(Today’s guest post is by Arjun Dutt, Business Intelligence Solutions. This is the fourth post in our Measuring Up series on how to get more out of your VMS reporting.)

Earlier in this series, I outlined an alternative way of looking at cost savings metrics. But another metric that can be used to identify cost savings opportunities at a more granular level is hiring patterns within the buyer population. Many organizations, especially those without an MSP present, tend to look only at the final rate of a hired worker against the targeted rate of the rate card.

During a recent business review to identify cost savings opportunities, we discovered an interesting anomaly for a specific job title at a handful of locations. The rate variances for the same job title and description were unusually large, even when accounting for location-based adjustments. Consider the following data we were able to visualize:

In response to this behavior, the client implemented Fieldglass’ active rate guidance, which gives hiring managers access to real-time rate information that can be used to select a candidate. As a result of this implementation, hiring managers: (more…)

(Today’s guest post is by Arjun Dutt, Business Intelligence Solutions. This is the third post in our Measuring Up series on how to get more out of your VMS reporting.)

Worker quality is an increasingly important program goal for many Fieldglass customers. It also happens to be one of the hardest objectives to measure, especially if your program is relatively new. The most common measurement of quality is the comparison between positive attrition (e.g. conversions to FTE) to negative attrition (e.g. workers terminating prematurely). This measurement is challenging because it’s a reflection of how the program has performed historically. More importantly, measuring worker quality only by temp-to-hire conversion doesn’t allow a company to proactively address worker quality while they are still, well, workers.

A customer recently contacted us after discovering that negative attrition percentages for her program were increasing by three percent to four percent every month. Concerned the trend was indicative of low quality workers from her supplier base, she wanted our help to determine if she should penalize her suppliers and possibly bring new ones into the mix.

In looking at the data however, we discovered that the problem laid in the customer’s rate cards; suppliers were not able to effectively find the right candidates because of restrictive pricing. As a result, Fieldglass helped the customer implement a series of checkpoints throughout the process to monitor and improve candidate and worker quality, including these three major process changes:

1. Rather than provide a uniform increase across the board, the customer decided to increase rate card flexibility, allowing suppliers to submit the best candidates for the position without being hampered by the rate. Suppliers would be measured by how often their candidates were above the target rate versus how often those same candidates were selected for interviews and/or hire. This process also enabled the customer to gather better data on how competitive her rate cards were with what was available on the market.




2. Implementing detailed qualifications on the job requisition gave the customer better visibility into how well each candidate was meeting the hiring manager’s needs. As suppliers answered each skill requirement individually with more detail, the program office was able to shortlist candidates that better met the requirements. Hiring managers were also able to rank candidates and provide better feedback to the suppliers for future improvement.




3. To better measure quality throughout a worker’s lifecycle, hiring managers were asked to complete a worker evaluation 30 days into his/her assignment and at three-month intervals thereafter. This allowed the program office to proactively identify quality issues during the worker’s assignment, rather than at the end.

The customer found that these three process changes led to higher percentages of on-time assignment completions and more temp-to-hire conversions. The company was also able to successfully improve positive attrition month over month while minimizing costs to the program.

How does your program measure quality? Do you struggle with this metric? Reach out to us at info@fieldglass.com to continue the discussion on this topic.

(The other posts in this series can be found here and here.)

(Today’s guest post is by Arjun Dutt, Business Intelligence Solutions. This is the second post in a new series called Measuring Up on how to get more out of your VMS reporting.)

Creating program efficiency is a top 3 goal for nearly every Fieldglass customer. One of the most common questions we get asked is how to effectively reduce cycle times. There’s no doubt that hiring workers quickly is good for business – it increases overall productivity and improves hiring manager satisfaction. However, there exists an age-old struggle to balance speedy hiring with quality workers while still completing compliance-related tasks such as approvals and onboarding.

Many organizations automatically place the onus of reducing cycle times on the Program Management Office (PMO) or, and is more often the case, onto the suppliers’ shoulders. These organizations often fail to investigate how they themselves are contributing to high processing times. Below I’ll share how one customer was able to drastically cut cycle times by looking in the mirror.

