Uncovering the Challenges Associated with Managing Contract Workers
The Gig Economy is growing, quickly. Many employees that once worked full-time jobs have opted out for a more independent and fluid role in today’s contract workforce. Gig work is on the rise, and this blog discusses the challenges associated with managing contract workers as opposed to full-time employees.
Research established that agility is key, and organizations are looking to increase their performance potential by leveraging highly experienced and specialized contractors and subcontractors. However, an agile workplace can only flourish in an organization that is designed to support flexibility. Ironically, flexibility demands rigorous oversight.
The Shifting Workforce
This is a radically different workforce model than how corporations have traditionally formed and managed teams. There is also a higher degree of risk. Managers will increasingly need to deploy resources that are not owned by the organization, requiring a higher degree of control. They will also need to engage and mobilize larger and larger numbers of participants and facilitate much more complex coordination of expertise and activities.
The million dollar question remains: Are corporate structures ready to support this new workforce? Our research reveals that organizations feel that change is occurring, and there is a long way to go.
Challenges of Leveraging Contractors
Executives state many challenges in effectively leveraging contractors, including confidence that these contractors will deliver, finding good contractors, and onboarding and provisioning contractors. 69% of executives also state that they need to make changes to better manage contractors, and in fact many of these executives state they don’t even know what changes are required.
The areas that executives state require more structure include the process of selecting, identifying, and managing contractors. While 83% state that managing a contractor is different than an employee, 93% affirmatively state they have formal policies for managing employees, but 34% say they do not have any policies for managing contractors. 37% say their practices for managing contractors are sub-par to those for managing their employees.
Moving Forward in the Gig Economy
It’s clear that this new workforce model will have revolutionary effects on the construct of the workforce. Organizations will need to quickly adopt best practices—processes, frameworks, guidelines, analytics, and insights—to help manage this growth before it gets unruly.
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