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Workforce Management Recommendations for 2022

Contingent WorkforceDirect SourcingHR by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The extended workforce has, for several years, represented the natural advancement of contingent labor and its greater impact on critical enterprise objectives. Coupled with a sharply shifting business landscape, changing market dynamics, and the reimagining of how work gets done, today’s organizations must harness the influence of the symbiotic relationship between talent, technology, and business leadership to usher in a new era of work.

Heading into 2022, businesses in the throes of workforce planning are facing pressure-filled quandaries: how will the pandemic affect their operations in the new year? Will scalability be as critical as it has been over the past two years? How does technology and innovation influence talent acquisition and talent management? The below recommendations will assist enterprises as they continue to plan around the inherent agility of their extended workforce and its impact on the greater business:

  • Embrace the extended workforce as a means of tapping into top-tier talent and fostering enterprise flexibility. The past 20+ months have shown adaptability is key weapon in changing times. There is a major reason why 82% of businesses expect an increase in the utilization of non-employee labor in 2022. The extended and agile workforce enables organizations to better access top-shelf skillsets, deep expertise, and a dynamic relationship that is founded on flexibility. Short-term engagements and mission critical projects supported by agile talent is specifically what empowered business during the pandemic…and that will not change in the months and years ahead.
  • Prioritize dynamic channels of talent, such as talent communities, to fuel critical business endeavors. Real workforce agility is developed through dynamic outlets of talent that can be engaged in a real-time and on-demand way. Talent marketplaces and other digital staffing channels offer simple “search and select” functionality within their deep networks of expertise that allow organizations to build remote teams of appropriate and well-aligned skillsets for crucial corporate initiatives.
  • Develop a strategy to boost the impact of direct sourcing and talent pools. Direct sourcing emerged as a viable talent acquisition strategy within the United States several years ago (after more than a decade of massive adoption in Europe) allowing businesses to act as their own recruitment firms, saving dollars and time on talent engagement. In a post-pandemic world, direct sourcing can help businesses bypass traditional talent acquisition processes (which are often slower and more manual in nature than direct sourcing initiatives), nurture candidates in a meaningful way, and tap into top-tier skillsets as specific needs arise. Direct sourcing can also empower the enterprise brand and culture to attract candidates, a differentiating factor that can be incredibly effective way to attract top talent in competitive markets.
  • Continue to lean on the extended workforce to support business continuity and market competition. The year ahead brings a wealth of optimism to the world of work even though fears of a new coronavirus variant are sparking surges across the world. As such, the global market continues to face considerable risk as these emerging coronavirus variants, particularly Delta and Omicron, continue to raise concern. If the winter brings new surges, businesses will be able to replay the strategies of 2020 and adopt a flexible mindset towards its workforce; the agility inherent in the extended workforce will support (once again) business continuity and allow enterprises to remain competitive.
  • Rethink the application of core skillsets and expertise towards enterprise roles and projects. When markets shift, businesses must frequently pivot to new work models to get work done, survive challenging scenarios, and/or keep up with the demand for products and services. “Work models,” in this instance, are not limited to where work is performed (i.e., remote work or distributed teams), but also include the strategies that apply core employee and non-employee skillsets in a way that promotes flexible alignment between open roles/projects and available talent. In addition, the executive team should invest in upskilling and reskilling opportunities for its workforce to keep up in an age when digitization is a crux to relevancy.
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Key Providers for 2021: Toptal

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The Background:

Well before the pandemic, the agile workforce was a transformational way of getting work done. Businesses were afforded with on-demand means of engaging and sourcing top-tier expertise and skillsets without the laborious processes of old standing in the way. While talent marketplaces and digital staffing outlets aren’t necessarily new to the Future of Work scene, their value has never been more apparent in a business world that craves the dynamic value that the extended workforce brings to the contemporary organization.

