Managed Service Provider
When you need a specialist to outsource all responsibilities for finding and administering needed temporary talent, a Managed Services Provider, or MSP, can deliver business results.
Most companies today depend on contingent workers – individuals on assignment in your company for a specific task and/or for a limited period – to help drive business. These individuals are engaged to bridge skills gaps, fill in during periods of peak demand, and increase workforce composition flexibility. However, there are different rules and regulations for contingent workers and the staffing agencies that may supply them. The rules may change based on whether you are engaging an agency contractor, internally sourced worker, independent contractor, or project services team. In every case, it’s imperative that organizations work within the various laws.
Managed Service Provider
When you need a specialist to outsource all responsibilities for finding and administering needed temporary talent, a Managed Services Provider, or MSP, can deliver business results.
Most companies today depend on contingent workers – individuals on assignment in your company for a specific task and/or for a limited period – to help drive business. These individuals are engaged to bridge skills gaps, fill in during periods of peak demand, and increase workforce composition flexibility. However, there are different rules and regulations for contingent workers and the staffing agencies that may supply them. The rules may change based on whether you are engaging an agency contractor, internally sourced worker, independent contractor, or project services team. In every case, it’s imperative that organizations work within the various laws.
Why Do You Need an MSP?
Rising costs of running an internal program
If your costs are rising, but you're not able to put your finger on which costs, you need an MSP to help you find the holes and plug them.
Burdensome operational performance
When you're adding temporary talent to your workforce, it doesn't just add a few more people to the mix, it adds multiple levels of complexity that an MSP is expertly positioned to handle.
Ineffective supplier/agency management
The effort to manage multiple staffing agencies can easily get out of hand, fragmenting processes and escalating costs. An MSP ensures that you’re effectively managing these suppliers, paying market rates, and measuring performance.
Inability to scale
When all of your resources are stretched tight, it’s difficult to scale your business. Outsourcing to an MSP helps your internal staff focus on staff employees, while we do the heavy lifting of managing temporary talent.
Limited or unqualified talent pool
Is your brand not resonating with candidates? Are your suppliers not finding you qualified candidates? Is something else impeding attracting great temporary talent? Often an MSP is able to discover the source of the problem and offer an effective solution.
Uncertainty surrounding compliance
Working with temporary workers opens up a can of legal worms that can lead to a damaged reputation and severe financial penalties in many areas. An MSP will mitigate risk by complying with all Federal, State, and local laws and regulations.
No measurable metrics or visibility
If you aren’t certain of the basic metrics of your contingent workforce program, costs can quickly spiral out of control. You might think something's not right, but don't even know where to look. You are definitely a candidate for a professional MSP that has the experience and insight to get a handle on all your temp labor analytics and present them in a cohesive and understandable way so you can make educated business decisions.
What does a Managed Services Provider Do?
A Managed Services Provider acts as an extension of your organization’s human resources or procurement function by managing all activities associated with the sourcing and use of temporary workers.
The MSP handles all of the day-to-day program management. We become our clients’ dedicated talent advisors who evaluate the programs’ needs, and work with clients to optimize resource planning to help handle any peaks and valleys.
This helps alleviate hiring managers from manual, labor-intensive operational tasks, frees up HR departments from overseeing compliance standards, and provides procurement with a standardized way to contain and reduce costs.
An MSP will help you decide the best worker type for each job, assist in creating and publishing the job requirement, provide a short-list of best fit candidates, coordinate the evaluation process, negotiate compensation rates with suppliers, ensure onboarding requirements are met, verify accurate and timely payment, address any issues with the worker and/or staffing supplier, and verify that at the end of the assignment the worker is properly offboarded, all assets are returned, and access to any system is cut off.
The MSP will also help you to make critical decisions regarding the most effective use of temporary labor. By conducting planning sessions, audits, customer and worker satisfaction surveys, regular business reviews and annual roadmap planning sessions the MSP will ensure that the program meets your current needs and evolves as your business grows.
Is an MSP Right for You?
If, like many organizations, the new normal for your workforce management plan includes increased reliance on contingent labor, independent contractors, gig workers/freelancers, temps of any type, then you’re probably already learning how much goes into managing a contingent workforce. Vendor management, sourcing, compliance, on/offboarding, rate and markup management, benefits administration, and more – whew! It can be challenging for your Human Resources department to handle all these contingent workforce management processes in parallel with their workload for staff employees. So, perhaps the time may be right for you to consider outsourcing to a managed services provider.
You may want to jump right into how to get started with an MSP, but let’s back up a step and ask if this is a good fit for your company to optimize the day-to-day operations. Here are some questions to ask:
- Is our current internal program effective?
