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Best Practices to Become a Client of Choice for the Flexible Workforce

Introduction

In the era of talent scarcity many innovative HR professionals are deploying total talent management strategies that seek to holistically manage and optimize the organization’s entire workforce, both traditional employees and flexible workers — ensuring the right workers are available in the right place at the right time. Early adopter organizations are learning they must become a “client-of-choice” in order to attract and retain the flexible workers they need to get vital work done.

Human Resources and Talent Acquisition professionals can play a critical role in achieving a successful outcome in this increasingly competitive talent market. In the webinar we’ll explore the drivers behind the growth of the flexible workforce, total talent management as a viable strategy, best practices and key lessons to building and managing an effective talent community.

As a preview, here are two of the ten best practices that we’ll be covering in greater detail during the webinar:

Streamline flexible worker on-boarding

A world class program, one that smoothly takes consultants through the whole flexible worker lifecycle from on-boarding to final payment, is a critically important component of being considered a client-of-choice by flexible workers.

As your building your client-of-choice program, it is worthwhile to review and improve your on-boarding process so that flexible workers can quickly start doing what they really want to do – work on interesting projects!

Two notes of caution:

  • As you bring flexible workers into your organization, be very careful to avoid the temptation of misclassifying them as independent contractors. This frequently happens and can trigger significant back-taxes, penalties, and other assorted unpleasantries for the employer, and the flexible worker!
  • Also, be careful not to force individuals into engagement solutions that they are not comfortable with. In addition to legal risk, it can cause significant disruption, low program adoption, and reduced time-to-productivity.

Many companies choose to partner with an independent contractor engagement specialist, such as TalentWave, that brings proven processes, technology, best practices, and engagement options for deploying flexible workers into the enterprise.

Make it easy to be a vendor for your company

It is important to recognize that many flexible workers are truly a “business of one.” On paper they may look like any other professional services vendor to your finance and procurement teams, even though they are, in fact, very different. Some things to keep in mind:

  • Is it a reasonable requirement for an individual to have the same levels of business insurance as one of your traditional large services providers?
  • Cash is king for the solopreneur – can you shorten your standard vendor payment terms for this category of vendor?
  • Is your contracting process and SOW creation easy and not too complicated for the contractor? Do all the standard terms and conditions apply to an individual worker as they would a larger services organization?

With increasing frequency we’re seeing contractors electing not to accept projects with certain organizations due to overly burdensome vendor requirements. Remember, top talent has many choices in today’s economy. Strive to make it easy to be your vendor!

Conclusion

The above best practices have proven useful to TalentWave clients in becoming a client-of-choice for the flexible workforce. Deploying strategies like these within your labor program can help your organization to attract, engage, and retain the “new” independent workforce. If you’re interested in learning more best practices, we invite you to join us on the webinar.

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