Today, businesses require digital staffing channels that can connect businesses with highly-skilled talent in near-real-time, helping to build truly agile workforces that can support and augment the critical ways work is done. Talent marketplaces have experienced incredible (over 700%) growth over the past five years, due to their ability to plug-and-play extended talent directly into the enterprise whilst fully-aligning with the core elements of projects and positions.

Enter Toptal.

Why They Were Selected:

Future of Work Exchange research finds that the pandemic forced 75% of businesses to reimagine how they applied skillsets and expertise to core projects and initiatives given the many shifts happening within the greater world of work. Without access to traditional in-person hiring and requiring solutions that would augment workforce scalability, businesses turned to digital and on-demand staffing platforms to quickly channel top-tier talent into their organizations’ mission-critical endeavors.

The Toptal Enterprise solution is a multi-faceted, services-oriented offering that allows users a range of nimble talent engagement models; by building on its deep talent marketplace and talent community, Toptal has the ability to helps its clients in a variety of ways, leveraging the power of the solution’s network to fill short-term, single-use talent needs or build a fully-scalable team of distributed talent.

In Their Own Words:

Toptal LLC operates a curated network of highly skilled freelance talent with business, design, and technology expertise that allows companies to scale their teams on-demand. Founded in 2010, the company now has the world’s largest fully remote workforce. Toptal has served more than 10,000 clients with a global network of talent exceeding 6,000 people in 100+ countries. For more information, please visit Toptal.com.

The Outlook:

By offering one of the market’s deepest and strongest talent networks through a mix of concierge-like, high-touch services and a client model that drives workforce agility, Toptal is well-positioned to thrive in today’s evolving labor market. Businesses actively crave extended talent that can serve as dynamic responses to continued market challenges; Toptal’s long track record of success in delivering on-demand, top-shelf talent and expertise achieves that goal.

Toptal was an early pioneer in the remote work movement; the company itself operates within a remote infrastructure and has become the world’s largest fully-remote organization. This first-hand experience has allowed the solution to help clients achieve their talent-based goals in the ever-evolving remote and hybrid work workplace. The company even offers deep guidance and consulting to assist customers in building and developing truly agile and successful remote work environments.

Based on these unique advantages and offerings, Toptal is a talent marketplace solution that is tailored for the Future of Work movement.

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Let’s Not Forget About Contingent Workforce Management (CWM)

Contingent WorkforceTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

The extended workforce has revolutionized the ways work gets done, giving businesses an opportunity to react dynamically to real-world problems and challenges while leaning on an agile network of top-tier skillsets and expertise. Future of Work Exchange research has consistently found that enterprises drive incredible value from the utilization of the extended workforce, especially in the face of a continued global pandemic that has reinforced the need for flexible talent, the ability to scale staff, and align mission-critical projects with all-world expertise.

Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange define the extended workforce as “the evolution of contingent labor and accounts for major transformations and talent shifts happening in today’s world of work and talent. The extended workforce’s strategic value and impact are driven by the utilization of contractors, freelancers, gig workers, talent pool candidates, professional services, and other forms of non-employee talent, and is enabled by innovation within talent acquisition (such as digital staffing, direct sourcing, and talent marketplaces).”

There’s a big piece of the extended workforce value proposition that cannot be ignored: contingent workforce management (CWM). The extended workforce represents evolution and progression, and CWM reinforces the need to apply both tactical and strategic capabilities, as well as the right technology, to drive many layers of value from this growing bucket of talent (which now represents nearly 47% of the average company’s total talent).

The non-employee workforce represents something entirely different than it did years ago. Today’s non-employee talent is a core element to organizational success, enabling businesses with the level of workforce agility required to become more dynamic in response customer, competitor, and market actions. With nearly half of the total workforce considered contingent in some sense, it is incumbent upon businesses to drive maximum value from their extended workforce. Ignoring this area of talent is essentially ignoring almost half of the people running the enterprise – executives that ignore the extended workforce in 2021 are guilty of human capital management malpractice.

