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Cutting Through the Noise: How to Run a Global Contingent Workforce Program That Works
41 Plays24 days ago
The world of contingent workforce management loves its big ideas and fancy buzzwords — but at the end of the day, it’s all about getting the right people in the right place at the right time. In this episode, we sit down with Daniel Kalman, Head of Global Contingent Labor Operations & Vendor Management at ZT Systems, who’s doing exactly that. He’s leading a massive global program, working directly with staffing partners, and focusing on what actually moves the needle: people, process, and partnerships.
If you’re in staffing sales, talent acquisition, or workforce management, this episode offers the kind of real-world, straight-talk advice you need to hear.
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Transcript
Introduction to Simplifying Workforce Management
00:00:00
Speaker
The world of contingent workforce management is filled with big ideas, shiny buzzwords, and a lot of noisy and complicated ways to say, get the right people in the right place at the right time.
00:00:10
Speaker
Today, we're keeping it simple. We're talking to somebody who's actually is doing it He's running a massive global contingent workforce program, working directly with staffing partners and cutting through the noise to focus on what really matters, people, process, and partnerships.
00:00:25
Speaker
If you're in staffing, sales, talent acquisition, or workforce management, you're gonna wanna stick around. This conversation is packed with real world advice you wish more people would share. Welcome to Staffing Made Simple, a podcast series powered by Simple VMS.
00:00:42
Speaker
Welcome back to Staffing Made Simple, the podcast where staffing, sales, and workforce management meet real talk and occasionally a bad joke. I'm Casey Wagonfield, longtime staffing guy who's learned most of his lessons the hard way in this industry.
00:00:56
Speaker
And I'm here with my buddy, my co-host, and SVP at Simple VMS, the man who's basically the Bill Belichick of VMS strategy, Rob
Career Path in Workforce Management
00:01:04
Speaker
Geis. What's going on, Rob? Hey, Casey. I'm going with the New England Patriot, prime Bill Belichick, not Tar Heels Bill Belichick, but nice to be here.
00:01:14
Speaker
Glad to have the guests we have on today. Fair. That's fair. Yes. And today we do have Daniel Kalman joining us. If you don't know him yet, you're about to. He's leading a monster contingent workforce program at ZT Systems.
00:01:27
Speaker
He's also been a leader at Bank of America, VP at Guiding Global. He was actually named a contingent workforce game changer by staffing industry analysts at the Contingent Workforce Summit in 2024.
00:01:38
Speaker
And he actually just recently spoke at this year, 2025 ProcureCon. Daniel, we appreciate you joining Rob and I. And I guess before we get into it, I got to know there's not any kids that go to school and say, i want to run a ah contingent workforce program or or an MSP
In-House Program vs MSP
00:01:54
Speaker
program. So maybe you can just tell us little bit about how you got into this industry. And it sounds like you're a lifer now.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely, Casey. And Rob, thanks for having me here today. i will add that If you're gonna talk Bill Belichick, if you're gonna talk sports, you're talking to a New York guy who's a Jets fan. So let's go with some other types of coaches here. But all kidding aside, how did I get in here? um You mentioned something that's quite interesting. Most people don't target this industry. They sort of fall into it.
00:02:23
Speaker
I'm gonna be that random person that you'll meet over the course of your professional career who actually targeted it. Went to school, human resources management major, All I wanted to do when I graduated was be a recruiter.
00:02:37
Speaker
It was really the only jobs I was targeting 20 years ago and started off as an IT recruiter. Turns out, pretty bad at it. But I loved the industry. and from there, the customer that we were supporting at the time had a large MSP.
00:02:52
Speaker
It was ran by chimes, so I might be dating myself. And they had an opportunity. And it was exactly what I wanted to do, was be on the operational side to staffing, as opposed to the recruiting or the sales component to it.
00:03:06
Speaker
And from there, launched 15-year MSP career between Chimes, Pontoon, and Guiding Global. And then most recently made the move to go in-house a few years ago to run an in-house program.
00:03:18
Speaker
That's awesome. Well, you are the exception, I think.
