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Why the Evolving (and Growing) Extended Workforce Requires Deeper and More Agile Technology

Contingent Workforce Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on 07/01/2022

I had the pleasure of joining Beeline to discuss why the growing and evolving extended workforce requires deeper and more agile technology. Here’s a sneak peek of my feature:

“Given the state of the labor market and continued economic uncertainty, the next six months could (and probably will) bring an increased utilization of extended talent, mainly due to the influx of workers that have entered the contingent arena after months of a Great Resignation-fueled dissonance with existing workforce structures. If that 47% penetration rate soon becomes 50% (or higher), businesses won’t just desire advanced technology to manage the many intricacies of the extended workforce, they’ll require it in the face of increasing complexities around the engagement, facilitation, management, and integration of this evolving workforce.”

Visit Beeline to check out the full article (or click on the image below).

A Conversation with Colleen Tiner, SVP of Product Strategy at Beeline

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on 04/13/2022

Beeline has long been a pioneer in the world of workforce management technology. The solution and its offerings have evolved to fit the dynamic needs of the global workforce and the enterprises that leverage the platform to find, engage, source, and manage the growing extended workforce. I had the opportunity to chat with Beeline’s Colleen Tiner, a visionary executive specializing in human capital management technology. She leads Beeline’s business, product, and partnership strategy functions to identify, assess, and drive collaborative development of new solutions that create value for every Beeline customer.

Christopher J. Dwyer: You’ve experienced first-hand how the past two years have played out for businesses regarding their workforce, talent, operations, etc. What has surprised you the most as you look back?

Colleen Tiner: The speed at which companies adapted to change successfully has been remarkable. Some companies, like those in logistics and technology, were faced with unprecedented demands for talent at unprecedented speed. We saw great resilience within our clients because they maximized technology, leveraged their mature supply channels, and implemented new innovative strategies like direct sourcing. The past two years, while a difficult time for many, has also been a catalyst for innovation and business transformation.

The imbalance of demand and supply for skills combined with wage inflation has also been a catalyst for significant bill rate increases. In IT, throughout 2021 we saw supplier bill rates increasing steadily about 2.5% to 3% over the prior year. In light industrial, we saw rates increase by double digits between 11% and 13% over the prior year. This really shines a light on how the processes of building rate card models is outdated. Many clients are examining how to shift to dynamic rate negotiations based on market trends, which makes real-time market rate analytics for bill and pay rates more important than ever.

CJD: We’ve seen so many accelerants over the past two years, from remote and hybrid work to the focus on talent quality. What does this say about the current “state of work”?

CT: Talent acquisition teams, procurement, and their business stakeholders are looking to technology to enable them to “do more with less.” We have not seen this let up. In this new state of work, finding quality talent, bringing them into the organization, and getting them engaged and productive as quickly as possible is the top priority. If you can’t support your business strategy with the talent you need, cost savings is moot. This is giving way to creativity in upskilling and cross-skilling, and to relaxing previously exclusionary requirements like specific degrees and certifications. I see a real “talent-first” approach to contingent workforce programs – of course compliance and cost control are still relevant, but they aren’t the only purpose. HR and procurement leaders have become strategic business partners to their stakeholders.

CJD: A year ago, Beeline introduced its Extended Workforce Management platform; how does it differ from the VMS functionality that the solution is known for?

CT: A typical VMS centers on the requisition, automating workflow and enforcing policy rather than fulfilling the skill needs of the business. Conversely, the extended workforce platform centers on talent and on enabling suppliers, clients, and MSPs to facilitate fulfilling talent needs through a myriad of processes, types of engagements and worker classifications given the skills needs of the business. So, while it does address all the necessary workflows and policy needs, the emphasis is on optimizing the contingent workforce as a strategic asset to the business. That includes providing access to more talent, redeploying proven talent, recommending where to find talent, engaging that talent, and measuring the impact of that talent, including on your DE&I strategies.

We’ve all seen this shift from process automation to talent-centered strategies coming for some time – and we had been evolving to be ready for that shift since 2018. I believe the acceleration of talent scarcity and workforce flexibility needs as an outcome of the pandemic, as well as greater focus on extended workforce diversity, made talent-centered strategies for extended workforce management a reality much sooner than anyone anticipated. The future of work is now.