There are several nuances to contingent workforce management in 2021, some of which are progressive concepts that reinforce the shifting links between talent and the way work is addressed and done. Other distinctions inherent in today’s extended workforce are direct ramifications of a challenging 2020 and reflect the major shifts in 1) how enterprises now perceive their skillsets and expertise, 2) how these workers support mission-critical projects and initiatives, and 3) how the impact of crucial changes (societal changes, progression of technology, etc.) in the talent acquisition arena will continue to transform how work is done.

In 2021, the average business is actively addressing critical organizational endeavors with a variety of non-employee skillsets and talent, choosing to converge their traditional full-time workers with the unique expertise inherent in the extended talent pool. Future of Work Exchange research finds that the typical business, however, must leverage a series of tool, solutions, and strategies to derive the true value of this workforce:

  • Contingent workforce management practices have long followed a robust blend of technology, process, and strategy orientation that is marked by efficiencies across the end-to-end spectrum of talent and work. Best-in-Class programs are built on core capabilities that drive consistent talent acquisition approaches, proper optimization of talent channels and sources, and cross-functional coordination between key internal stakeholders.
  • Technology and innovation are central to the Future of Work movement. As businesses transform the way they engage and leverage talent, and as they undergo major shifts in work optimization, automation will be the ultimate linchpin for these strategies. Best-in-Class organizations are actively relying on several key technology platforms to better engage talent, enhance workforce management, and drive flexibility and agility, such as VMS platforms, extended workforce solutions, digital and on-demand staffing, MSPs, and direct sourcing technology.
  • Eighty-two percent (82%) of Best-in-Class enterprises have integrated SOW management and services procurement into their core CWM programs, a fact that reinforces the need for businesses to effectively track, monitor, and manage all elements of their extended workforce (not just the contingent laborers). Often augmented by VMS or extended workforce solutions, Best-in-Class businesses have integrated capabilities into their programs that include resource-tracking, milestone and delivery date visibility, full sourcing and bidding processes, and other processes required to manage what is often considered the largest chunk of non-employee workforce spend.

In looking at the role of the extended workforce, the key to success is multifaceted and wide-spanning: embrace the evolution of talent, tap into both traditional and progressive platforms, and leverage next-generation strategies to best align the workplace environment with the ideal-fit talent and skillsets. Top-performing organizations are leading the next era of work optimization because they are actively adapting to the major shifts in the talent and work arena while also cultivating a culture of agility and flexibility.

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The Power of Talent Communities

Direct SourcingTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

As we wrote last week here on the Future of Work Exchange, there are many innovative platforms today that are changing the dynamics of talent engagement and workforce management. No longer can enterprises traverse the transformative landscape of talent on their own; technology is no longer the wild card for better enterprise outcomes, but rather the foundational core of how businesses can optimize how work gets done through the power of top-tier talent and expertise.

The very concept of “talent communities” lies somewhere within the power of talent pools (via direct sourcing strategies, and, more specifically, talent curation), the global reach of talent marketplaces, and the continued progression of digital staffing technology. These attributes, combined with the evolution of core workforce management technology (such as Vendor Management Systems and extended workforce automation), present business leaders with something that they’ve truly never had before: the ability to build dynamic, on-demand communities of talent that are comprised of various types of workers that can be engaged in such a way that they drive real workforce scalability.

We’ve all heard various phrases tossed around the past several years: talent pools, talent clouds, talent channels, talent marketplaces, etc. In some way, they are unique depending on usage and purpose. However, many more times, they are similar in scope and deliver exactly what drives real-time responses to new enterprise challenges: agile talent. [While I’m aware that these phrases, over time, have come to mean different things to organizations, the evolution of the labor market and its corresponding technology means that “community” is an ideal catch-all term. The one caveat to talent communities is whether or not they are public or private.]

