Things to Remember While Building a Contingent Workforce Strategy

It cannot be denied that the global economy has been hit hard by vulnerabilities and fluctuations over the past few years. While a number of factors are responsible for these, the most common among them include the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical unrest in some countries, inflation, and changes in consumer behavior patterns. Even though economic fluctuations cause employers to set budget limitations and cut down costs wherever possible, the demand for skilled labor hardly fluctuates. The primary reason behind this is the continuous evolution of tools and technologies, bringing a rising demand for specialized skills and expertise.

To suit the increasing need for talented employees and, at the same time, attain flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency in business operations, employers today have shifted their focus to creating a contingent workforce strategy. Across all industries, hiring contingent workers has become the new norm, especially for meeting project-specific demands, short-term business needs, or seasonal workloads. However, the success of building a contingent workforce strategy depends upon the practices and approaches utilized by business leaders or employees for attaining and retaining contingent talents. 

This article is focused on the key things that every business leader or employer needs to prioritize while creating their contingent workforce strategy.

How to bring your contingent workforce strategy on the right track

1. Rethink your talent acquisition process and come out from the traditional hiring notions

Considering the complicated employment landscape at present, you need to think about the hiring notions not only from the employer’s perspective but also from the employee’s perspective. In order to attract and retain top talent, you need to consider utilizing the best possible digital tools and technologies that can help streamline the overall hiring process. For instance, you can utilize AI-powered software or systems to screen, shortlist, interview, and onboard candidates. This will minimize your efforts while connecting you with top-grade talents in no time and at low costs.

Besides that, you need to reformulate the traditional notions of hiring, thereby prioritizing the skills and competencies of candidates over work experience and educational background. Temporary employees often come with skills that organizations require to achieve specific goals. By designing flexible workforce planning with contingent workers, you can easily cope with workforce-related challenges that occur due to sudden rises in product or service demands, seasonal highs, technological innovations or changes, etc. However, before switching to the contingent workforce strategy, you must consider the vacant position and assess whether temporary staffing can suit the job roles and requirements. 

2. Design a robust performance management strategy

Just like you monitor and track the performance of full-time hires, you need to follow a well-structured performance management process for your contingent workforce. By judging the efficiency of contingent workers, you can analyze the value they deliver to your business. This will further help you modify and make changes in your contingent workforce strategy, giving you a better insight into their efficiency in meeting quality expectations. 

A strong performance management and regular feedback mechanism also enable your contingent workers to identify their strengths and weaknesses, helping them to stay motivated and engaged. In addition to enhancing the engagement of your contingent workers, a detailed performance management strategy enables employers to get a better understanding of the workers’ efficiency, further helping them from avoiding overpay for poor performance.

3. Bestow your contingent workforce with adequate learning and development opportunities

Temporary employees are usually hired for specific projects or business requirements for a certain timeframe, and as such, they intend to gain some additional skills and knowledge for an elevated experience. Hence, just like you consider providing access to mentorship programs, training and development sessions, or upskilling opportunities to your fixed and full-time employees, you need to do so for the contingent workers. Such opportunities for professional growth not only result in increased job satisfaction and loyalty for the contingent workforce but also enable employers to strengthen their brand image to attract and retain top talents. Your contingent workers will always find ways to work on your projects whenever the situation calls for it.

Also read: Importance of Cultural Fit in Contingent Staffing

4. Implement strong communication channels and inclusive meeting practices

To create a diverse contingent workforce, you need to attract and engage professionals from all across the globe. As such, flexibility along with remote or hybrid work norms, should remain the central components of your contingent workforce strategy. Successful collaboration and coordination between your full-time, on-site teams and remote or partially remote contingent workers depends upon the communication approaches and channels you implement. 

To keep all your team members updated and informed about each others’ allotted tasks, ongoing project developments, priority responsibilities, etc., you must utilize advanced virtual tools for communication and collaboration, such as Google Meet and Microsoft Teams. Regular meetings will enable all your employees to stay on the same page, thereby eliminating misunderstandings and conflicts within the team. It is equally important that you follow inclusive communication practices, providing information accessibility to both full-time and contingent workers. With inclusive meetings, you can promote a work environment where varied perceptions and ideas are valued and encouraged.

5. Let your staffing partner lead the hiring process

One of the most understated ways of creating a successful contingent workforce strategy is to partner with a forward-thinking and professional staffing agency. With a large-scale pool of pre-screened candidates, a staffing agency is expected to connect your business with talents better. Besides that, they follow a well-structured hiring process using advanced HR tools and technologies that cut off time, costs, and efforts. 

Instead of just engaging them in the hiring process, bring your staffing partner close to your business operations, letting them know your business goals and needs better. An experienced staffing agency will always possess an in-depth understanding of the employment landscape, including compliance obligations. Hence, by knowing your business better, they can help you design the ideal workforce strategy that closely aligns with your business goals or project needs.

Conclusion

By implementing the best practices outlined in this article, business leaders or employers can undertake flexible workforce planning. Before creating a contingent workforce strategy, it is of utmost importance that you redefine your talent acquisition process and come out of the traditional hiring norms. You also need to design and follow a robust performance management strategy and feedback mechanism for contingent workers. Adequate learning and development opportunities enhance the engagement of contingent workers, keeping them motivated while inclusive meetings and strong communication channels enable them to collaborate and coordinate with full-time teams better. 
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