5 Key Components to Build a Contingent Workforce

One of the major challenges that the rapidly evolving industries face at present is to build and maintain an ideal workforce. Considering the vulnerable conditions of the market all across the globe, employers face it challenging to hire and retain too many full-time, permanent employees which magnifies their operational costs. On the other hand, maintaining a small-scale workforce may be cost-efficient for employers but can obstruct production output if there are skill or knowledge gaps in the existing employees.

The wave of flexible staffing has opened a new door of opportunity for employers, enabling them to hire and engage temporary employees to meet project-specific goals, short-term business objectives, or increased product or service demands. With a contingent workforce, employers get easy access to specialized skills and competencies on short notice, scale their operations in accordance with internal or external business conditions, close skill gaps efficiently, and save a good amount of costs associated with full-time employment.

Also read: Utilizing the Benefits of Contingent Staffing to Maximize Business Potential

In this article, we will focus on the five key components that serve as the building blocks of a contingent workforce.

Five key components for constructing a contingent workforce

1. Recognize your market and business needs

Before opting for a contingent workforce, you need to possess an in-depth understanding of your market so that you can equip your contingent workers with the much-needed knowledge. This helps you in searching for top-grade contingent talents who can deliver the desired value for futureproofing your business. Without adequate knowledge about the ongoing market needs or developments, you may not be able to figure out the skillset or competencies that you require in your workforce. Besides that, when you have a clear insight into your business goals and market needs, it becomes easier for you to portray your expectations and set goals for the contingent workers. 

2. Develop a proficient on-site team

While a major number of companies today have shifted to remote or hybrid work models, the benefits of having a dedicated on-site team cannot be simply overlooked, especially if you are operating in the manufacturing, engineering, banking, or healthcare industry. By dedicating a group of contingent workers to fulfill essential on-site roles, you can equip them with hands-on experience that can further propel your business operations. 

For instance, if you are willing to build a contingent workforce for a temporary construction project, then you must aim at building a dedicated on-site team that includes a project manager, construction manager, engineers, and architects. This will help them in attaining a better understanding of the project goals and enable them to achieve better coordination and collaboration. Likewise, suppose you are hiring contingent workers to take care of your IT needs. In that case, you need to engage some of them in on-site roles to stimulate collaboration and communication and maintain information confidentiality. To support your on-site teams, you can always choose to hire remote contingent workers.

3. Engage your staffing partner to do the job

Your hiring process and practices should reflect on your goal of attaining and retaining top-quality contingent talents who can drive your business forward. While your in-house hiring teams can help you find the right talents for full-time or fixed roles, they often lack the strategy required to secure contingent talents. This is where experienced and professional staffing agencies can come to your rescue. From their broad bench of pre-screened job seekers and professionals, they can identify and shortlist the talents that perfectly synchronize with your business requirements.

There will be situations when you need to fill up positions with competent workers on an immediate basis. For instance, you need to boost your food and beverage production to meet the sudden increase in product demand and thus, you need expert workers who can meet this temporary business need efficiently.  Since your staffing partner already holds a vast pool of talents, they can bring you the right fit at high speed and low costs. 

4. Ensure a smooth blend of full-time teams with contingent workers

Now comes the most critical part! Most employers face complexities while merging their full-time teams with a contingent workforce. This is because of the conflicts arising from varied opinions, perspectives, and work styles between the two. To neutralize such situations, you need to strategize and plan your workforce, setting clear goals and expectations for your full-time and contingent workers. You also need to invest in virtual communication tools and technologies that can enable your remote contingent teams to stay in tandem with the full-time teams.

5. Deliver a positive employee experience

This is the core component of contingent workforce management for your business when it comes to employee motivation and retention. It is true that you intend to develop and engage a contingent workforce to meet short-term or temporary business needs. But that does not mean that you won’t need them in the future. By developing a positive employee experience, you can maintain strong relationships with your competent contingent workers and re-hire them again in the future. To do so, you must enhance the candidate experience with a streamlined onboarding process, skill-based training and development programs, periodic performance reviews, and improved collaboration and communication.

Conclusion

While there are several other factors that determine the efficiency of contingent workforce management, the five key components mentioned in this article are found to be the major building blocks of a contingent workforce. It is of utmost importance that you identify and assess your business and market needs before opting for a contingent workforce. It is equally necessary to develop a proficient on-site team with contingent workers so that they better understand your business requirements and achieve better collaboration and teamwork. Besides that, you need to ensure a smooth blend of your full-time workers with contingent teams and develop strategies to deliver a positive employee experience. In order to save time and costs while hiring top-grade contingent talents, you should consider engaging a reliable and reputable staffing agency.
It’s time to make the first move toward building your contingent workforce. Partner with Denken Solutions, and let us hunt the best contingent talents for your business!