- Are we finding and hiring temporary talent at competitive pay rates?
- Do we know if our suppliers’ rates are competitive?
- Are we thoroughly vetting, auditing, and keep tabs on our staffing agencies’ performance and costs?
- Do we have a rigorous system in place to check compliance and mitigate risk levels?
- Is our current technology (if any) effective enough to provide data analytics top provide benchmarking? Does it effectively share data with our back-office systems?
- Are our internal resources in HR and/or Procurement able to effectively manage our contingent labor?
If the majority of your answers fall in the realm of “No” or even “We don’t know” – then you are an excellent candidate for outsourcing your program to an MSP.
Getting Started with nextSource
Now we can take a closer look at how to get started with an MSP. Choosing the right MSP partner is critical for long-term success. nextSource delivers a differentiated approach that focuses on four key areas: quality of talent, operational efficiency, cost management, and risk mitigation.
Let's break down how we do this:
Collaborative: Every contingent workforce program is uniquely suited to the client's specific needs. This is not a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all program. nextSource engages stakeholders from across your company so everyone has a seat at the table when designing the program.
Consultative: Most MSPs start the program implementation with a "discovery process" that ticks the boxes needed to build a highly tactical, static program. nextSource goes beyond the standard "people, process, technology" questions asked by others. We conduct a Program Agility AssessmentTM that explores ways in which the program will align with your business priorities, resulting in a program that is well governed, comprehensive, scalable, and adaptable. And, through ongoing briefing sessions, we ensure that your program remains responsive to highly dynamic market conditions.
Vendor-neutral: Partnering with MSPs that are part of a larger staffing organization leads to limited talent pools, potentially higher costs, and lack of flexibility. nextSource will not only offer a level playing field, we actively encourage and support our suppliers.
Technology-agnostic:Having worked with all of the major VMS solutions, we are more than happy to give recommendations as to which system is better suited to your organization. We also have multiple certification levels with each VMS, so you can rest assured that we are experts.
Getting Started with an MSP
Now we can take a closer look at how to get started with an MSP. Choosing the right MSP partner is critical for long-term success. nextSource delivers a differentiated approach that focuses on four key areas: quality of talent, operational efficiency, cost management, and risk mitigation.
Let's break down how we do this:
Collaborative: Every contingent workforce program is uniquely suited to the client's specific needs. This is not a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all program. nextSource engages stakeholders from across your company so everyone has a seat at the table when designing the program.
Consultative: Most MSPs start the program implementation with a "discovery process" that ticks the boxes needed to build a highly tactical, static program. nextSource goes beyond the standard "people, process, technology" questions asked by others. We conduct a Program Agility Assessment™ that explores ways in which the program will align with your business priorities, resulting in a program that is well governed, comprehensive, scalable, and adaptable. And, through ongoing briefing sessions, we ensure that your program remains responsive to highly dynamic market conditions.
Vendor-neutral: Partnering with MSPs that are part of a larger staffing organization leads to limited talent pools, potentially higher costs, and lack of flexibility. nextSource will not only offer a level playing field, we actively encourage and support our suppliers.
Technology-agnostic:Having worked with all of the major VMS solutions, we are more than happy to give recommendations as to which system is better suited to your organization. We also have multiple certification levels with each VMS, so you can rest assured that we are experts.
Advantages Delivered Through our MSP Solution
Return on Strategic Objectives
Continuous innovation generated by our Progressive Program Model™ takes your program beyond operational efficiency to ensure that the program delivers scalability, governance, adaptability, and ongoing business value.
Objectivity and Expertise
Vendor neutrality and technology agnostic approach maintains a level playing field; utilize the suppliers and technologies that are the right fit for your organizational needs.
Solution Design Options
Entry Level Methodology delivers a program that offers only the level of service you need, enabling you to expand or modify the program as your business needs change.
Return on Investment
Baseline evaluations, cost management controls, cost reduction targets, and no hidden costs result in greater return on investment.
Greater Access to Best-Fit Talent
Utilize innovative solutions to finding and sustaining great talent such as Curated Talent Communities, Candidate Satisfaction Monitoring, Contractor Training and Enhanced Supplier Nurturing.
Want to Learn More?
Download the Getting Started with an MSP Guide now
Want to Learn More?
Download the Getting Started with an MSP Guide now
Other nextSource Services
You may also be interested in our other services:
Other nextSource Services
You may also be interested in our other services:
Looking to Learn More?
You can find more information in our Thought Leadership library or set up a time to talk to one of our Workforce Solutions consultants.
Looking to Learn More?
You can find more information in our Thought Leadership library or set up a time to talk to one of our Workforce Solutions consultants.