Talent communities, then, can be described as any network a business relies on to engage talent, foster collaboration with independent workers, and augment the overall breadth of the extended workforce. Contemporary direct sourcing technology allows users to build deep networks that resemble social channels in which businesses can both nurture and engage talent, while today’s VMS and extended workforce platforms offer functionality for injecting that talent directly into organizational recruitment streams. Talent marketplaces, while also offering end-to-end workforce management automation, also play a pivotal role in pushing talent from their networks to directly where hiring managers need them.

Together, these solutions offer businesses the opportunity to build robust talent communities that serve several purposes, including:

  • Creating a groundswell of skillsets and expertise for ongoing talent acquisition initiatives. Just knowing that businesses can leverage on-demand accessibility to top-shelf talent means that any new project or initiative will be supported with the necessary skillsets for completion. In an ongoing war for talent and amidst the so-called “Great Resignation,” many business leaders can be assured that critical objectives will leverage the best-fit talent when, where, and however it is required. Many industries today are facing staff shortages that are draining revenue, alienating customers (and consumers), and, worst of all, destroying productivity. Agile skillsets available in near-real-time? A boon for the enterprises that are feeling the ramifications of “The Big Quit.”
  • Driving true workforce scalability. “Scalability” took on new meaning during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. Some businesses faced a revenue shock that forced them to lay off chunks of staff, while others experienced a spike in demand for products and services. The extended workforce became the de-facto face of scalability, and one reason that direct sourcing and talent pools took on such a high profile was that enterprises had the ability to tap into an engaged community of workers that were ready for new opportunities. And, as the ebb-and-flow rollercoaster petered out for some organizations, the temporary staff they had leveraged were free to take on new projects with other businesses.
  • Contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I) initiatives. Let’s say it once more (with feeling!): a diverse talent community is the deepest talent community. A common refrain here at the Exchange, the realm of DE&I should never again be considered a “check-a-box” initiative but rather a way to showcase new voices and new talent that will contribute greatly to the greater organization. By attracting and engaging underrepresented voices, businesses effectively ensure that they tap into the innovation that these workers can bring to critical enterprise projects and objectives.
  • Fostering a level of engagement with talent that helps to develop a better overall candidate experience. The concept of the “candidate experience” didn’t begin during the era of COVID, but well before the crisis. However, the pandemic and its continued labor ramifications (yes, the Great Resignation) exacerbated the criticality of the overall talent experience; business leaders have been pumping more time, energy, and resources into building and curating deeper talent pools by leveraging the power of the employer brand and all that is associated with it (positive culture, spirit of charity, social responsibility, etc.). Too, an enhanced level of candidate engagement is often what is needed to sway passive candidates and convince them to join a talent community.
  • Improving the overall hiring manager experience. Often overlooked because of the bullet directly above, there should be tremendous focus on the overall hiring manager experience, given that these leaders are the ones that are at the forefront of talent engagement and talent acquisition activity. Hiring managers are facing somewhat of an existential crisis: they, too, are feeling the anxiety of staff shortages with added pressure from several stakeholders and functional units to find each department a top-tier level of talent in a short amount of time. Talent communities give hiring managers a built-in leg up on their engagement activity, enabling with them on-demand access to a network of pre-vetted, known, and highly-skilled candidates…making their overall experience that much more seamless (and positive).

We experienced first-hand what is was like to live in a business world perpetuated by uncertainty and consistent worry over the future. The necessary agility required by businesses to navigate the first year of the pandemic was driven by initiatives that began before the crisis took shape, such as utilization of direct sourcing strategies and digital staffing channels. We’ve been learning (actively, mind you) that thriving during the second full year of the pandemic occurred mainly in those organizations that realized the power of talent communities would provide longer-term and deeper workforce scalability whilst boosting initiatives around DE&I, emotional connections to candidates, and the development of networks that would amplify the workforce agility that is now a prerequisite to moving onto yet another year that will be challenging given the evolving nature of a public health crisis that seems to throw roadblocks even when things seem hopeful and optimistic.

