining as technology gets better and better. Hybrid models of humans and machines provide for a smooth transition in the meantime.”

“Fractional employment requires new models for mortgage underwriting, health insurance pricing and more. While some of this will be taken care of by the free market, governments should ensure not to get in the way of providing freelancers with the freedom they sought in the first place when becoming freelancers.”

Jan Alexander Jedlinski, Founder and CEO, Gustav

“The staffing agency and recruiter market will see a massive digital transformation. Staffing agencies and their talent supply will become more accessible online through deployment platforms. Staffing agencies and recruiters who will adapt to this shift will look more like talent curators and use technology to provide faster access to available talent for their end clients.”

“Staffing agencies and recruiters will have a massive opportunity to put millions of people back to work. You will see technology and services around the traditional staffing agency model evolve. The agency will become a talent curator and technology platforms and services like EOR will play a dominant role driving the operations for the agency in the background.”

What Does 2021 Hold for the Agile Workforce and the Future of Work? (Part I)

Contingent Workforce Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 05/21/2021

If you caught last week’s Contingent Workforce Weekly podcast, we chatted about several distinct attributes of the world of work and talent that will be transformed in the year ahead. In the span of just under 30 minutes, we just barely scratched the surface of the vast possibilities that the Future of Work movement will have on businesses across the globe over the next 12 months, given the many “accelerants” that contributed to work optimization in 2020.

There are many tenets of the Future of Work that will play invaluable roles in 2021, including diversity and inclusion, direct sourcing, new talent channels, the depth of transformational business thinking, flexibility- and empathy-led leadership, and the overall impact of new technology and innovative solutions.

I spoke with several contingent workforce, HR, and talent acquisition technology leaders over the past week to gain their perspectives on what’s in store for the Future of Work and the agile/extended workforce in the months ahead:

Brian Hoffmeyer, SVP of Market Strategies, Beeline

“The events of 2020 make me a bit reticent to make any predictions for 2021, but I’ll try! As the pandemic comes to an end due to a combination of vaccine distribution and herd immunity, I think we’ll see companies adopt a blended in office and remote work strategy for their entire workforces. Some jobs will be 100% in the office and others will be 100% remote but, for a large number of professional workers, we’ll see a mix where key activities return to being in person. At the same time, specifically as it relates to the extended workforce, companies will continue to engage workers in locations where they don’t have a physical presence as they’ve learned that they can grow their talent pools and drive down both time-to-fill and costs by doing so.”

William T. Rolack, Sr., VP of Diversity and Inclusion, Workforce Logiq

“With real incentives for tangible results, D&I leaders are in a better position to move beyond tracking diverse supply chain expenditures to drive real impact on overall employee representation. And, those often overlooked contingent workers must be a part of the diversity dialogue. With the call for workplace equity, regardless of worker type, and because contingent workers are strong talent pool for full time positions, organizations risk missing the mark if they focus their D&I efforts solely on their full-time workforce.”

“Diversity and inclusion isn’t a “program.” Too many organizations today treat it as an ad-hoc initiative. Employers that have fostered real cultures of belonging understand D&I needs to permeate the organization at the core, and be a lens through which senior leaders invest, act, and make decisions. Real progress can only occur when employers understand this interconnectivity and link D&I initiatives with their larger business objectives.”

Allison Robinson, CEO and Founder, The Mom Project

“We are seeing more and more companies turn to The Mom Project for help building diverse talent communities. That signals to me that, while there’s a real commitment and willingness to invest in diversity and inclusion, many companies are still trying to identify the right partners that will actually help them move the needle. We developed our Diverse Talent Cloud offering to connect our partners and customers with the best talent communities of diverse candidates. I think you’ll see more companies look for solutions like The Mom Project as they get serious and strategic about converting their diversity objectives into impact.”

“Forty percent of our community of 400,000 working parents are women of color. When I see stats saying approximately 60 percent of the jobs eliminated the first months of the pandemic were held by women and that women of color were disproportionately affected, I am reminded that our mission of finding moms jobs is more important than ever. One of the things we’re doing beyond connecting diverse talent with flexible, professional work is funding initiatives like RISE, an upskilling and opportunity-creation program for women and families. It’s a virtuous circle that bolsters the program and the mission benefiting everyone involved.”

