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Contingent talent branding: Need of the hour




Talent shortage has been a consistent theme while talking to talent acquisition practitioners across multiple industries and in different continents. It is confusing as well as interesting that whether it is the global recession of the past decade or the strong employments numbers this year, employers continually face talent issues. However, after going a bit deeper, one can understand that firstly, the shortage is for qualified and skilled talent and secondly, it’s the enterprise lack of expertise in attracting and engaging the workers which is leading to these talent issues. While enterprises realized that the scarcity problem is perennial, they focused their energies on engaging and attracting talent. This resulted in emergence and adoption of employer branding as a potent weapon for organizations in their fight against talent attraction and retention.

In recent years, employer branding has gained lot of traction in HR circles and talent organizations looking to attract and engage scarce and skilled talent due to its effectiveness and visible results. While employer branding has been a key focus area for permanent employees, there hasn’t been any significant investment by organizations in attracting and engaging their contingent talent. 

One of the reasons for this lack of interest and investment is the transactional and cost-oriented approach of procurement departments who have the primary ownership of procuring contingent labor. The role of contingent workers has often been limited to fulfilling vacancies whenever a permanent employee went on leave or the enterprise needed supplemental labor rather than taking a planned and programmatic approach. Additionally, until few years back, there was no scarcity of contingent labor as compared to permanent labor.

However, enterprises need to be cognizant of the fact that as the role of contingent talent evolves, and it becomes an integral part of the entire talent ecosystem, they will need contingent talent branding to attract and engage this contingent talent. Below are some factors which makes it all the more important for enterprises to have a consistent and well-developed contingent talent branding strategy.

Increasingly specialized contingent talent: In recent years, contingent talent has emerged to be a constant source of skill and expertise lacked in-house including some niche and specialized skills. Similar to permanent talent, these experts are in high demand and are chased by multiple enterprises. Leveraging contingent talent brand to attract and retain these experts signifying that they are a valued part of the organization becomes increasingly important

Direct sourcing of contingent workers: With emergence of online talent platforms and FMS (Freelancer Management Systems), enterprises are increasing looking to directly source contingent labor instead of just relying on staffing agencies. As these enterprises lack the scale and expertise of staffing firms, it becomes imperative for them to create an effective contingent talent brand to attract contingent workers

Multiple engagements with same contingent worker: The laws and regulations surrounding contingent worker engagement makes it difficult to leverage them consistently and continuously over a longer period. As a result, buyers have to let go off these contingent workers and engage them after required time gap. In absence of proper contingent talent branding strategy, sourcing the same candidate will entail repeating the whole sourcing cycle. However, a strong contingent talent brand can helps engage the contingent worker even when he is not working for the enterprise which subsequently results in reduced time and cost of sourcing the worker

Third-party play in contingent workforce sourcing: Third parties such as staffing companies and MSPs are core to the entire contingent talent ecosystem. These parties are important interaction points between the enterprise and the contingent worker. A contingent talent brand can make sure that a consistent experience is provided to candidate across all interactions with these parties. This will not only help the enterprise but will also enable supplier to source talent quickly and effectively

As contingent talent brand becomes important and enterprises seek to make it a more integral piece of their contingent workforce strategy, they will to take guidance from prior implementations and experiment internally to identify the best strategy for themselves.

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