The power of talent communities is driven by the innovative ways businesses are leveraging talent pools, talent networks, and talent clouds, converging with the nuances of the employer brand, social and emotional connections with both active and passive candidates, the the ultimate development of omnichannel, experience-driven candidate engagement.

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The Age of Extended Workforce Technology Innovation

General InsightsSolution ProvidersTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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FOWX Notes: November 5 Edition.

General Insights by Christopher J. Dwyer on

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

  • Yesterday morning, the Biden administration announced more details regarding sweeping vaccine mandates for businesses with over 100 employees. In short, employees that are not fully-vaccinated by January 4 will have to produce a verified negative test on a weekly basis and wear masks in the workplace beginning December 5. Positive cases must be removed from the workforce. Fines are hefty: approximately $13,653 for a single violation, and nearly ten-times that amount ($136,532) for businesses that “willfully violate standards.” There is no clarity on the burden of testing costs, however, it is noted that some unions may negotiate employer-paid testing.
  • Employers must provide paid time off for employees to receive vaccines and for any potential side effects. This is an encouraging rule, as there are many, many workers across the country that were vaccine-hesitant only because of the inability to take paid time off. This opens up, potentially, the opportunity for millions of people to comfortably schedule vaccine appointments and not be forced to worry about an unpaid day off.
  • Great quote on the future of hybrid work by Zoom CMO Janine Pelosi during an interview with Digiday: “That word is getting thrown around a lot, but it goes back to the consumer having choice in when or where they spend their time physically or virtually. It’s taking breaks. It’s understanding, at this point in the pandemic, what I do with my time. If I’m going to have a really early start and I know I’ve got some later things, you can bet I’m going to workout in the middle of the afternoon and I’m not going to have a stitch of guilt about it. It’s taking time to go for a walk, have meetings over Zoom phone. I don’t feel that everything always has to be on video. I prefer video, because you miss those connections and it definitely helps to bring those together. But it’s thinking about your day a little bit differently than what you would have if you had been in an office, physical environment.”
  • Congratulations are in order for Talmix, who recently celebrated their five-year anniversary. The solution provider, one the market’s leading digital staffing marketplaces, were recently featured here on the Future of Work Exchange. Check out some highlights from their five years in a blog post by Talmix CEO Sandeep Dhillon.
  • Many businesses often forget that independent contractors and freelance professionals are attempting to get their own businesses off the ground. HoneyBook’s $250 million in Series E funding will go a long way towards contributing to the platform’s main objectives, such as enabling these workers with automation for workflows, client list management, and, most critically, payment and cash flow management.
  • Fiverr continues its reach deeper into the B2B realm by acquiring Tel Aviv-based Stoke Talent, a Freelancer Management System (FMS) that specializes in providing users with both online and “offline” freelancer management benches. The $95M transaction will allow Stoke Talent to operate independently while subsequently supporting (and vice versa) Fiverr’s new products and services regarding agile talent.
  • I’ll be presenting (virtually) on Day Two of the Checkr Forward conference next week. “Are You Missing Half of the U.S. Workforce?” will feature commentary from both Scott Jennings (Checkr’s Director of Industry Strategy & Market Development) and me, as well as some new Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research on the evolution of the agile/extended workforce. Do check it out!
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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.

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The “Age of the Worker” Still Has Too Many Disparities

Business LeadershipDiversity and InclusionTalent by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Across the world of talent and work, there are many factors in play that reflect perhaps the most volatile job market we have experienced in business history. The Great Recession of 2008-2009 brought a swift tumble to the labor pool, however, the economic recovery began relatively quickly and “only” hit a peak of 10.6% unemployment (in January 2010). Comparatively, in April 2020, during the earliest and perhaps the most confounding times of the COVID-19 pandemic, the unemployment rate hovered around 14.7% (and considered higher in some circles given the panic and confusion around that period of time).