Kevin Akeroyd, CEO, PRO Unlimited

“A world where more than 50% of the workforce is not FTE is not too far into the distant future. In fact, the contingent workforce landscape is growing at an unprecedented rate – with approximately over 40% of all skilled workers being contingent vs. full-time. As employers begin to augment their human capital strategies to accommodate for this shift in the market, many leading organizations are supplementing traditional sourcing channels by creating private talent pools of known (alumni, silver medalists, referrals, retirees) and unknown (brand-attracted) talent. Done correctly, direct sourcing powers significant cost savings, improved talent quality and faster time to fill. However, some organizations are finding the execution of direct-sourcing programs more difficult than anticipated and struggling to realize the full benefits. Often, the use of multiple vendors is the culprit, creating bottlenecks, discontinuity and inefficiencies. When powered by cutting-edge technology and human expertise, a single direct-sourcing platform eliminates disjointed communication between parties, reduces confusion and inefficiency created by overlapping responsibilities, and aligns all interactions to one service team.”

Jim McCoy, SVP of Talent Solutions, ManpowerGroup

“Increasing DE&I in existing markets where local demographics do not align with targeted skill sets has limited success unless remote sourcing is leveraged properly. Increasing candidate diversity is best achieved in markets where diverse candidates actually reside. 52% of school age children are learning remotely at least part-time and 1/3 of children under 12 years old lack adult supervision. To attract diverse candidates, accommodating the priority needs of workers, such as childcare, is increasingly critical.”

“In 2020, many employers had to contend with employees who had to log off or step away from their jobs for 10-to-14 days at a time, requiring them to reallocate skills to their remaining workforce or assign managers to take on additional responsibilities. The willingness of workers to take on dual roles is a short-term reality as competitors seek to hire singular skills, increasing risk and rate of turnover, and the trend of overperformers taking on extra work will not continue indefinitely.”

In industries such as IT, where the demand for talent increased due to COVID-19, competitive pay has been critical. There was little to no unemployment for IT workers, who shouldered essential responsibilities of helping companies deploy most of their employees to work from home while also maintaining the highest levels of cyber security. As long as IT workers are receiving appropriate compensation, they are less inclined to switch jobs and move to a new company where they will have less tenure.”

Saleem Khaja, COO and Co-Founder, WorkLLama

“While the usual priorities around cost optimization and DEI will stay top of mind, there will be an increased focus on talent wellbeing and tools that will contribute towards that, e.g., tools that maximize efficiency while minimizing stress in the new way of doing work, tools that predict outcomes towards achieving this objective both from a talent and organizational perspective, etc.”

Vanessa Janus, Vice President, Enterprise Solutions, DZConneX (A Yoh Company)

“Direct sourcing and proactive talent pools have quickly become a critical component to a total talent strategy as organizations seek ways to provide a unified high level candidate experience and strong employee value proposition regardless of labor type. Direct Sourcing, as part of a holistic vision of your talent acquisition program, is more important than ever in order to attract the most qualified and diverse talent faster and more cost effectively.”

“The challenge going forward will be to ensure a company’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are happening for all labor types and talent acquisition streams. Thus, the rise in direct sourcing and total talent management to help not only increase visibility but to also unify and maximize D&I efforts.”

Dave Putt, SVP Sales and Marketing Strategies, ELEVATE

“We see the adoption of direct talent sourcing has been slow and steady. More importantly, there is an on-going appetite from customers and partners to include talent pooling and other direct sourcing capabilities into our ELEVATE VMS.”

Four Predictions for the Future of Work in 2021

General Insights Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 05/17/2021

Ardent Partners defines the “Future of Work” movement as a series of ideas across the talent, technology, and business transformation spectrum that augment how enterprises ultimately optimize how work is done. The challenging events of 2020 did not just stress the limits of business operations, but also accelerated key facets of the Future of Work movement; in fact, some key aspects of the “new normal” that enterprises face in 2021 are, in fact, innovative strategies and solutions that just several months ago were necessary approaches to survive in unprecedented times.

Several critical aspects of the Future of Work movement, amongst others, are crucial beacons of innovation that will assist enterprises in navigating through the initial, unsteady early months of the year ahead:

The (faster-than-expected) evolution of talent engagement and talent acquisition. Less than five years ago, only 12% of talent was engaged and sourced via “real-time” or “on-demand” means, such as digital staffing technology, tech-enabled talent marketplaces, and direct sourcing/talent pool-based programs. Today, that number hovers around a third (33%) of all talent engaged/acquired via real-time means, with a heavy increase expected as 2021 drags on. Ardent Partners expects, for instance, the utilization of direct sourcing strategies to increase threefold over the next 12 months, owed to the fact that talent pools (and their subsequent link to global enterprise recruitment streams) allow businesses to tap into “known and vetted” talent in an on-demand manner. Too, as businesses opt for less in-person interviews and a need for faster time-to-fill rates as a result of workforce scalability, other solutions, particularly talent marketplaces, will become critically important for shoring up the total workforce.
The acceleration of work optimization via true digital transformation. The concept of “digital transformation” has been part of business vernacular for several years, with many C-level executives (hello, CIO!) spearheading initiatives to digitally enhance specific (or all) enterprise processes for maximum optimization, speed, and efficiency. In 2020, businesses quickly experienced the pitfalls of social distancing and closed offices as scores of workers could not execute traditional and repeatable processes without access to a physical location (or, even worse: lack of access to archaic manual processes). Digital transformation in 2021 must be “table stakes” for the typical enterprise as the pandemic continues to disrupt live and in-person tactics.
The rise of flexibility-led leadership. 2020 was the most “human” year of the average business professional (and, thus far, 2021 will surely continue this trend). Pandemic-led anxiety, a lack of schooling or daycare (and the stress of remote learning), and general health concerns sat in constant alignment with the typical stressors of corporate life. Flexibility- and agility-led strategies were quickly employed (i.e., the agile workforce) during the initial phases of 2020’s challenging times, however, there was an undercurrent of another interesting attribute that quietly separated business leaders from one another: the rise of “empathy-led” leadership. Business leaders that led with an empathetic approach are the ones that will be able to build trust, confidence, and, most importantly of all, retention, within the ranks of their highly valued workforce. Converging empathy and agility into flexibility-led leadership allows business leaders to assist their workers during moments of need by providing more flexible work arrangements, measuring productivity by outcomes instead of hours worked, and, in general, being more inclusive of what is happening with the personal lives of their staff.
And…the biggest prediction of 2021: a critical spike in the utilization of the extended workforce. This prediction may have the biggest impact of all: the business world will draw the closest it has ever been to half of its total workforce comprised of non-employee and agile talent. As businesses employ staffing scalability with the optimism of vaccines and economic recovery ahead, the contingent workforce will become ever more critical in helping enterprises across the globe not only survive in these trying times, but also thrive as they seek to truly optimize how work is done.

Evolution, Agility, and the Extended Workforce: A Conversation with Doug Leeby, CEO of Beeline

Talent Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on 05/14/2021

I’m thrilled to welcome Beeline CEO Doug Leeby for an exclusive Q&A session today on CPO Rising. Doug and I chat about the platform’s big news, the evolution of the agile workforce, direct sourcing, and so much more.

Christopher J. Dwyer: Doug, it’s great to have a chance to chat with you. Thanks for spending some time with us. Let’s get to the big news first. Earlier today, Beeline made a major announcement: introducing the solution as an extended workforce platform. Tell us all about it.

Doug Leeby: Thank you, Chris. It’s always great to be with you. Yes, we announced the Beeline Extended Workforce Platform today. In a word, it’s about evolution. We’ve long outgrown the moniker of VMS (vendor management system). While the functionality of a VMS is still core and extremely important, it’s too limiting. The value of external talent has evolved. Talent is talent – it doesn’t matter whether they are employees or non-employees. As such, it needs to be managed not as a procurement category but as a strategic component of the workforce.

Evolving to the extended workforce platform means adding talent-centric value streams to all constituents on the platform – clients, MSPs, suppliers, and the talent itself. It also demands a thoughtful and deliberate approach to building an ecosystem with other great companies. This gives our users access to superior capabilities and benefits that are not associated with VMS today.

CD: One thing that Beeline has been known for is its commitment to both the “talent side” of the industry and the power of intelligence and analytics. How do those attributes factor into the revamped platform?

DL: I appreciate you pointing that out because it is core to Beeline. This is not about managing a commodity – it’s about people. That’s an important starting point. This manifests in the beautiful new hiring manager experience that considers our users as consumers vs. business entities, our integration with behavioral and psychometric solutions, and our new resume visualizer that elevates people from a mere resume. The data (and therefore, analytics) serves as another massive point of differentiation in the market. Beeline’s extended workforce platform leverages our $700B in global talent spend data to provide insights that align behavior with the enterprises’ goals.

The power of data is leveraged in multiple facets of the Beeline extended workforce platform, but perhaps the most exciting and innovative is in the “SmartBuyer” solution we are developing with our long-trusted ecosystem partner, Brightfield. Industry marketing is replete with buzz phrases like “powered by AI.” Much of that is pandering. Machine learning is promising, but it is predicated on having a deep and historical data set that can actually inform with statistical veracity.

CD: Beeline will forever be known as a pioneer and an innovator in the VMS space. How do you foresee current and prospective customers perceiving this exciting new development?