Beeline’s Extended Workforce Platform solves the complexities of managing the entire extended workforce today, including both assignment-based and shift-based labor, and contemplates the needs of the future by incorporating latest innovation and premier partner products.

From a technology perspective, the platform drives greater ROI through exceptional end user experiences that decrease training time by up to 50% and by enabling efficiency so customers and providers can rapidly scale to contingent workforce demand. For example, one of the platform’s AI-powered features includes the CV/Resume Visualizer, which can make resume screening ten times faster and more accurate by analyzing, comprehending, and highlighting key decision criteria instantly.

CJD: I remember you and I having some wonderful discussions at Beeline’s user conferences over the years. One thing that has always been abundantly clear to me is your passion for the technology side of the industry.

CT: I love the technology side of the industry because technology is the great enabler. When we can use technology to better connect our clients, supplier and MSP partners to talent, everyone wins. You will hear us talk about our vision and mission: every person, given the right opportunity, is capable of greatness. Every business, given the right talent, is capable of superior outcomes. Our trusted platform connects businesses to the remarkable talent within the global extended workforce. Beeline lives this vision and mission. And this is why I’ve been in this industry and with Beeline for more than 17 years.

CJD: Direct sourcing has become one of the hottest topics in our industry. Where do you see this program, and, by extension, the technology, going in the months ahead?

CT: Direct sourcing is in an exciting growth stage fueled by the demand for skills and the technology that enables directly engaging extended workers. Direct sourcing enables you to supplement your trusted supplier lists with a direct channel to talent attracted to your brand. We’ve seen clients in pharma, banking, and high-tech realize tremendous success using a technology-enabled direct sourcing strategy. Probably the most notable benefit has been significant time savings, reducing time to fill by about 7 days.

What I see next is an opportunity to enable clients’ trusted suppliers with the technology and advantages that have enabled direct sourcing success. This gives them an easier way to interact with their worker populations, ultimately allowing them to bring in more of the right talent quickly. We can help them cut time and cost out of the process and everyone wins.

CJD: If there’s one big thing we’re not thinking of right now regarding the Future of Work, what is it?

CT: We need to dig deeper on the talent scarcity assertion. Is it really that talent and skills are scarce – or are the skills and talent there and we are just not opening our minds and processes to meet them where they are? Are the strategies being used to find, attract, and evaluate talent outdated? Do you treat your connections and channels to talent as “lead sources” or do you treat them as one-and-done processes? When you have 50 candidates for any position, do you choose one and let the others fall back to the competition or do you explore connections to other needs? Are the processes we use for communicating opportunities, interviewing, and engaging talent making companies clients of choice? Are your requirements for skills speaking the same language as the talent you are seeking or are you alienating great talent by having outdated requirements?

Connect with Colleen on LinkedIn and visit www.beeline.com for more information on Beeline’s solutions.

Prosperity and Disruption: Prosperix’s VMS Network is a Future of Work Innovation

Solution Providers Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on 04/04/2022

Vendor Management System (VMS) technology, along with Managed Service Providers (MSP), are typically considered the two most traditional and widely-used solutions in the greater workforce management technology market. Rightfully so: each of these on their own drive services-based (MSP) and end-to-end automation (VMS) for their clients in such a way that there may never be a time when Best-in-Class organizations aren’t utilizing one of the two (or, in many cases, both) to gain visibility and control, and, of course, optimize, the way extended talent is brought into the organization and ultimately managed.

Today, the landscape looks much different than it did even a couple of years ago. The pandemic brought about revolutionary change in how executive leaders perceive their operating structures, finances, technology utilization, and, critically, their workforce. The talent acquisition arena has been permanently altered, with enterprises finding that there is so much more to engaging top-tier talent than simply filling out a job requisition and expecting candidates to flock to open roles.

“To remain competitive, businesses must brace for more dramatic changes than ever before,” said Sunil Bagai, CEO of Prosperix. “The rapidly-evolving landscape requires new solutions and ways of thinking that allow businesses to become more agile, resilient, and more capable of meeting the seemingly endless demands today’s business landscape presents.”

