The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has led to many organisations changing their business priorities, putting a number of projects on hold and reducing their headcount. As such, business leaders are looking to disengage large numbers of contractors, or at least, redeploy them into another section of their business. Although it might seem simple to terminate the engagement of a contractor compared to a permanent employee, there are a number of dangers for companies that don’t have a formal end date management process in place for their contingent workers. Some of these include:
- Legal risks if you don’t end a contract compliantly
- Lack of visibility over the end dates of contractors
- Not keeping track of assets, leading to data security risks
- Not taking advantage of redeployment opportunities.
Many organisations have comprehensive HR processes for their permanent workers around engagement, onboarding and end date management. Few, however, extend the same level of commitment in providing solutions for their contingent workers.
In this article, we highlight the importance of compliant offboarding of contractors, including asset management and system restrictions, and how performance management data can give you an edge in redeployment.
Set yourself up for success with a smooth induction
A completely managed process around end dates can only exist if companies have formalised processes around induction and orientation. Without this foundation, it’s difficult to keep track of which assets you’ve assigned contractors, their end dates and whether they are performing or not.
When you hire a contractor, how does your company:
If you’re not doing all of these in an automated, consistent way across all your contractor workforce, then you can’t expect to do the opposite when their contract finishes.
How do we do it?
CXC has a proprietary system, called MyExchange, which automates the induction process.
When we receive a request for services form, the system automatically notifies the relevant business units in the organisation to ensure all tasks are carried out.
Advanced warning when contracts are expiring
Just like a university student with an assignment, many hiring managers leave making a decision on whether to renew or terminate a contractor to the last minute.
This “just-in-time” attitude often leads to inefficiencies in the process and poor workforce planning. It can also stress contractors out, as they don’t know whether they’re going to be back in the office the next day or polishing off that resume.
In a perfect world, hiring managers would have a firm idea of whether they want to extend or terminate a contract, and would have communicated with contractors well in advance of the date. But life is busy, and we understand that professionals are juggling multiple balls in their fast-paced roles.
That’s why we use automated reminders and intelligent journeys through our MyExchange system to make hiring managers’ jobs a little easier.
Our technology covers:
These automated journeys provide a streamlined experience for all parties and improve our clients’ ability to plan the needs of their workforce.
Managing assets, to prevent data security risks
Organisations without a strategic contractor workforce management program in place are often subject to routine breaches in security standards and loss of intellectual property.
We’ve previously spoken about how common it is for contractors to have access to cloud applications, admin privileges and corporate data after they’ve finished with an organisation. When implementing a centralised contractor management solution for a major financial institution, we discovered that 80 contractors still had access to their work email account long after their contract finished.
With more workers than ever working from home, it’s essential that the security you have around your permanent workers is the same as your contractors to avoid breaches in security standards.
The consequences can be huge.
If the data breach is particularly severe, fines can reach up to $2.1 million for a body corporate.
To ensure our clients get their equipment returned, and contractors have their access to systems restricted, we provide notification to various business units, including reception, IT and Finance. Our system also has the ability to track the individual serial numbers of assets. For one client, we captured specifics of the assets during onboarding and arranged a courier to pick up the equipment following termination.
This ensures a streamlined process for distributing and returning assets, mitigating risk around data security breaches.
Redeployment and talent pooling
It’s important for organisations to measure the performance of contingent workers and their ability to meet deliverables throughout their assignment.
Performing contractors whose assignment naturally finishes, are often let go by an organisation without being put into a talent pool or networked around their organisation for current opportunities. To assist our clients identify performing contractors, we offer a simple rating system for hiring managers, which can be provided to the HR talent team for talent pooling or other assignment opportunities. Ratings can be customised, but include technical skills, cultural fit and ability to meet deadlines.
This information can be fed back to the centralised talent acquisition team on a periodic basis, to ensure continual tracking of performance.
Additionally, we provide a talent redeployment tool for our clients, called Workforce Exchange. This service ensures that performing contractors are redeployed within a pool of our enterprise clients, ensuring you hold on to quality talent.
Regardless of which stage you are in around extending your HR processes in providing solutions to your contingent workforce, we can provide you with the technology, people and processes necessary to enhance your program. Our automated reminders, intelligent journeys and personable involvement streamline the end date management process, providing an exceptional experience to hiring managers and contractors.
As one of the world’s leading providers of contingent worker management solutions, CXC is well positioned to optimise all elements of your contingent workforce strategy. With operations in more than 50 countries across five continents and decades of experience, we can assist with every aspect of your program.
If you would like to find out more about how we can help please contact us here.
