Managed staffing is a hot trend in the workplace. After all, the idea of hiring someone else to oversee all aspects of supplemental staff procurement, including choosing the staffing providers and monitoring quality and compliance assurance, can be very appealing.
At the same time, think about the responsibility you’d be handing over. That’s why relationship building is crucial to the success of a managed staffing program. And an important component of the relationship will be communication. Without it, you’ll only have blind hope that your staffing needs are being met effectively.
Here are some points to keep in mind when beginning and establishing a relationship with your managed staffing provider:
- You want to establish mutual respect. If you feel you are working with a team that supports and believes in your organization, you know a mutual resolution will be found.
- You want to experience responsiveness, open and candid communication and fair, balanced and constructive feedback—which is critical because it’s the key to performance improvement.
- You want to see shared values and priorities for client satisfaction and contractor relationships, coupled with the commitment to execute. These should include clear expectations and mutual accountability.
- You want to remember that technology can only take you so far. People are the real connectors that tie it all together and make it work. If relationships aren’t strong, then your business will struggle.
- You want to treat your decision to work with an MSP like you would any customer you’d consider working with. Do your research at the start. Once you’ve engaged with the MSP, treat it like your other choice relationships by cultivating and continuing to develop it. You are treated the way you treat others. If you want a good partner, be a good partner.
On a more tangible level, you’ll want to consider some practical criteria, also:
- Pay rate analysis. A proper analysis of pay rates for skills placed in different locations is a fair benchmark for how well the program is managed and how well it is performing from a cost perspective.
- Reporting transparency, accuracy, and ease. Examine the reporting process and evaluate the intelligence it provides to determine whether or not the data collection process is oriented toward company goals.
If you’d like to discuss the topic of managed staffing programs further, contact Contemporary Staffing. As a leading provider of Managed Staffing Programs, we’d be happy to share our expertise and help your business!