When we examine the talent technology market today, there are many variables that have accelerated just as quickly as those Future of Work attributes (such as remote work, hybrid workplaces, etc.) that were quickened due to the pandemic’s far-reaching grasp. Talent marketplaces and digital staffing platforms enable users with on-demand and real-time access to pre-vetted, top-tier talent that align with dozens of project- and role-based perquisites.

Direct sourcing solutions actively assist enterprises with the ability to curate known and new talent into talent communities, nurture those communities with relevant and engaging content, and ensure that all recruitment streams leverage these talent pools. “Direct Sourcing 2.0,” a concept heralded by the Future of Work Exchange as the next iteration of direct sourcing, involves the application of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other innovative functionality to drive repeatability and scalability of core direct sourcing mechanisms.

Within 2022’s evolving world of work and talent, San Jose-based Prosperix is taking all of the above into consideration as it launches its new “VMS Network” offering. Prosperix’s core VMS solution is not just a standalone VMS platform, but rather an extended workforce management tool that enables a dynamic connection between enterprises and talent via a robust, on-demand network of suppliers, candidates, and businesses.

“When we built our VMS Network solution, we understood that providing exponentially greater access to talent would be a game changer. And that’s proving to be the case,” Sunil said. “Clients become a node in an open, connected network where their jobs are matched to a network of suppliers and talent pools. This network effect enables jobs to be filled in record time, with amazing quality, and at lower costs. Additionally, the interconnectedness of the network allows us to leverage data and algorithms in ways that were not possible with siloed VMS systems. This is revolutionary for the industry, and we are excited to be the first to bring this compelling new technology to market.”

The Prosperix VMS Network is unique in the sense that it effectively blends a fully-digital talent network (akin to what most talent marketplaces offer) with a powerful, end-to-end series of functionality that leverages modernized reporting, analytics, and intelligence that drive better business outcomes and better matches between candidates and open positions/projects.

And, on top of those features, Prosperix leverages a candidate-centric approach that provides, among other things, candidates with their own career dashboard where they can apply to matched jobs across an ecosystem of clients and stay up-up-to-date on their job applications. This is aligned with the company’s overall purpose as a technology platform: to fuel human, workforce, and business prosperity.

As we wrote about the solution in 2021 upon its rebranding: “Prosperix’s messaging is incredibly unique in today’s workforce solutions market, leading with an edge that differentiates the company from others in the space. Understanding that it is the convergence between the “human” and “technology” elements of workforce management that will help both candidates and businesses prosper in the face of continued evolution across the greater world of talent and work.”

“I don’t think any business is standing still today. Most are adapting just to survive, and those that embrace change as the norm have the potential to thrive. Our VMS Network makes it possible for businesses to achieve greater scalability, agility and resilience, so they can more easily manage the expected while being better-prepared for the unexpected. And they can do all of this while attaining extraordinary hiring outcomes,” Sunil said.

Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange believe that there is still much, much more change ahead for the world of talent and work. As “The Great Resignation” continues its rampage and the “Talent Revolution” becomes a foundational element of the Future of Work movement, solutions like Prosperix will be a guiding light for enterprises that not only want to tap into the power of the extended workforce, but also leverage next-generation technology to drive workforce prosperity.

How Hidden Biases Can Affect Hiring And Diversity Initiatives

Diversity and Inclusion by Featured Contributor on 02/14/2022

[Today’s guest contribution was written by the team at Prosperix.]

Businesses often pride themselves on their diversity initiatives in the workplace, but the hidden danger of recruiting bias means limiting your candidate options during the hiring process. Maybe you don’t even know you’re doing it, but everyone has internal biases, whether consciously or unconsciously. Besides the most common bias that is already being tackled, like gender bias in hiring, the workplace is rife with unconscious bias, and since you aren’t aware of it, it’s hard to stamp out. It’s detrimental to both current and prospective employees, recruiters, and the companies themselves. Unconscious bias can inhibit diversity, recruitment efforts, promotions, and the retention rate in companies. For being an unknown factor, bias has a lot of harmful side effects.

Are You Guilty of These Common Biases?

