(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.

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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…)

Welcome to the weekly news roundup! Below are the top stories we’ve read or shared this week affecting our industry.

Monday: HP chooses Fieldglass’ VMS. (SIA Daily News)

Tuesday: The contingent workforce will double by 2020. Yes, DOUBLE. In only 8 years. (Perfect Labor Storm)

Wednesday: The Randstad Workforce360 Study findings have just been released. Two out of three companies now use contingent labor. (Atlanta Business Journal)

Thursday: Are staffing firms taking the best advantage of the “avoidant economy”? This blog post takes aim at the greatest opportunity the staffing industry has seen in more than 30 years. (The Staffing Stream)

Today: While the current UK labor market is considered fairly flexible and among the best, they are potentially taking more steps to further reduce the red tape around employment laws. (SIA Daily News)

Did we miss anything? Let us know in comments. Have a great weekend, everyone. For those of you attending Staffing Industry Analysts’ CWS Summit, we look forward to seeing you next week!

(This post was originally published on The Staffing Stream on Aug. 15th.)

We know, we’re jumping on the superhero bandwagon here. But there’s no denying the comparison. Highly-skilled contingent labor, independent contractors and others that make up the flexible workforce are able to swoop in and provide immediate value to companies of all sizes and industries. Let’s take a look at how they’re being utilized and managed today here in the U.S. and beyond.

To find out more about the penetration of the flexible workforce and how VMS and MSP providers stack up, download a free copy, compliments of Fieldglass, of Staffing Industry Analysts’ 2012 VMS/MSP Supplier Landscape Report.

Welcome to the weekly news roundup! We’re posting today instead of our usual Friday, but the stories below – which we came across last week – are still worth sharing.

Tuesday: ASA is looking for participants in its quarterly Staffing Employment and Sales Survey. (American Staffing Association)

Wednesday: 1 in 3 new jobs in Germany are contingent, so says the Federal Labour Agency in Nuremberg. (Staffing Industry Analysts)

Thursday: Recruiters go to bat against a new survey claiming employers say they have reduced their use of temporary agency workers as a result of the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR). (Recruiter)

Thursday: ManpowerGroup released this year’s Talent Shortage Survey. They identify the top 10 most difficult to fill jobs in the U.S. Does yours make the list? (ManpowerGroup)

Did we miss anything? Let us know in comments. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Welcome to the weekly news roundup! Below are the top stories we’ve read or shared this week affecting our industry.

Tuesday: Adecco releases a new report on the UK contingent workforce. The region’s jobs in banking and legal are steadily growing. (SIA Daily News)

Tuesday: New Fieldglass blog post this week! Arjun Dutt examines some common contingent workforce program pitfalls. (From the Field)

Wednesday: New research on six personality traits of successful independent consultants. (MBO Partners)

Wednesday: By far the biggest news item of the week… Staffing Industry Analysts takes on the SAP, Ariba acquisition news. (Staffing Industry Analysts)

Today: Beginning as early as next month, Belgium authorities will implement the European Agency Workers Directive (AWD). (SIA Daily News)

Did we miss anything? Let us know in comments. Have a great Memorial Day weekend, everyone!

Welcome to the weekly news roundup! Below are the top stories we’ve read or shared this week affecting our industry.

Monday: A bit of a shameless plug here, but we posted up a short use case on how one Fieldglass customer is using the solution to support its efforts around the AWR. (From the Field)

Monday: New Adecco survey results report that 63% of Americans say they view temporary jobs more positively than they did last year. Perhaps one reason: 86% of Americans believe a temporary job is a good career option for people looking to gain valuable work experience. (GigaOm)

Tuesday: Temporary staffing was up 13% in December, according to new Staffing Industry Analysts’ survey. (SIA Daily News)

Wednesday: Out of India’s 1.21 billion people, 90 million are temporary workers. AND, that number is growing 17% quarterly. (SI Review)

Today: The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released this month’s jobs report. The staffing industry added 20,100 new jobs from December to January, a 7% increase year-over-year. (Talent Management)

Did we miss anything? Let us know in comments. Have a great weekend everyone.

Today’s guest post is by Greg Fenton, Fieldglass Account Services.

The problem: New legislation is changing the face of temporary engagements in the UK and other parts of Europe. Under the new Agency Workers Regulations (AWR), temporary or agency workers are entitled to equal pay and rights as their permanent counterparts after a 12-week time period. Many have suggested that this new legislation will lead to early termination for temp workers, and according to research by the Association of Professional Staffing Companies, 29% of organizations surveyed agreed. However, the remaining 70% of companies need to find a way to ensure compliance to this new law.

The solution: One Fortune 100 technology company uses the Fieldglass solution to manage its contingent workforce across the U.S. and parts of Europe. In preparation to meet the significant regulatory challenges of AWR, both the customer and its Master Services Provider (MSP) enlisted Fieldglass to make improvements. They focused on data collection and process management practices associated with tracking workers, managing tenure, and properly processing key financial data to ensure compliance with the new law.

The result: Enlisting experts across its services and product development teams, Fieldglass adjusted the way its solution captured and tracked certain data, all with an eye to supporting the spirit and letter of the regulations, particularly focusing on tenure. Fieldglass-created comprehensive reports allow the MSP to identify overall tenure and tenure gaps, both key elements to AWR efforts and process. Today, this global customer and its MSP are able to successfully support its workers with respect to AWR and achieve business objectives impacted by the recent regulations.

Welcome to the weekly news roundup! Below are the top stories we’ve read or shared this week affecting our industry. Lots of news outside of the U.S. in this edition.

Monday: Germany reaches record number of temporary workers, nearing one million. (Staffing Industry Analysts Daily News)

Tuesday: Which country has the highest percentage of teleworkers? You might be surprised by the answer. (GigaOm)

Tuesday: The Five laws that cause contingent labor challenges. (HR Daily Advisor)

Wednesday: Did you catch up on all the news out of Staffing Industry Analysts this week? Don’t miss the article on how retirees are turning to temporary work. (CWS 3.0)

Wednesday: AWR has had little effect on temporary labor demand in the UK… so far. (SIA Daily News)

Today: Assembling a contingent workforce of 180,000 for London Olympic Games. (Recruiter Magazine UK)

Did you see anything else this week that we should have covered here?

Welcome to our weekly news roundup!

Monday: 63% of UK CFOs plan to add temporary finance workers in 2012, via new research from Robert Half UK. Despite changing working practices such as the AWR, London-based companies in particular are taking full advantage of temporary labor, with four in five CFOs planning to increase their teams next year. (SIA Daily News)

Monday: New Mom Corps research shows that 42% of working adults surveyed are willing to give up some percentage of their salary for more flexibility at work. Are you one of them? (Star Global Tribune)

Tuesday: With NINE straight quarters of employment growth, the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey reports the most promising U.S. hiring outlook since 2008. (MarketWatch)

Tuesday: Great blog post by Hinda Chalew on the importance of communication in facilitating better, more informed decisions around contingent labor. (Staffing Industry Analysts blog)

Wednesday: More companies are looking to deploy and better manage contingent labor in Asia-Pacific (APAC), but the lack of maturity of the contingent workforce market makes it difficult to establish a program. This article helps explain some of the nuances associated with managing temps in APAC. (CWS 30)

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