DL: I believe they will appreciate the industry leadership and the fact that we are finally ascribing an accurate descriptor to our solution. The reality is, we’ve been an extended workforce platform for several years. We benefit from exceptionally close relationships with our clients (I define clients as end clients, MSPs and suppliers) and everything we do is geared at listening to their challenges and endeavoring to solve them.

In the early years, our problem solving was more reactive. Over the last decade, we’ve been far more proactive in addressing them. Beeline’s extended workforce platform is clearly future focused and it’s flexible. Early adopters leverage much from our ecosystem now while others take more time but appreciate that these solutions are in place for when they are ready. I’ll give you a couple of examples. Many are taking advantage of our offering via The Mom Project as it is both noble and simple. Direct sourcing offers tremendous savings but requires more planning and not everyone is ready quite yet to pull the trigger.

CD: How do current clients benefit from the extended workforce management functionality?

DL: Well, they are already benefiting as we have been offering many components of our platform and ecosystem for some time, but on March 26, we have one of our biggest and most exciting releases in recent years. This is the culmination of a focus on our three pillars – user experience, data and innovation, and connectivity. There is too much to discuss here but we believe job descriptions and resumes are outdated and ineffective. Despite consistently receiving the highest grades for our user experience, we believe it should be even more intuitive and data driven. We also believe trust is paramount and thus, data security must always be top-of-mind. These are foundational and we must never pursue shiny objects in favor of the core. Having said that, there is a lot of “shine” that’s just really cool as well.

CD: How critical is for our industry to have this type of technology in regard to where we are now in the business world: growing agile workforce, more focus on diversity and inclusion, and (hopefully!) on the back end of a public health crisis?

DL: I believe it is crucial. Twenty years ago, when I started, workflow geared at driving rates down after an uneventful Y2K was a gamechanger. Much has changed and evolved over the last two decades. Finally, the value of the extended workforce is, in many cases, understood to be strategic. The variability of the model is exceptionally attractive, and companies are leveraging this important talent more than ever before. Accordingly, it must be managed as talent and as a key component of the overall workforce strategy. That requires a more robust solution set from which to draw from. Beeline does a lot, but we don’t do it all. The platform remedies that and enables us to introduce extraordinary and proven solutions to the table.

Diversity and inclusion are now making its way from the supplier to the talent and that’s a great thing. The Beeline extended workforce platform not only informs on some of the key metrics but provides a channel to do something about it. We recently launched the Beeline Diversity Talent Pool under The Mom Project, for example, which helps organizations source and hire diversity candidates.

In relation to the pandemic, yes, let’s hope this is soon to be in the rear-view mirror. But to answer your question, this type of technology is paramount to operating in an agile and nimble manner. It enables companies to source remarkable talent that now operates remotely. The idea, for many positions, that the contractor or consultant has to be local is forever shattered. Only a system such as this can provide the reach to find this talent.

CD: What other pathways does this open for Beeline in regard to engaging, sourcing, and managing talent for businesses across the globe?

DL: Great segue, thanks. It opens a lot of pathways. We’ve been vocal that it is our responsibility to open channels of talent next to the traditional PSL (preferred supplier list). I want to be clear – suppliers are a crucial element of this ecosystem and should be honored accordingly. There are opportunities, for specific geographies, goals, etc. to consider complimentary sourcing channels. Direct sourcing is one example. Diversity sourcing is another. I just referenced remote ability and that clearly provides opportunities across the globe.

We hear a lot about “Total Talent Management.” We think this is more about “Total Workforce Optimization” but soon, via our platform, we’ll introduce some compelling solutions that bring this notion to life and finally render “TTM” more than just a buzz phrase. I still contend companies have a long way to go in terms of getting their arms around their extended labor force and should focus on that prior to thinking about “TTM”, but in keeping with our belief that we should solve tomorrow’s problems today… we’ll be ready.

CD: This is a major shift for not just Beeline, but the industry itself. What is the future of the extended workforce and the technology required to manage and control it effectively?

DL: Workforce agility has risen to the top of the priority list. Nearly everyone is focusing on digital transformation. Thoughtful planning and deployment of the extended workforce is more critical now than ever before. This will only increase, and you’ll see more and more organizations finally address this important talent component as strategic.

The future of all workforce management, not just the extended class, is outcome-based sourcing. We all yearn to unlock the insights historical data offers so that we can be more contemplative and deliberate in how we get work done. This goes back to my comment about this really being about Total Workforce Optimization. Knowing, on the front end, the appropriate “mix of talent” (full time, contractor, freelancer, project based) will be the next profound transformation. The underpinning is data and machine learning.