The good news is that once you know about your own hidden biases, you can take steps to correct them with knowledge and training. This means that you won’t always be affected by them, or, if you are, at least to a lesser extent. What exactly are these biases that might be affecting your hiring decisions? Listed below are some of the more prevalent ones:

Confirmation bias: Confirmation bias means you only take in information that confirms your beliefs and ignore everything else. It also means you don’t look for details or under the surface since you believe your first impression. If you see a well-dressed candidate or resume or both, and you think that means they are a good candidate, then you will ignore anything negative about them after that. This generally means that you form your opinion, positive or negative, based on one detail (like from a resume) and simply see everything as confirming that opinion or as unimportant if contrary.
Affinity bias: This is where you identify with a candidate based on a similar or likable trait, so you act warmer towards them during the interview and speak better of them afterward. There was no fundamental basis for this warmth, just a feeling, which is subjective and can hurt other candidates.
Similarity bias (Ingroup bias): Similarity bias means you want to hire those most like you (same group interests or hobbies, etc.). While this is a great way to make friends, it’s not a successful tactic for hiring the best, unless they are applying for your job. You need to remember that most jobs have different competencies and, on top of that, you want diversity in the workplace.
Projection bias: You believe that others share your own goals, beliefs, etc., and so you think they’d be suitable for the company you are hiring for. But people have their own priorities and goals that have nothing to do with you and yours, so assuming this just leads to confusion and disappointment.
Halo effect: The halo effect is where you think that since the person is good at A, they will also be good at B, C, and D. But you need to see if they have the requisite skills and not judge the candidate based on one trait.
Pitchfork effect: This is the opposite of the halo effect where you see or hear something negative and then assume all of the candidate’s other traits are negative too. For example, during an interview, if the candidate answers the first couple of questions badly, you think they’ll answer everything that way and assume they’re not qualified for the job.
Status quo bias: The status quo bias is where you like everything the way it is and want it to stay that way. There are two sides to this coin: a) You are only looking for past experience to find a good candidate, which means you miss out on someone just entering the field, but who could be perfect. This means you keep focusing on those already in the field while ignoring fresh talent. Alternatively, if you are filling a previously held position by someone you liked, you’ll try to get a carbon copy of them in the next hire, which adds internal blinders to your search for the best candidate.
Nonverbal bias/Effective Heuristic: This is where you judge a candidate’s ability to do the job based on a superficial trait like tattoos or body weight. However, a one-dimensional characteristic doesn’t mean you can perform a full analysis to see if they are qualified. (It’s also dangerous on legal grounds, beware.) For example, if you think CEOs should be tall, then you will discount anyone shorter than your assumed cut-off height.
Expectation Anchor: If you are convinced that an earlier candidate was the best for the job, you don’t consider any of the later candidates even while still conducting interviews.
Contrast effect: The contrast effect happens when you see a ton of resumes or interviews in a row, and so you start to compare how they are to the previous candidates, even though you should be comparing individual skills and experiences to the job posting only.
Conformity bias: This bias is where, if you form a different opinion than the rest of a group, you’re more likely to change your mind to agree with them. This can be seen as the “Majority rules” idea or the “Mob mentality” that happens when a group of people form and one idea takes hold even when not everyone agrees with it.

There are quite a few biases you need to be aware of which makes hiring an even more difficult process. As, you don’t even realize that you might be missing out on the best candidates when you believe your first impressions and take things at face value.

Tips to Overcome Unconscious Hiring Bias

Refine Job Descriptions

Different words attract different candidates. Hence, it is essential to choose the right words while writing job descriptions. Job descriptions act as a primary filter and can in fact influence both the hiring process and the candidate’s opinion of the business brand, even before they get into the interview. While writing your job descriptions pay attention to making them standardized, job role-specific, and inclusive of supporting all forms of diversity.

Use a Hiring Marketplace

Hiring Marketplaces offer businesses a wide variety of candidates to choose from, with varying sets of skills and diversities. An open marketplace encourages anyone to apply and helps remove intrinsic bias. Rather than scrutinizing a worker’s background, this model gets to the heart of what matters most: finding talent that performs and produces results at the highest level. Moreover, modern-day Hiring Marketplaces built using the latest technology help in bias-free candidate matching by using smart algorithms and assessments to objectively match the best candidates with the right skills and motivations to the relevant jobs.

