Visibility is to Workforce Balance as Macaroni is to Cheese

There are certain items that are good by themselves but become excellent when paired with something else. For example, macaroni is nice enough and cheese is a pleasant food but together they meld to become comfort food supreme, a dish much greater than the sum of its parts! Like a good noodle with a fine cheese, supply chain visibility and workforce balance are two good things that amplify one another’s best traits when brought together. Let’s explore how visibility enhances workforce balance to heighten the overall experience of workforce management.

Ensuring visibility into key areas of the overall workforce management program is critical to yielding the benefits of achieving a well-balanced workforce.  This provides:

• more effectively controlled labor costs
• increased flexibility to accommodate peaks and valleys of demand
• improved protection from regulatory and other compliance risks
• quality improvements that come from heightened efficiency and productivity

The role of all solutions for workforce management – be they technology solutions like VMS tools to automate processes or consultative solutions like Managed Service Providers staffed with experts – is to codify existing best practices, improve incomplete or incorrect processes, and standardize their application across the entire enterprise.

 So what are some of the key areas requiring visibility?

Talent Management

Promote visibility by applying process standardization in the management of suppliers for regular application of term/tenure policies, worker classification, rate and markup management, and conversion processes. Not only will a stable pipeline of talent be established to meet spikes in demand (and to cull top talent for full time openings), but the workers on assignment are not posing any potentially costly compliance risks.

Supplier Management

Promote visibility among suppliers by adhering to business rules governing on-boarding processes, pre-employment screenings, insurance certifications, and demanding metrics for every data point on a regularly occurring basis. It’s also important to, normalize contract negotiation and terms, perform rate benchmarking, and consolidate invoicing.  Doing this offers transparency and trust in all supplier relationships.

Quality Management

Promote visibility via performance metrics, scorecards, customer and vendor surveys, quarterly business reviews, and ongoing process improvement schedules. Aside from visibility, this will benefit the workforce program by continually driving savings and improvements.

Like aged NY cheddar to the perfect elbow noodle, visibility in Talent, Quality, and Supplier Management will enhance and improve workforce management.