For all of the horror, unspeakable challenges, and both personal and professional disruptions that we all have faced over the past eighteen months, the labor market’s initial plunge was only the beginning of a series of major issues for the workforce that continue to this day.

In September, U.S. businesses only added 194,000 new jobs, a figure that shocked economists and labor market analysts alike. In addition, however, the true unemployment rate hit 4.8% in September; while this figure may seem like somewhat of a positive note amidst a weak rate of added positions, it’s really just hiding the many disparities that remain across today’s total workforce. And if we really want to dig deeper into how the lowest unemployment rate of the pandemic thus far just masks massive inequalities, there’s another stat that should shake business leaders to the core:

In September alone, 309,000 women (above the age of 20) dropped out of the workforce, according to the U.S. Labor Department. 309,000.

No, that is not a typo. 309,000 talented and hardworking women left the labor market within a 30-day span. That’s 309,000 women who are not part of a so-called “Age of the Worker.” These are women who are hitting pause on their careers due to factors way beyond their control.

Unemployment is low. The economy is thriving despite a Delta variant surge. One miraculous coronavirus vaccine has been approved and in use as a booster, with the two other major shots on their way. However, these same disparities in job growth are also occurring in other segments, such as in black men and both black and Hispanic women.

What is happening here?

The main problem is this: no matter how great the economy looks and no matter how low unemployment rates are, there is a foundational gap between 1) what we conceive the workforce to look like, and, 2) what that actual workforce looks like when broken out into gender, race, and cultural background, due to continued uncertainty in peripheral areas of the market that have a ripple effect on working mothers and people of color.

As we discussed previously here on the Future of Work Exchange, any level of uncertainty in the world of working parents is catastrophic. Any new COVID cluster in a school that eschews masks and precautions forces those parents to pause their professional lives and attend to remote learning. The continued shortage of staffing within daycare and pre-kindergarten facilities is astounding; too many working parents are having to make the difficult choice between their business personas and their roles as parents of young children.

Two years ago, if a third-grader woke up in the morning with a sore throat and runny nose, a parent could chalk it up to seasonal allergies or the common cold and send him/her off to class without a worry. Today, quarantining is disruptive and COVID testing can cause massive delays in a return to the live classroom. While some educational departments are leveraging “Test and Stay” models that enable quicker returns if children are asymptomatic, there are tens of thousands more that are not.

Those workers that are “between” pre-pandemic careers and a more settled return to the workforce are unsure of what is on the horizon. There’s no crystal ball that will tell them if the coming fall and winter seasons will spark yet another COVID surge. Millions of workers that were once toiling in more blue-collar-oriented positions are reevaluating their careers entirely, fighting as hard as they can for better pay, safer working conditions, and more flexibility in how they work before returning to work. Unfortunately, gender- and race-led disparities are caught in the middle of all of this and are suffering as a result.

So, what’s the answer here? It’s not so simple. The fact that organizations have implemented new diversity-led measures for gender diversity (82% of businesses are currently implementing these measures, according to FOWX research), cultural diversity (72%), and generational diversity (65%) speaks volumes about where businesses want to be, however, the hard truth is that they just aren’t there yet…and it’s going to take some time.

There are reasons to be both optimistic and pessimistic. COVID vaccines from Pfizer for 5-to-11-year-olds could be only weeks away, helping to curb some safety concerns regarding live and in-person learning. Not all of those 309,000 women that exited the workforce will remain out of the workforce permanently; between digital staffing outlets (such as The Mom Project) that promote on-demand and diverse talent, and the hiring managers that truly understand that a diverse and inclusive workplace culture is the best culture to build deeper talent pools, things can and certainly will change.

However, if there’s anything we’ve learned over the past eighteen months, it’s that planning for just a few months ahead causes nothing but disappointment in eventual retrospect. Businesses could stand pat in their months-long standoff with workers that are clamoring for enhanced pay, benefits, and working conditions. More COVID hotspots around the country could exacerbate the workforce inequalities that we’ve been facing since March 2020.