Improve Interview Processes

While conducting an interview, it is important to stick to a structured process so that everyone answers the same standardized questions. This makes it easier to compare candidate abilities without being influenced by superficial traits. It is also helpful to ask behavioral questions to see how candidates have reacted in the past to assess possible future situations.

Additionally, try to have many pairs of eyes on the interview, either with a transcript or with a panel interview. You could even try to have live or recorded phone or video interviews so that more people can hear the candidate and weigh in on the matter.After conducting the interview, take a minute to see if you are dismissing or pushing forward a specific candidate. Is this action based on actual concrete data from their resume, skills test, or interview, or is it based on something else like a gut feeling or a physical characteristic? If it’s the latter, then you are being biased. Once you recognize a bias, you need to get back on track for an objective analysis. You need to train yourself out of making decisions based on superficial traits (appearance, culture, comfort level during the interview, etc.) and look deeper. If you still have issues, you need to ask better questions during the interview or look into interview training. You need to avoid making snap decisions since they are not the best way to hire someone. Don’t forget to test your conclusions. This is where reference checks come in. Always verify that the candidate is who and what they say they are.

Explore Digital Solutions to Curb Hiring Bias

Just as we can’t remove emotions from people, we can’t suppress their biases. However, by deploying the right digital workforce solutions, businesses can eliminate hiring biases to a great extent. Prosperix aims to help businesses identify and conquer all forms of hiring biases to onboard exceptional professionals — regardless of who they are or where they came from. Our solution is a combination of the latest technology catalyzed with our white glove MSP/VMS services that guarantee organizations the best hiring outcomes. We reinforce technology with active human curation to handpick and thoroughly vet candidates before presenting them to businesses. Since we are a certified tier 1 diverse supplier, all hires made through Prosperix’s VMS count towards tier 1 diversity spend, and our built-in AI makes hiring outstanding candidates easy, matching you to the most capable suppliers and candidates in real-time.

The Industry Is At A Crossroads

Technology and Innovation by Featured Contributor on 02/08/2022

[Editor’s Note: Today’s article is a guest contribution from Neha Goel, Vice President of Marketing at Utmost.]

We are interconnected in all aspects of our lives, and work is no exception. We have become global citizens, and organizations are utilizing talent outside traditional full-time employees in record numbers. In fact, a company’s workforce is becoming inherently external, made up of episodic, variable, and dynamic engagements.

People are choosing careers that are no longer hierarchical or linear, and demanding flexibility in how and where they work. Similarly, companies want to capitalize on collaborating with a talent ecosystem that can deliver speed and value with highly-skilled, hyper-specialized workers.

Today, this looks like a large and complex network of extended global workers, spanning staff augmentation contractors, Statement of Work (SOW) project-based workers, independent consultants, freelancers, gig workers, and consultants. Now, it’s up to the enterprise to determine how best to capitalize on this new world of work.

Many companies are doing just that. New data from LinkedIn (via Forbes) finds there has been a 60% increase in “future of work” job titles and a 304% increase in titles where “hybrid work” has been included in the past two years. The job title Head of Future of Work was listed as one of the most in-demand job titles available today.

Once you have the people in place, leadership also must get on board with how all talent wants to be engaged. Today’s market “requires leaders to develop a much deeper empathy for what employees are going through and to pair that empathy with the compassion—and determination—to act and change,” said a recent McKinsey article on the role leaders play in understanding attrition. “Only then can employers properly reexamine the wants and needs of their employees—together with those employees—and begin to provide the flexibility, connectivity, and sense of unity and purpose that people crave.” Our findings support this to be true.

Finally, the next challenge becomes finding a technology that can support the risk, size, and complexity of today’s workforce. This must be done in a way that makes it easier to find, engage, and attract top talent while meeting them how and where they want to work.

As I’ve said before, 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 gets done.

Whether you believe in acquisition and consolidation of the VMS/EWS market to expand functionality or are skeptical of the “FrankenSuite” approach and believe a purpose-built system is favorable, many organizations find themselves at a crossroads now that almost half their workforce is made up of non-employee labor with no seamless, scalable way of managing it.

As companies compete for greater access to on-demand, agile, highly specialized talent at better rates, faster access to information and analytics, and the ability to meet today’s workers where and how they want to work is imperative.

