The US Bureau of Labor Statistics expects the labor force to grow by just 6.5 million workers by 2030. The figure is a reduction from the 10 million available for work in the decade leading to 2019, representing a workforce around half the size hirers could rely on in previous decades. Yet, at just 3.6 percent, unemployment remains relatively low.
The cause of the labor squeeze is a perfect storm of low population growth, together with changing attitudes to working in the post-COVID era and the closely linked ‘great resignation.’ These have prompted Goldman Sachs to describe the talent shortage as the most significant labor squeeze since WWII.
Tight conditions put power in workers' hands, forcing hiring organizations to bring robust talent acquisition and retention front and center of corporate strategy or risk falling victim to the stratospheric turnover rates that characterize today’s candidate-led market.
Tech will play an instrumental role as companies accelerate their recruitment processes and look toward new channels to attract candidates to fill the growing skills gap. It will also play a crucial part in retention—by enabling organizations to meet the modern workforce’s growing expectations around hybrid and remote-working.
Employers should see this as a moment of unprecedented challenge and opportunity: The extended workforce offers organizations the ability to increase agility, drive cost savings and add additional competencies.
With a centralized talent platform like Beeline, teams can maximize commercial opportunities by onboarding talent faster while improving the candidate experience. This article will look at how companies can use tech to kickstart future-proof talent acquisition strategies that leverage big data and automation to manage the extended workforce more effectively and profitably.
Data and Analytics
Talent scarcity is inflating the price of talent, and monitoring this cost is vital as the risks of overpaying for talent have never been higher.
Analyzing payment and billing rates across individuals on a granular level is also essential. Keeping overqualified personnel in positions can be costly. Organizations may discover that having a vacant role proves more costly in the long run than paying an increased rate to fill the position.
In addition to the increased financial burden for hiring organizations, overpaying can lead to complacency and stifle professional development as staff face little motivation to upskill and climb the career ladder.
Data could help you find the right balance when tackling all these challenges and more.
However, research shows that only 38 percent of organizations have systems in place to manage their non-employee workforce. This means that 62 percent cannot account for contingent workers in workforce planning and budgeting.
The analytic insight provided by a sophisticated extended workforce management platform like Beeline could, for example, help recruiters streamline their recruitment budgets. Predicting how effective ads will be can reduce inefficient spending and allow teams to focus more resources on proven sources of successful hires.
It can also help organizations improve retention by identifying and addressing turnover patterns and making data-driven staffing decisions that consistently support broader organizational strategy.
Resource Tracking
Without a centralized view of the global workforce, enterprises lack accurate, real-time headcount visibility. Service workers, contingent workers, and other non-employee labor can be overlooked when project planning, which exposes organizations to under or over-hiring and excessive spend.
By automating onboarding and offboarding processes, business can ensure that non-employees enjoy the same work experience as the conventional workforce and they can present candidates with the streamlined experience that is vital for maintaining and retaining talent over the long term.
Talent Discovery - Direct Sourcing
Employers are now more digitally connected than ever to candidates and potential employees.
But organizations can be overwhelmed by the options available for sourcing labor, creating a ‘paralysis by analysis’ situation. This may result in a lengthy time to fill critical positions as vendors undertake extensive recruitment and vetting.
Beeline cuts through the complexity with direct sourcing, which gives hirers access to a global talent pool directly from the dashboard. By integrating public and private talent pools into the sourcing process, Beeline’s direct sourcing platform reduces talent acquisition costs and cuts the time to fill positions by at least 20 percent.
Compliance
Organizations across the spectrum of industries are seeing increased compliance burdens that can slow talent acquisition and lead to potentially fatal legal, reputational, and financial penalties if not addressed.
Companies operating in complex legislative environments like finance, health, and energy can also design custom, auditable capture points for industry-specific competency, qualifications, and other compliance data capture.
Tech has a role to play here, too. The centralized control described earlier gives recruiters a global overview of the compliance status of its entire workforce, including non-employees and contingent workers, who can often be overlooked.
Future-Proof Your Talent Acquisition
Beeline’s sophisticated, flexible VMS has been at the forefront of talent acquisition and retention for over 350 global organizations for over two decades.
With automated, data-driven solutions for extended workforce management, Beeline is the powerhouse helping 30 percent of FORTUNE 500® companies reduce costs, mitigate risks, enhance workforce visibility, improve efficiency, and increase productivity.
Request a demo to find out what Beeline can do for your organization.
