We look inside our partnership with a large communications organisation to find out how a self-managed solution can deliver amazing results.
Our client faced some big contingent labour challenges, including:
Uncontrolled talent demand across the business.
Poor visibility of talent spend, costs, and supplier margins.
Inconsistent compliance processes.
The client asked us to come up with a solution that put them in the driving seat – giving them the tools they needed to successfully manage their contingent workforce. A culture of insourcing rather than outsourcing meant that a traditional external MSP was never going to cut it for this organisation. We created a personalised, self-managed solution, built around three key goals:
To bring down temporary talent spend by 10%.
To develop integrated tools that improved visibility and control.
To create a great candidate experience that strengthened their employer brand.
Delivering Success This program went live in 2020, and we’ve already seen some great results:
Spend The supply base was reduced from 82 supply partners to just 25. Initial savings from rationalising and optimising the supply chain were more than £500k.
Visibility We increased talent visibility across the business, helping leaders to access meaningful analytics and insights.
Candidate Experience We’ve helped our client to develop an authentic and supportive candidate experience to improve candidate engagement at every stage of the hiring journey.
We worked closely with the client to create a self-managed contingent talent program that felt like them blending the best of a world-class MSP program with the benefits of a home-grown solution. The result was an in-house program based on the latest tech and talent ideas that reflected their unique culture and personality.
We rolled out a best-in-class VMS platform that we knew could meet the client’s challenges. And our team was on hand to share their knowledge at every step – reviewing and optimising the supply base and helping the client to create processes that merged this program and technology into their existing set-up.
Our client needed this solution to always deliver on consistency and visibility. We developed joined-up processes that gave the business flexibility while effectively managing risk.
This couldn’t just be a great contingent talent program, it had to be the right contingent talent program for our client. We got to know what made this client tick – what their culture and values looked and felt like – to create a program that really worked for their business.
A self-managed program doesn’t mean we wave goodbye with go live. It was important to us that our client never felt on their own, and we’re continuing to deliver ongoing technical support and program insights. We also worked closely with the business to provide specialist advice during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Thinking of shaking up your approach to contingent talent? A self-managed solution could see you take control and even open the door to total talent management.
Insourcing means that you stay in control of your entire workforce and the suppliers you engage. This can help you to build strong supplier relationships and create programs that feel rooted in your culture and values.
Self-managed programs allow you to do things your way and can be flexed to your business needs. They can also be blended with existing talent functions, including permanent hiring, making it easier to create a total talent approach.
The right self-managed solution, put into practice in the right way, can bring down your external talent spend and provide a cost-effective way to connect with contingent expertise.
People strategy, just like people, comes in all shapes and sizes. For this organisation, a self-managed program was the right fit, boosting buy-in across the business and helping the organisation to overcome important challenges and plan ahead to meet future talent goals. It has also allowed them to put their employer brand and culture at the heart of their contingent talent community. This solution isn’t the right solution for everyone, but it’s an option that should always be part of the talent conversation.