00:03:23
Speaker
And I'll take the Bill Parcells of VMS strategy. He's the Joe Namath. How about that? There we go. All right, Daniel, before we go too far into the trenches with everyone, since you've been on both sides, can you break down the difference between running your own program internally with a VMS versus a company who hires an MSP to run it?
00:03:44
Speaker
I think the main thing that it really boils down to is resources. What I do is sort of niche to companies, right? It's a specialist kind of a role. And there's not going to be a whole lot of people that do this type of work.
00:03:55
Speaker
There are certainly exceptions, those that are more mature and further along with their journey. They've maybe built out a team. And they have a manager and a director and there's collaboration between procurement and HR.
00:04:07
Speaker
Those again are more exceptions, I think, to the norm. For me, working at ZT Systems, one of the things that became apparent is I am the only one that does it here.
Managing Workforce Without VMS
00:04:17
Speaker
And, you know, when you talk about getting reporting and analysis, creating process flows and integrating our invoicing, these are all first generation type conversations in-house. And so I'll answer Casey and Rob with that is one of the big differences.
00:04:34
Speaker
And MSP has this established process. They have a reporting team. They have an implementation team and a project management team. and a data team and a VMS configuration team, and they have all these different resources available to them.
00:04:49
Speaker
When you're in-house, you're not gonna have a 50-person team that's supporting your contingent labor program. And so we have to get a bit more creative and resource constraints are certainly things that we go up against sometimes.
00:05:01
Speaker
And sometimes probably wear different hats, I'm assuming. Absolutely. yeah and you And you manage a huge global program without an MSP in the middle. What do you think is the hardest part of running it internally that people might not realize? I'll probably go back to the resource constraints of it all. For us, we've experienced tremendous growth over the last 5, 10 years.
00:05:24
Speaker
Growth that brought us from a few hundred contractors to into the thousands. But I do think that along that journey, it became apparent that we need a VMS system. And currently, we really don't have one.
00:05:37
Speaker
And so we have to get creative. How do we get headcount reporting and spend reporting and attrition data? All of this information and these data points that allow us to make informed decisions.
Role of Agency Partners
00:05:48
Speaker
So we get scrappy. So you talked about putting processes in place. So when you're managing it yourself without an MSP as a buffer, how do you keep your suppliers aligned and accountable without being the bad guy all the time?
00:06:00
Speaker
It's a great question, Rob. We have a really, I would say, integrated team that supports the contract labor operation. And what I mean by that is there is direct involvement with our council.
00:06:13
Speaker
There is direct involvement with our HR business partners. There is direct involvement with our talent acquisition team and so on and so forth. And it enables us to operate a bit more cohesively, even though we're internally managed.
00:06:28
Speaker
and we don't have all the bells and whistles and the extensive teams that are necessary to run a more robust operation. So acknowledging that we're resource constraints, acknowledging that we're going to have to get scrappy.
00:06:41
Speaker
Look, sometimes I'm the project manager, I'm the data analyst, I'm the implementation person, and I'm the admin. So it's a really lonely killer Christmas party all by myself. Well, the fact that you have a workforce that large and you're doing it without a VMS is just a testament to you running a program.
00:06:58
Speaker
But i do want to talk a little bit about the staffing side. Obviously, we have a large staffing following.
Effective Sales Strategies
00:07:02
Speaker
It's simple. Other than making sure that people come and are on time for work, what role do your agency partners play in keeping it run smoothly?
00:07:10
Speaker
So a lot of people talk about those differentiating factors. That's certainly something that is of value. Those that can continue to innovate and bring new shiny objects to the table and allow us to evaluate which ones may be best for us to utilize.
00:07:26
Speaker
I think that our staffing agencies are the ones that are driving most of the innovation in this industry. That said, for me, what's most valuable is probably our agencies acting as an extension of our team, representing our company in the right light, selling who ZT Systems is, what our culture is like, what it's like to be here and work here.
00:07:49
Speaker
It's kind of like you're acting as though you're part of the talent acquisition team that I sit in That's what drives value. It helps with our candidate attraction. It helps make sure we get the right people here.
00:08:01
Speaker
And it's really just about quality. Sounds like communication too then. So making sure that they know your company, your roles and what you need to be successful. Yeah, communication is going to be key, right? It's that branding in the marketplace. It's the messaging out there to candidates and having that be consistent with what our talent acquisition team is doing for full-time hiring.