And we must remember this is about people. Thus, the future will exploit the insights from machine learning while treating labor with dignity and offering value to them as well. Remember, a platform is about its network and as stewards of this platform, we must consider all who engage on it and ensure that we are providing more value to each constituency. Beeline’s VMS is a proven and trusted global leader. It isn’t going away – it is an integral component of the Beeline extended workforce platform. We are simply, but judiciously, adding to the overall value proposition by offering future-proofed, well thought out, talent-centric solutions from one platform.

What’s the Next Big Thing in Contingent Workforce Management?

Contingent Workforce Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 05/10/2021

When I started my industry analyst career (way back in 2006; please, don’t make me feel old!), the contingent workforce was one of several high-profile “complex spend categories,” ones that typically fell under the purview of the procurement or purchasing function but kept their own specific and unique attributes (i.e., marketing spend management necessitated much different sourcing techniques than business travel, facilities management was miles away from typical procurement processes, etc.). In short: there were some stark differentiators that proved it was a growing, distinctive area of corporate spend, however, at the time, it was just that: another area of spend.

What I describe as the “perfect storm” occurred during the Great Recession of 2008-2009: rough economic times forced businesses to reimagine their staffing strategies. Two key things happened: 1) enterprises realized that non-employee labor could be a gamechanger in terms of expertise and skills-related value (in addition to the cost benefits), and 2) the individuals that were forced (or chose) to adopt a flexible workstyle ended up finding that this setup was more productive and an overall better choice for their careers.

Over the years, the results of this “perfect storm” paid incredible dividends, so much so that the contingent workforce was no longer an augmentative talent strategy for businesses across the world, but a true value-driver that brought unique skillsets and top-tier expertise to mission critical projects and initiatives. And, as we all know, the years that passed resulted in this swath of talent evolving into the “agile workforce” that now allows businesses the workforce scalability from cost and skill perspectives.

With a full year living a pandemic environment that has caused disruptions to both personal and business worlds, however, a key question remains: what’s the next big thing in contingent workforce management? Well, there are actually several key “things” instead of just one…

The “Platform Approach” to Extended Workforce Management Technology

The contingent workforce has seen a consistent stream of progression over the past 15 years. With this type of talent firmly ensconced in the “agile workforce” or “extended workforce” mold, it’s not enough for businesses to have a condensed technological approach. As initiatives around direct sourcing, talent pools, diversity and inclusion, total talent management, and other crucial elements of talent acquisition and talent management become more entwined within CWM, it will be incredibly important for businesses to have the proper technology stack (or a single platform with these modules) to execute on these strategies, whether it’s via a deep ecosystem of “peripheral” providers (such as direct sourcing platforms or digital staffing marketplaces) or in-system offerings that can address more than “core” (i.e., requisition management) aspects of contingent workforce management.

And, as total talent management becomes more of a reality in 2021, businesses will require a deeper technological approach to ensure that they are deriving the richest possible total talent data via interconnected systems and platforms.

The Impact of Non-Tech Attributes of the Future of Work Movement

On the Contingent Workforce Weekly podcast, I’ve frequently discussed the “non-technological” components of the Future of Work movement, which range from the transformation of business thinking to the value of flexibility-led workforce strategies. In the face of a business environment which is actively struggling to return to normal (and with factors like burnout, fatigue, and mental health as common workforce issues), technology isn’t the top cure. Strategies such as empathy-led leadership will transform the talent experience and ensure that the workforce is engaged, while diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives will bring innovative voices into the business as it seeks deeper and unique skillsets and expertise.

“Workforce Agility” Becomes Table Stakes…For Real

The agile workforce. The extended workforce. Business agility. These are all hot-button phrases that can sometimes mean different things to different executives. However, the crux of these terms is so very simple: harness the relative on-demand nature of today’s talent to develop the most dynamic responses possible to enterprise needs and requirements.

If there’s one thing that 2020 taught us, it’s that workforce scalability is essentially linked to economic survival in the now-chaotic world of business. Taking that scalability one step forward is the very root of workforce agility, from which businesses can tap into talent pools, talent marketplaces, talent clouds, talent communities, their own trusted FTE workers, and a range of services and other recruitment streams to build, in real time, a dynamic response to a crucial enterprise initiative.

search for: direct sourcing

The “Platform Approach” to Extended Workforce Management Technology

The Impact of Non-Tech Attributes of the Future of Work Movement

“Workforce Agility” Becomes Table Stakes…For Real