Implementing an effective compliance strategy for your contingent workforce program might seem like an overwhelming task—especially when relying on a third-party supplier to attract contingent talent.
Staffing suppliers are important in your extended workforce program. They provide you with an essential piece of the puzzle: the people! Naturally, you’ll want your contingent labor force to be compliant from the start. To achieve that, you need to build a strong relationship with your vendors.
A simple yet often neglected strategy to ensure compliance is to streamline the communication with your suppliers. A good synergy between your organization and your contingent talent vendors will contribute to building a robust, compliant contingent workforce program. Let’s expand on the topic!
Communication, Yes! But First, Establish a Good Foundation
Before setting up your communication strategy, you must clarify the kind of information you need to pass on to your vendors.
A successful compliance strategy starts with a good plan. A good plan includes all the necessary requirements that your organization needs for the roles you’re hiring, which might be:
- Background checks
- Drug screenings
- Non-disclosure agreements
- Specialized certifications
Ask your HR or procurement teams about the requirements of each role and document them in one place.
MORE ON COMPLIANCE | ‘3 Existing Hiring and Onboarding Processes That Enable Contingent Workforce Compliance’
Maintain Clear Communication With Your Suppliers
Once you have all your compliance requirements sorted, you can communicate those requirements to your suppliers. When engaging with your vendor for contingent talent, make sure they have all that necessary information from the very beginning and easy access to what they need throughout the worker’s contract.
All that information you gathered from HR? Use it to put together a standard information packet for your suppliers.
Include all of the onboarding requirements as well as any key contact information they and their employees should be familiar with. This packet should also include offboarding requirements. If you’ve provided equipment or badges, how do those get returned?
When handling the extended workforce program in-house, the management team needs to make sure they have optimal communications with their vendors. Vendors must understand who to contact when there’s an issue on-site—this tends to happen often in medical or industrial environments, for example. Providing this information from the start will strengthen your compliance strategy.
Keep the Lines of Communication Open
Remember to keep the lines of communication open with your vendors throughout the duration of a job. If there are certifications due for an update that are critical to working with your company, be sure your vendor is aware. If you utilize a vendor management system (VMS) or other software to maintain records for your contingent workforce, make sure they have the appropriate access and understand who to contact with any technical issues.
LEARN MORE | ‘6 Steps to Creating a Killer Contingent Talent Pipeline’
Getting the Right Technology
Speaking of contingent workforce technology, a VMS or other system for managing your program is a must. Not only can it improve your program’s efficiency, but it helps you mitigate risk. When hiring talent, a reliable VMS allows you to manage and store all the documentation required in one place. Likewise, it helps you ensure that candidate compliance doesn’t expire.
If you feel that’s too much to handle and you require help managing the in-house extended workforce program, you might need a partner to assist you in the process. In that case, VectorVMS’s Shared Managed Services (SMS) can help you optimize your program and ensure its compliance. SMS is a hybrid approach where you can directly manage your program while still receiving specialized services according to your needs.
Although compliance might seem like a complex process, it doesn’t have to be if you make all the necessary arrangements beforehand and have the right technology in place.
Want efficient ways to manage your contingent workforce? Download our ebook ‘4 Ways to Ensure Your Internally-Managed Contingent Workforce Program Is Compliant’. Alternatively, get in touch. We’d love to help!
Meet the Expert
Cindy Chunn – Senior Program Manager
Cindy Chunn was a seasoned Program Manager at VectorVMS. She served as a strategic partner to our clients, providing implementation support for our VMS technology and consultation services for contingent workforce program management. In her five years with VectorVMS, Cindy successfully led strategic business objectives, process improvements, and operational excellence for large and mid-market clients. Prior to VectorVMS, Cindy spent six years with Manpower as a regional director, overseeing multiple branches and large contingent workforce programs. She also served as a government solutions executive, blending public and private talent solutions for clients in the public sector.
