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Introducing Staffing and Services Procurement

Objectives

After completing this lesson, you will be able to:

Identify a Buyer, a Supplier, and a Worker.
Differentiate between a Contingent and a Services Worker.
Explain how a program delivers value to an organization and differentiate between a Program Management Office and a Managed Service Provider.

Buyer, Supplier, and Worker

The percentage of the world’s workforce that is defined as temporary is almost 50%. That means that nearly half the working people on the entire planet actually work for a company on a temporary basis. These workers are commonly referred to as an external workforce. And the size of this external workforce is expected to grow dramatically over the coming years.

So what exactly drives such dramatic growth in the external workforce? There are numerous reasons, of course, but it generally comes down to business necessity. Retailers, for example, often need additional workers to temporarily assist with a higher volume of customer traffic during holiday sales. Or it could initiate a project that requires an expertise outside of its core competency. Or it could need to temporarily fill a position on a critical team.

To illustrate, play the video to see how one hiring manager deals with an absence on her team.

Contingent Staffing

Joe was actually one of several workers that Sheila presented to Mavis as a possibility for the open position on her team. Joe is an experienced IT networking professional who prefers a little flexibility, autonomy, and variety in his career, so he isn’t necessarily interested in a permanent position with a company.

Well, except for the fact that, in a manner of speaking, Joe actually does have a permanent position: with re:CrewIT.

This relationship is the basis of what’s called Contingent staffing.

Watch the video to learn how the relationship between buyer, supplier, and a contingent worker is defined.

Services Staffing

There is another way that the relationship between WorkingNet and Joe can be defined, one that is not as direct as that defined as Contingent. For example, let’s say that WorkingNet has decided to lease another floor in their corporate headquarters building and, of course, will have to completely refurbish it. A construction project of this size and scope is completely outside of WorkingNet’s core competency, so it will have to rely on outside firms—such as architects and construction crews—to do the work. Now, because WorkingNet lacks this expertise, none of the firms involved will be directly managed by WorkingNet. This means that none of the workers involved will be integrated into the WorkingNet workforce—they will remain under the direct management of the firms for which they are employed.

This relationship is the basis of what’s called Services staffing.

Watch the video to learn how the relationship between buyer, supplier, and a services worker is defined.

The Program

Because each individual company has its own unique labor needs, it also has its own unique set of processes that it uses to procure that labor. And those processes, along with the platform and the people who administer them, are often referred to as a Program.

Watch the video below to understand how a program adds value to an organization.

Managing the Program

Program Management Office (PMO)

In order to manage a program, many companies will create what are called Program Management Offices, or PMOs.

A Program Management Office, as the name indicates, is a group or department within an organization that manages a program—in this case, an external workforce procurement program. A PMO helps improve an organization’s overall performance by maintaining the standards of the program and aligning its processes to the organization’s goals. So where the platform automates the processes, the people define and manage the processes.

Managed Service Provider (MSP)

But what if a company doesn’t necessarily want to handle the management of external workers with an in-house Program Management Office? Who, then, actually handles the management of the Program?

In such a case, the company can engage a third-party vendor that specializes in program management. That third-party vendor is what’s known as an MSP, or Managed Service Provider. The service that the MSP provides is, of course, managing the company’s external labor procurement Program, taking the place of an in-house PMO.

Hybrid Program Management

It’s also possible that the buyer could manage the Program with a combination of the two, whereby, for instance, the in-house PMO maintains the standards and manages the MSP, while the MSP actually performs the procurement functions and manages the VMS.

These distinctions are important, because how the SAP Fieldglass application is configured depends greatly on who is managing what aspects of the external labor procurement process. Regardless of whether the Program is managed by an internal PMO or an external MSP, or some combination thereof, SAP Fieldglass is flexible enough to work with all of the players—buyer, supplier, PMO, MSP, and even the worker.

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