In todays day and age, with the increasing dependence on virtual teams and higher than average contractor numbers, organisational staffing needs to take on a new, ‘flexible’ arrangement. The workforce is no longer a set of employees who attend the factory each morning, and go home each night.
The staff on demand idea affords companies the ability to grown and to more effectively expand their use of external talent in order to gain access to capabilities that may not be present within their organisation, especially adding to the incentives of lodging tenders for projects that may not have been within scope previously.
More and more of the workforce is composed of contingent employees working variable, primarily part-time schedules, operating remotely or virtually, or have been supplied by an external firm.
The industry change comes about through many factors, including multigenerational workforce structures, the desire to have greater flexibility in working conditions, as well as the changing demands of businesses.
Historically, the need for variable talent was considered to be a procurement problem, and was managed through vendor contracts and external staffing firms.
Companies are now beginning to realise that contract labor is often highly talented and should be managed strategically. New expert networks make it easier for organisations to outsource problems to networks of experts without having to hire full-time staff. Netflix, NASA, and GE are among the organisations that use such services to find innovators in the freelance economy. In doing so, they are essentially tapping into a workforce of independent workers, whether as firms or individuals.
The on-demand workforce brings many challenges to organisations as they look at ways to integrate each workforce segment, such as hourly, salary, contingent, contractor, and vendor staff, into a complex ecosystem. One area that has received a great deal of focused attention is the optimisation of the hourly workforce.
The on-demand and extended workforce—contingent, part-time, remote, and contract workers—is now a critical part of virtually every company’s talent pool. Managing this complex workforce effectively and with greater sophistication will require new, integrated relationships across HR and procurement as well as with business leaders.
Think broadly about the range of talent practices your organisation uses for full-time, on-roll employees, and consider how they may be applied to other categories of the on-demand workforce. Programs to consider extending could include those around workplace culture, engagement, analytics, productivity tools, performance management, collaboration, and retention. In short, it is time for HR to take ownership and share the management responsibilities for on-demand workers—and not to leave it to the procurement department alone.
Smarter organisations scale staffing to support transformations and key business improvement initiatives. This scalability, whether required for long or short predefined periods, cost effectively supports business demands. This is vital to augment BAU business functions.
As one of Australia’s leading provider of technology, digital and engineering talent solutions, Staff as a Service (STAAS) manages a large number independent contractor workforces in Australia and off-shore comprising of over 500 contractors.
Staff as a Service can help you recruit on demand, on-site and off-site, permanent, executive and exceptionally qualified contract professionals, both locally and internationally. Managing your needs, we work with you to find the right people for the right job at the right time.
StaaS can help you address staffing augmentation requirements through providing highly trained, quality people for a fraction of the cost. People and process seamlessly come together to connect quality job seekers with utility career opportunities.
www.staffasaservice.com.au – we offer on-site and off-site staffing to suit your needs on demand.
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