CONTINGENT WORK FORCE
The world of
business changes every day with new trends and activities. The enterprise
executives and leaders that are hampered down by vintage philosophies are
finding that these new trends in the business world are passing them by, and,
in order overcome the situation and survive in the market position and also to
thrive in this new corporate paradigm, they must entirely adopt in to the
evolution of this new real time culture.
Around the
world, the traditional whimsy of labor, work and talent are being changed and
internal enterprise activities are reshaping their talent management
activities. A very attractive part of
modern day work day workforce is the contingent workers. Contingent workers are
individuals who are typically hired for shorter periods of time.
They perform
specific tasks that often require special job skills and are employed when an
organization is experiencing significant deviations in its workflow. When an
organization makes its strategic decision to employ a sizable portion of its
workforce from the contingency ranks, several HRM issues come to the forefront.
These include being able to have these virtual employees available when needed,
providing scheduling options that meet their needs and making decisions about
whether or not benefits will be offered to the contingent work force.
Non of the
organizations can make the transition to a contingent workforce without
sufficient planning. As such, when these strategic decisions are being made,
HRM must be an active partner in these discussions. After its entire HRM
department’s responsibility to locate and bring into the organization these
temporary workers. As temporary workers are brought in, HRM will also have the
responsibility of quickly adapting them to the organization. HRM will also have
to give some thought to how it will attract quality temporaries. This is
sometimes done on consultancy basis. Consultancy work is often a short time
basis and to re-invent the organization’s operation such a workforce of
consultancy is vital.
Pros and Cons
of contingent workers.
PROS
Cost saving
Cost savings opportunities are available when working with the
contingent workforce. Contingent laborers are usually hired on an as-needed
basis, this means corporations won't have to pay temps during downtime like
they would permanent employees. If managed properly, a company can decided how
much funds go into a particular task by carefully picking the amount of temps
working on a project.
CONS
Issues related to the confidentiality of the company
The main detrimental factor to consider is confidentiality. No such
guarantee could be given that the hired contingent worker will not move on to a
competitor once their time with you is over. When a contingent worker
has specialized skills that can only be used in certain industries,
the chances of them joining a competitor seems likely. Though it is common for
a temp worker to sign a confidentiality agreement, there is still risk of
certain knowledge not being left within the organization.
Reference / Bibliography
- https://www.businessknowhow.com/manage/hire-temp.htm (accessed at 4.30 PM on 31/10/2017)
- SAP Fieldglass (2017), The state of contingent workforce Management 2016- 2017 : Adapting to a new world of work
- Armstrong M (2014) Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice, 13th edn, UK by Ashford Colour press Ltd
- Dessler G. (2013 Human resource management, 13th edn, USA, New Jersey, Pearson Education, Inc
Picture
credit
- Hiring trends: The rice of contingent workers
- radiantskies