To set the stage, a large majority of programs are set up as “serial processors.” In other words, steps in the process occur one after the other, with each step dependent on the previous one. A typical hiring process looks something like this:

One customer recently examined how long it took for requisitions to be approved as well as for suppliers to submit the ultimately-hired candidate. They discovered that while every requisition went through a financial approval, on average less than 0.2 percent were rejected annually. (more…)

(Today’s guest post is by Arjun Dutt, Business Intelligence Solutions.)

Many US organizations have a common misconception about global growth: international markets are less mature. It’s not uncommon to hear that EMEA is five to six years behind the US in how contingent workforces are managed. However that’s certainly not the case, as Bryan Pena of Staffing Industry Analysts, Liz Harper of Brightfield Strategies and I discussed last week during our Making It Work: Best Practices for Expanding your Contingent Workforce Program Internationally webinar. These markets are not less mature than those in North America — they’re just different. During the webinar, we talked about how organizations can better prepare for global expansion by educating themselves and planning for these cultural nuances before deploying their contingent workforce programs overseas.

Harper provided some background on EMEA-specific legislation influencing the way contingent programs operate. The Data Protection Directive, Health and Safety Directive, Temporary & Agency Workers Directive (AWD) and the Fixed Term Worker Directive all significantly affect how organizations are able to expand their programs globally, and prudent organizations must take these laws into account.

But outside of any legal considerations, there are cultural nuances to change management to consider before deployment as well. Harper noted a few examples of how the national culture impacts the corporate culture:

• Power-Oriented Culture: Countries like Japan and India fit into this quadrant and value the dialogue between stakeholders rather than what’s being discussed. In other words, these countries want to know who’s attending a meeting rather than what will be discussed.

(more…)

Over the past few weeks, Matt Kreh, Andrew Thiermann and Greg Fenton of the Fieldglass Professional Services team co-authored a series on From the Field called “Bridging the Gap” focusing the relationships between different stakeholders within a contingent program. The four-part series appeared every Wednesday over the past month, but in case you missed any of the posts, here’s a recap of what each of our bloggers discussed:

• Matt’s first post, How Collaboration Between the Program Office and Hiring Managers Breeds Success, discussed three key contributors to a successful program: continued teamwork between the hiring manager and the program office; simplifying program objectives; and creating a feedback loop. Regardless of the program structure, keeping these three ideas at the forefront can ensure a program has continued success.

• In the second post in the series, How C-Suite Leadership Sets the Tone for VMS Deployments, Andrew discussed the importance of designing a deployment strategy for a contingent workforce program that is tightly aligned with corporate goals. Program managers should create objectives based on the overarching company goals to secure C-suite support. He then provided a few customer examples of how different strategic approaches affect how a contingent workforce program is rolled out.

(more…)

Last week, Fieldglass co-hosted a webinar titled, “Contingent Workforce Programme Evolution: Growing Your Programme for Future Success,” with our very own Mikael Lindmark, vice president of EMEA, Lutz Peichert, vice president and principal analyst for Forrester Research and Gareth Druce, professional services director for Reed Elsevier. In case you missed it, you can download the webinar here but here are some of the key takeaways from last week’s session.

The webinar was an opportunity for Peichert to share some Forrester insights into the European services procurement market, the challenges currently facing customers and the benefits of VMS use. With this in mind, Druce then offered Reed Elsevier’s perspective on these insights and shared his company’s experience in expanding a contingent workforce program globally. Some common themes emerged between Forrester’s analysis and Reed Elsevier’s experience: (more…)

Program sponsors seeking allies for a contingent workforce program can face an uphill battle. In particular, it’s difficult to convince hiring managers to adopt not only new processes, but a technology they’re not convinced will make their lives easier. Because consumer applications do a good job of tailoring the experience to each user, people expect the same experience in business applications such as a VMS.

The hurdle for program sponsors is convincing hiring managers that a VMS solution can actually help them bring on a worker or SOW-based project more easily and quickly. One way to get over that hurdle is to make a good first impression, as SIA recently noted in a recent blog post. The post explained, “The engagement process needs to be easy, fluid, but most of all, it needs to work.”

Implementing a VMS that provides a guided experience the second users log in can further aid the engagement process. Presenting them with a familiar user interface (UI) and providing direction on next steps can ease the transition from manual to automated processes and, ultimately, greater program adoption.