Whatever companies decide, it’s clear workers need to be redeployed faster, have agency over their information (with PII and diversity top of mind for all parties), and have a positive user experience that makes it easy to come in and out of companies and projects with ease. This is the new world of work, and if companies don’t embrace the changes quickly, they may be left behind when it comes to finding talent that ensures their success in the market.

How Should Enterprises Invest in Technology in 2022?

Technology and Innovation by Christopher J. Dwyer on 12/22/2021

We’ve talked workforce management in 2022 and we’ve discussed how business leadership needs to evolve in the new year. What major piece of the Future of Work movement is left? That’s right: technology and innovation.

2021 wasn’t just an interesting year for workforce management technology, but rather an extraordinary 12 months that saw some major acquisitions and major shifts in how extended workforce automation was positioned, offered, and enhanced. Here’s how enterprises should invest in Future of Work technology in the year ahead:

Leverage technology that can not only better fill the candidate pipeline, but truly enhance the quality of candidates and the overall candidate experience. It’s not enough anymore to merely pump candidates into the enterprise recruitment stream; Best-in-Class businesses actively leverage solutions that can not only build and develop deep talent communities, but also ensure that these candidates have been vetted, qualified, and nurtured via AI-led platforms that validate skillsets, ensure alignment, and position workers to ultimately succeed.
Point direct sourcing solutions will be gamechangers in 2022. Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 32% of businesses today are leveraging some form of direct sourcing or talent pool automation, which includes both specific, point solutions as well as automation enabled by larger suites of technology (such as VMS or extended workforce platforms). As I wrote recently, direct sourcing needs to be the top workforce management priority in 2022, buoyed by the impact that this programmatic series of strategies, processes, and capabilities can bring to the average organization. “The increasing need for talent and the ongoing challenges competing for it mean that enterprises must continue to challenge the status quo and operate on the bleeding edge in order to stay on top. By blending traditional direct sourcing approaches (curation, segmentation, etc.) with “2.0” attributes (digital recruitment marketing, AI-led assessments, more focus on the candidate experience, etc.), businesses will ensure that, in yet another year of uncertainty, they will be positioned to optimize how work is done.”
Platforms that have integrated offerings will revolutionize the way businesses manage the lifecycle of talent and the progression of work in the new year. Today’s “lifecycle” of talent engagement-meets-work optimization is nuanced in such a way that enterprises must place more rigor around various process-led attributes, including managed services, SOW management/services procurement, direct sourcing, DE&I, candidate assessment/skills validation, candidate experience, project management, shift and assignment management, analytics, etc. Solutions that offer interconnected processes to help these organizations facilitate frictionless, seamless workflows around all things related to “talent” and “work” will transform the Future of Work in 2022 (and beyond).
Workforce management technology must focus on the variation inherent within the extended workforce. Today’s many channels of talent have coalesced into sustainable communities of candidates that all have crucial impact on the greater organization. 2022 is the year that the extended workforce officially becomes “half” of the total workforce, and with that, a much more laser-like focus on how automation can scale the agile workforce, extract its natural flexibility, and drive true talent sustainability to “future-proof” roles and positions across the entire enterprise.
Unified communications and collaborative tools, as well as the true “digital enterprise,” are required to usher in the next great era of remote and hybrid work. Future of Work Exchange research discovered that over 42% of all workers would be working in a remote or hybrid setting by the end of the year, with that number growing to 55% (or more) by mid-2022. Businesses cannot rely on simple VPN connections, outdated communications-led tools, and leaky remote infrastructures to optimize how remote work is done. Enterprises require advanced levels of collaborative technology that can facilitate true workforce digitization in such a way that it transforms the very way work is done beyond the old-school parameters of the 40-hour, five-day workweek. When work can happen anytime and anywhere, we get that much closer to the real emergence of the digital enterprise.
Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and similar technology must coalesce with human-led process management. Talk to any AI expert and he or she will state that ubiquitous, self-sustaining and reactive intelligence is still years (or decades) away. In the interim, businesses must future-proof the way they develop products, offer services, and conduct overall work; with no way to predict the need for future skillsets or expertise for jobs and roles that cannot be dreamt of today, integrating today’s AI and machine learning into human-led process management and operations is a fantastic way to drive work optimization and begin to prepare for the future state of the enterprise.