00:08:21
Speaker
That alignment, that communication, Casey, to your point, is really critical. So Casey and I, we're sales guys, and we have a large following of salespeople from the staffing world. And I'm sure every staffing firm has probably called on you at some point or another,
00:08:37
Speaker
I couldn't imagine what your email and voicemails actually look like, but give us some ideas of some things some staffing agencies has done on the sales side that have turned you off in the past and better yet, some things you've heard that said, okay, these people get it. I'm going to have a conversation with them and let them take it to the next level.
00:08:53
Speaker
All right. So now we're going to have some fun. No, I mean, look, I commend our partners out there and specifically those that are tasked with selling. like It is not an easy job.
00:09:06
Speaker
It is a constant grind. It's not something that just comes without a tremendous amount of research and effort and alignment and warm intro. So I give a lot of respect to those that are selling. Now, from my perspective, there's good selling and then there's selling that could use improvement.
00:09:25
Speaker
Good selling is researching who you're selling into. Good selling is making sure that you're not just automating and using some of the AI automation features out there that simply plug in your name to an email, but it's at a different font, different size, maybe different coloring.
00:09:44
Speaker
And it looks so obvious. And that tells me, did you really think about this much? Or are you just doing some mail blast, mail merges? I would say probably doing the research of who you're reaching out to as well. So not just the company and what we do, but the role of the individual that you're trying to get in touch with.
00:10:03
Speaker
Are they in procurement? Are they on the business side? Are they in talent acquisition or HR? And catering that messaging, that outreach accordingly. We are an internally managed program.
00:10:15
Speaker
And I've had people reach out over the last few years that have been here and
Benefits of VMS and Program Decisions
00:10:19
Speaker
they'll say things like, hey, we support all the largest and MSPs out there. And we work through all the VMSs and we know them well. And we'll be a great partner for you.
00:10:28
Speaker
Well, guess what? We don't use an MSP and we don't have a VMS. So all of those talk tracks that you just led with are completely unrelevant to how we do things. So I think knowing your audience, knowing the company.
00:10:42
Speaker
ZT Systems is a privately held company. There's not a tremendous amount of information out there. But if you looked at our website, you very quickly see that we make hyperscale servers and we're into that high compute storage and processing area amongst other things.
00:10:56
Speaker
So I think that there's a lot of really simple, easily accessible information out there that people can get their hands on. And go back to the customized approach. And I think there's so much out there now to not be personalized.
00:11:10
Speaker
And everybody says it, but very few people do it, right? Like personalize to your point, not just the company, but find something about you that's personal. I've worked with people too that bad grammar. Like you said, four different fonts. It's like, are you really going to send that email?
00:11:25
Speaker
But I'm curious, what percentage of sales emails do you get have personalizations? A 10% less than that? Great question. I'm probably going to go with somewhere in the maybe 10 to 15 percent, 10 to 20 percent.
00:11:44
Speaker
I definitely don't see more than one out of five. I can tell you that. It's interesting. I had sales email the other day that actually quoted me from the Staffing Made Simple podcast. And was like, daggone it, I got to talk to this guy.
00:11:59
Speaker
Right. But Rob, you just nailed it on the head. Because when you do get personalized, when you do do that research and you go that extra step to make sure you're really hitting your target audience the way you want to be perceived,
00:12:14
Speaker
Look at that success rate, right? You talk to this person who quoted you from the podcast and you were instantly like, yeah, I'm responding to that guy. Absolutely. I think it's something you can't always teach. You can suggest it, but Casey and I have talked about this on other podcasts.
00:12:30
Speaker
It's kind of a lifestyle and some people are just born to do it. They love that opportunity to hear somebody on a podcast and say, I'm going to use this to reach out to them. So it does go a long way. And I completely agree with your philosophy on that.
00:12:43
Speaker
There's a ton of buzz words out there and just buzz in general in the industry, things like AI, curation, direct sourcing, total talent. From your seat, what's actually useful and not just a distraction in talent acquisition?
00:12:57
Speaker
So I would say it's going to be different for everybody. It depends on the complexity of your staffing operation, the scope of your staffing operation, geography and skill sets and things like that. For us, we do a ton of industrial hiring.