Our new eBook, How Program Sponsors Can Achieve Adoption: Guiding the Hiring Manager Experience, walks through some of the typical questions hiring managers have about using VMS technology. (more…)

(Today’s guest post is by Greg Fenton, Fieldglass Professional Services. Greg is our final blogger in a new series called “Bridging the Gap” where we’ll explore the various relationships within a contingent workforce program.)

More. Faster. Cheaper. These, in a nutshell, represent the 2013 objectives for both contingent workforce buyers and MSPs. As last year’s lessons learned become this year’s business goals, the mantra remains the same: manage costs and increase quality as quickly and consistently as possible. While Fieldglass is widely used, each customer’s use is unique. Regardless of the organization or business goal, every contingent workforce program is driven by four basic value propositions: cost, quality, efficiency and compliance.

These value propositions are not out of reach, but the daily pursuit of these goals demands aggressive execution. You’ll need to understand the value each goal provides, determine an implementation strategy, and form the right team and partnerships to deliver actionable and measurable results.

So how can you “bridge the gap” between the planning and execution stages? How can you move the “more, faster, cheaper” discussion to an executive level? How can you demonstrate improvements to the original functional rollout of your VMS?

No bridge can be built without multiple – and different – support spans. We recommend our customers regularly examine the goals, objectives and performance of each key area of their programs, including VMS, MSP (if one is in place), internal program office and even suppliers.

In addition to regular business reviews, we suggest customers take advantage of Fieldglass’ Program Maturity Model (PMM) to maximize VMS use. The PMM allows companies to assemble all key stakeholders in their contingent workforce programs as well as their account teams, Fieldglass business intelligence subject matter experts, and if necessary, key leaders from the  MSP. These teams review key data points, assess if functionality is being utilized to its full potential, and examine reporting needs. Most importantly, the PMM determines the overall health of your company’s program as compared to other Fieldglass users, creating the foundation for recommendations for optimization.

Here are a few examples of how companies have improved areas of their program. (more…)

Earlier this month we published an eBook, Building a Business Case for a VMS, that included a checklist of five items an organization should address before pursuing a VMS and potential providers. While we discussed the first few items on the checklist in an earlier blog post, I wanted to discuss the last checklist items so you are better prepared to pursue a technology solution.

Here are the final two checklist items and some thoughts about your next steps after successfully building your business case and pursuing a VMS.

4.   Understand the Risks if a Centralized Program is Not Pursued/Implemented

Outside of the knowing the potential benefits of a program, it’s just as important to acknowledge the potential risks if one is not implemented. It’s possible not pursuing a program could result in unrealized savings, lower quality, continued risk and compliance exposure. Likewise, without a centralized program in place, manual processes would continue and potentially result in a higher headcount. A VMS could help streamline supplier management and eliminate the high administrative costs and without one in place, the organization will have to address how these and other issues will be reconciled. (more…)

(Today’s guest post is by Arjun Dutt, Business Intelligence Solutions)

When a customer recently experienced a tricky situation with a worker, it exposed a bigger problem within its contingent workforce program. Although the company had a VMS solution in place, it was struggling to convince hiring managers to use the application rather than continue old habits and manual processes. So what was the problem and how can they fix it?

The Issue

The customer explained that although one candidate showed up for the interview, an entirely different person arrived for work. Understandably frustrated, the hiring manager contacted the supplier directly to resolve the issue but reported nothing in Fieldglass. It later turned out that the supplier was a repeat offender and the program office took steps to address the issue. But the fact that managers weren’t reporting serious violations such as this one, among others, was indicative of a larger underlying problem — they weren’t leveraging the VMS solution or utilizing the program office efficiently. One possible reason could be that the program was not as visible within the organization as it should have been.

Anyone—not just a VMS user — is reluctant to follow a process that doesn’t feel familiar. Users want a certain comfort level when performing their everyday tasks and if a solution seems foreign to them, they’re less likely to use it. So how can you convince users to do something they’ve never done before?

The Solution

The key to getting wider adoption of your VMS processes is to make the program office front and center in the eyes of the users. Hiring managers need to know they have a partner in their procurement process — a resource when things don’t go as planned.

So how could this particular company get the message out? Our team offered some ideas for how the program could become more familiar to users: (more…)