Most big companies use a large number of contractors and temporary staff. For example, at any point in time, a typical FTSE 100 or S&P 500 company can easily be using a 1,000 plus contractors. These contractors are usually spread out across a variety of business units, performing a wide range of roles and often located in different countries.

The spread and variety of companies’ contractor and temporary staff usage means that often companies will not have accurate information on their temporary workforce. The causes of this lack of information are varied and can include departments using different IT systems, non-aligned contracting processes or differing recruitment strategies. The end result is that companies often don’t have basic information about their business, such as how many contractors or temps are working for them. In general, a lack of contractor related information leads to three different types of business problem.

• Lack of workforce planning information: Not having baseline data on your company’s contractor and temp population results in management lacking the information necessary to plan for the future (How can you plan your journey when you don’t know where you’re starting from?). This means that any workforce changes which the company attempts are less likely to succeed.
• Not obtaining best value: Not having a central store of information on contract and temporary assignments usually results in the business not getting value for money from its workforce expenditure. Recruitment agencies may be charging differing rates for the same type of contract resource and the business won’t be benefiting from the economics of scale available from sharing knowledge and workload.
• No contractor quality controls: If an organisation does not have a central database recording how contractors perform during assignments, then there is nothing to stop contractors, performing poorly while working for one department, being “let go”, and then being rehired by a different department within the same company. Similarly, without a central performance database, companies can’t benefit from systemically reusing contractors who perform well.

In relation to these issues the key question is how can companies obtain accurate timely information on their usage of contractors and temporary staff?

One answer is to implement a central contractor talent pool such as Resourcing Circle which is used across departments and holds key information about contractor assignments, performance and skills. 

One of the key points to remember when implementing a central contractor talent pool is that it is important to ensure that the processes introduced to support the pool are simple and intuitive. This helps to prevent the talent pool becoming an administrative burden and increases the likelihood of the processes being adopted by the business users who will probably be inputting the majority of the data. 

Another potential obstacle to the introduction of a central contractor talent pool is resistance from Resourcing Managers within the business units. Resourcing Circle’s experience is that one way to overcome this is to ensure that individual business units are given functionality which enables them to benefit from the data they’re entering into talent pool. For example, this could be the ability to search the companywide talent pool to find highly rated contractors or the capability to create business unit level reporting. Focusing on the needs of individual business units helps to ensure buy-in across the entire organisation, which in turn makes the information held within the talent pool more valuable and comprehensive.

Post written by Errol Forbes Chief Executive & Founder of Resourcing Circle, the Contractor Talent Pool Software Company

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