The question remains, though: will the “Age of the Worker” truly help those that aren’t just leaving the workforce because of culture or flexibility issues, but rather because they have no choice? The Biden Administration’s $650 billion initiative for childcare programs, universal pre-kindergarten, and the establishment of a robust paid family and medical leave program could be a boon here, although this is a measure that is months away from being approved and finalized. Many parents will choose to vaccinate their children as soon as they’re able to do so, and many will not.

Like everything else that’s occurred within the world of talent and work in this pandemic arena, there’s more ambiguity than anything else. Let’s hope it changes…soon.

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FOWX Notes: October 8 Edition

General Insights by Christopher J. Dwyer on

Some picked-up pieces from across the industry, which we call “FOWX Notes,” for the week ending October 8:

  • The Mom Project raised $80M in Series C funding, the provider announced this week. This is not only a huge win for the digital staffing industry (which is garnering the attention it deserves as an innovative series of platforms and marketplaces that can revolutionize how talent is engaged), but also for the millions of U.S. working mothers that had to leave the workforce in 2020. Look for extended coverage of this exciting news next week on FOWX.
  • HR has so much to manage these days, including many of the Future of Work attributes that are guiding workforce management today. I’m excited to join Utmost for an exclusive webcast on October 28, Five Things Every HR Executive Should Include in 2022 Planning, that will help HR and talent acquisition executives enhance their 2022 planning while keeping in mind the transformative shifts that the Future of Work is bringing to this evolving function.
  • Beeline’s partnership with iValua is a signal that spend management and procurement-led functionality is still critical within the world of contingent workforce management. Although “cost savings” as both a metric and a focus item aren’t as high on the priority list as they were years ago due to the talent-led shifts in CWM, they are still critically important via supplier optimization as it relates to non-employee workforce spend management. This integration will enable a single channel for automated data control, talent spend intelligence, invoicing, and payment.
  • “Trust” will become a key Future of Work element in 2022 from various workforce management angles. Trust was one of the early non-tech Future of Work attributes that came to attention when businesses were forced to enact on-the-fly remote work policies and business leaders were concerned about worker productivity. However, trust slices so much deeper than whether or not a manager trusts its staff to stay in-tune with its laptop screen for eight hours; trust is now a factor in how businesses view their candidate pipeline and talent pools. In the Future of Work Exchange’s upcoming Direct Sourcing 2.0 research study, we write that part of an advanced talent acquisition strategy, especially within the confines of a direct sourcing program, must include next-level skills validation, expertise assessments, and talent proctoring.
  • Interesting to see the unique partnership between TAPFIN and Qwil earlier this week, which represents a supply chain finance-like experience for suppliers within the TAPFIN MSP’s network to gain early access to funds. It’s always exciting when an innovative arena in another industry realm (such as “ePayables,” which Ardent Partners uses as a catch-all term to describe invoice and payment automation) converges with the world of workforce management technology and solutions. This partnership should be the first of several to follow, as more and more suppliers lean into various financing options to continue to grow and thrive their businesses.
  • Do falling U.S. COVID caseloads in conjunction with soon-to-be-vaccinated youngsters mean that return-to-office plans could shift closer? There’s been much discussion (and something covered frequently in The New York Times) regarding the “two-month cycle” of COVID surges; with the U.S. on the tail-end of the Delta variant’s mid-summer push (now that we are in autumn) could that translate into business leaders feeling safer to inch up return-to-office plans? With 5-to-11-year-olds in line to inoculated as early as the first week of November, will that also contribute to a change in thinking? If working parents that are currently battling with daycare and remote learning struggles in COVID hotspots have additional peace of mind if their children are vaccinated, it could mean a shift in how some professionals structure their short-term career paths now that more safety is baked into the world around them.
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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.”

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