“Talent Sustainability” Is the Next Great Workforce Strategy

Business Leadership Direct Sourcing HR Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 12/02/2021

It’s not easy out there for hiring managers, HR executives, and talent acquisition leaders. Besides both the personal and professional panic over the Omicron variant (even though we’re still in the throes of Delta’s continued rampage), these roles must consistently battle the ramifications of the so-called “Big Quit,” aka “The Great Resignation,” and otherwise known as “The Great Reassessment,” etc. Around these parts, we understand it’s instead a “talent revolution.”

There have been many theories, approaches, and strategies proposed that could curb some of the effects of The Great Resignation, but even now, there is no cure-all series of processes that can outright solve all of the current talent issues that are plaguing organizations across the world. And, to be honest, having more and more attributes of the traditional employer-employee relationship shifting towards the worker in regards to “power” is something that has been a long time coming. Aspects such as flexibility, empathy, better working conditions, and more inclusive workplace environments are all now table stakes for the modern-day workforce.

One of the key facets of the Future of Work movement in 2021 (and even more so in 2022) is the enterprise’s renewed focus on its human capital and overall depth of skillsets across the greater organization (as 62% of organizations are prioritizing right now, according to Future of Work Exchange research). So many major workforce shifts over the past two years, including the overall desire for real business and workforce agility, mean that enterprises must reimagine how roles, jobs, and projects are executed over the short- and long-term, given the natural progression of market, economic, and corporate factors (not to mention the ongoing uncertainty regarding a true end of the pandemic in the United States and across the world).

In 2022, enterprises must build towards “talent sustainability.” The concept of talent sustainability revolves around the idea that businesses can, through their workforce solutions (such as extended workforce technology, VMS, etc.), direct sourcing channels, and both private and public talent communities, build self-sustaining outlets of talent that 1) map to evolving skills requirements across the enterprise given product development and the progression of the greater organization, 2) reflect existing expertise and skillsets across the enterprise that can be leveraged for real-time utilization, and, 3) allow hiring managers and other talent-led executives to leverage nurture and candidate experience strategies to ensure that all networked workers are amiable and open to reengagement for new and/or continued projects and initiatives.

There are, of course, several caveats to a true talent sustainability strategy that represent several key innovations and forward-thinking ideas. These items, listed below, all meaningfully contribute to this progressive approach:

A workforce management “system of record” (i.e., VMS, extended workforce platform, etc.) that can blend both non-employee and FTE data to generate true “total talent intelligence.”
Access to on-demand talent communities and talent pools via both direct sourcing platforms and talent marketplace solutions.
An artificial intelligence-led architecture that augments and transfers the mobility of talent to where it is needed most.
Machine learning- and AI-led candidate assessment, skills validation, and talent fraud prevention.
A robust DE&I initiative that prioritizes both diverse hiring and inclusive workplace culture.
A major emphasis on the depth of skillsets, expertise, and human capital available across the greater organization.
Creating a “culture of learning and development” (via upskilling and reskilling opportunities) help the organization hedge against future skill gaps.
Joint collaboration between HR and procurement to facilitate total talent management-like capabilities, and;
Deeper automation of recruitment marketing, referral management, and other facets of direct sourcing to expand talent pools.

Businesses do not want to be caught off-guard when they have a critical need for specific skills, especially in an era when the vaunted “war for talent” rages on at a level never seen before in workforce management history. The Future of Work is many things, and, talent sustainability is becoming one of its most crucial elements.

The Age of Extended Workforce Technology Innovation

General Insights Solution Providers Talent by Christopher J. Dwyer on 11/22/2021

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.

Key Providers for 2021: Prosperix

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on 10/26/2021

The Background:

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

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

Enter Prosperix.

Why They Were Selected:

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

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

In Their Own Words:

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

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

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

The Outlook:

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

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

Key Providers for 2021: Beeline

Solution Providers by Christopher J. Dwyer on 10/07/2021

The Background:

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

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

Enter Beeline.

Why They Were Selected:

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

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

In Their Own Words:

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

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

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

The Outlook:

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

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