Five trends in the world of work and how recruiters can future-proof their businesses by ensuring administrative needs are automated, digitised and integrated.
As we go into the 2020s, managed contractor care is changing to accommodate the shifts the world has seen. If you understand what these changes mean, you can put systems in place now to grow and transform your agency and strengthen it against further disruptions.
TREND 1: Internal recruitment is making a comeback…
While there is a discernible move towards more internal promotions and in-house recruitment as corporates look to contain costs, it is highly likely that skilled and experienced contractors will remain in demand. Their specialist knowledge means they will be more sought-after than ever to work on important projects where outcomes are more essential than tasks. Permanent staff will handle task-driven work while contractors will be brought in to achieve quicker results on important projects.
Of course, contractor candidates understand their value and companies know that there is a limited pool of this kind of specialist talent. So, the chances are good that ‘your’ contractors and ‘your’ clients are both in touch with other recruiters as contractors look for the best possible deals and clients look for the best possible workers.
This level of competition is tough so bringing your A-game is crucial if you want to grow or transform your business. One way of ensuring you can keep contractors and clients loyal, is to make sure they have a seamless contract-management system in place. If all your onboarding, contracts, timesheets, invoicing and payroll roll out faultlessly, both clients and contractors will have the best possible experience. Not only that, but having a digital backend in place that automatically handles everything from OH&S checklists to ATO compliance frees up your time to nurture these all-important relationships to keep retention high.
TREND 2: Recruitment via social media is growing
There’s no doubt about it: social media is now one of the biggest drivers of contractor recruitment. In order to stay ahead of the pack, you need to spend a lot of effort targeting and managing your channels, which can be very time-consuming, especially when it comes to engaging with potential leads. Like almost everything in your career, what you put in, is what you get out of social media.
Again, there’s no stopping this trend so investing in specialist contractor-care software that automatically handles the placement aspects of your business lets you focus on core tasks like building better relationships with your clients, sourcing candidates and optimizing your social-media recruitment drives.
Look for a SaaS model that allows you to pull detailed reports that show how your placements are performing so you can compare how much time and budget you spent sourcing these candidates. This will quickly show you if your social media recruitment is producing a ROI or if you need to scale up.
TREND 3: Will hybrid workplaces mean you never switch off?
Working from home, flexible hours and working remotely – once the preserve of a few enlightened companies - are now firmly entrenched in society. But having contractors and clients who no longer work a standard 9-5, Monday-Friday schedule and who may be working several time zones away from you, means you may find yourself juggling unsustainable hours and seeing that crucial ability to sometimes ‘switch off’ slipping away from you.
So, on top of overseeing your agency’s social media recruitment drives, finding ways of ensuring loyalty and brainstorming on how to increase retention, you also have to be at your clients’ and contractors’ beck and call should they choose to be working at 4am on a Saturday morning.
As always, automating and digitising your back-office functions will put you in a much better position to handle all these demands on your time. Handling the demands of contractors who are part of a ‘distributed workforce’ will be made so much easier if your software can handle routine tasks for you.
Good Advice
Handling the demands of contractors who are part of a ‘distributed workforce’ will be made so much easier if your software can handle routine tasks for you.
TREND 4: Specialist industries have shifted
While growth sectors are fairly stable and overarching services like finance, accounting, IT, project management, business administration and science-based professions remain important, sought-after specialisations within each are altering.
Rare skills in cybersecurity, e-learning, virtual reality, biotechnology, renewable energy, supply-chain resilience, PPE production, pharmaceuticals and online fitness, gaming and entertainment are in high demand across the world. If you need to grow your contractor book or transform the bank of clients you work with to reflect this, again, you’re going to have to focus your energy and time on your core business, not admin.
TREND 5: Integration, integration, integration…
While the mantra was once ‘data, data, data’, it is now equally crucial that as many of your moving parts are as integrated as possible. Where everyone once had a CD player, a television, a DVD player and a telephone and we now have a single smart device that can do it all, the same is true for your contractor-care business. Putting a best-of-breed SaaS (software as a service) model in place in place will ensure that your onboarding, contracts, timesheets, invoicing and payroll functions seamlessly connect with one another.
Once your business reaches a certain turnover or you are concluding complex deals that involve commissions and so on, you should seriously consider upgrading your existing SaaS to extend to governance and reporting. The best SaaS options for managed contractor care will include Australian Tax Office reporting management, direct payment of PAYG to the ATO, state payroll tax reporting, commissions and placement reports, and super clearing house management – all configurable and customisable for your specific needs.
SaaS options like Platinum Workforce Management are constantly being optimised to ensure they offer as much integration as possible and that users are always at the forefront of new contractor-care technology without even realising it so they can concentrate on finding and retaining optimal clients and contractors.
Good Advice
Once your business reaches a certain turnover or you are concluding complex deals that involve commissions, you should seriously consider upgrading your existing SaaS to extend to governance and reporting.