00:13:14
Speaker
And so we're able to go with a much more simple supply-based strategy. We can go with a very small amount, give them an extreme bulk amount of volume,
00:13:25
Speaker
The approach that we took was putting one vendor at each of our manufacturing sites, and we happen to have three main ones. And that has worked well because they are getting a lot of business They stay interested. They're able to be on site.
00:13:38
Speaker
But that may not work for one of our competitors who perhaps has a ton of IT or professional staffing, right? There's going to be a different supply base. But Rob, more specifically, in answer to your question about shiny objects and what works, there's a lot of tools out there that have popped up over the last...
00:13:56
Speaker
call it five, 10 years, from talent pooling and marketplaces and curation and direct hire. i mean, there is a lot out there. What I would say to anybody listening, whether you're selling the product or whether perhaps you're a peer and a buyer, evaluate your business.
00:14:13
Speaker
Understand what it is that you ultimately need And I think building a strategy or perhaps even an ah RFP process around those needs is probably a good starting point.
00:14:25
Speaker
This
Impact of Industry Focus and Relationships
00:14:26
Speaker
is recruiting. And people say it's not rocket science, right? And it's true. And I think we have a tendency to overcomplicate. And it's like, hey, I need good people. I need them quickly. And I need them priced competitively.
00:14:38
Speaker
And of course, maintain compliance as we go through those three things. And in its most basic form, that to me is the pillars of success. I want to ask question to Daniel, you'd mentioned, obviously, you were run a a huge contingent workforce program, you're not currently using a VMS. And I can imagine everything that goes along without not having that centralization and doing it to your point, a lot of it by yourself, too.
00:15:01
Speaker
And you mentioned that that's something that you may even entertain and look into. What was it that made you say, all right, there might be a benefit in us implementing a VMS? I know you've used them in the past, but what now?
00:15:12
Speaker
Well, mean, just the sheer volume that we go up against, right? As I mentioned, we're not tens or hundreds, but we're thousands. And when you have that plethora of volume, really, you need a way to keep track of it all.
00:15:25
Speaker
I think compliance and legalities are becoming more and more. prevalent in these programs. People realize the risk factor. And so for us, I'd love to be able to say, yeah, we have a single point of entry for our new hire provisioning and also for deprovisioning and offboarding.
00:15:45
Speaker
I'd love to be able to click a button and say, hey, here's all of our spend and our headcount, and here's our attrition rates, here's our tenure rates. Really all of those different data points that we track in a VMS, whether it's on the job posting or the work order, being able to report out on that is just immensely valuable, and it gives you consistency.
00:16:05
Speaker
The way we're doing it right now is we're scrappy, and we rely on our vendor partners a tremendous amount. And I have to hope that the data is clean. And I have to hope that it's been properly scrubbed. And have to hope that I get it on time. And there's too much hoping.
00:16:21
Speaker
And so having that control in-house, having that consistency, and then of course, all the other benefits about a single point of entry. There's no price tag that you can put on that. So if I'm a company, whether it's a food manufacturer with a couple hundred temps or contingent workers or a it t company with a thousand, and I'm deciding whether I should go through an MSP or manage it myself, how do they even start making that decision? I think you touched on a little bit on just sheer size too and resources, but if you could expand on that, where they would start.
00:16:52
Speaker
So a lot of times there's not much of a question of the value that an MSP can bring. I think everybody can admit that there's great things that and MSPs can do.
00:17:03
Speaker
I don't want this response to sound anti-MSP because that's not the case. But I do think that there has been in ah sort of an evolution within the MSP space for quite some time.
00:17:16
Speaker
If you were trying to stand up a contract labor program 20 years ago, the available resources that you had in the marketplace that had that knowledge and that skill set was limited. And now fast forward 20 years, you have a lot of people that i have either done this in-house, maybe they sat in procurement, maybe they worked for an MSP, maybe they sat in HR, but they've done it, right? And they have experience and they can do it for you.
00:17:42
Speaker
So in that regard, there's sort of like an upheaval of the MSP world in that there's a lot of competition. And then look at it further. We were talking before about shiny objects that agencies can bring forth.
00:17:55
Speaker
Agencies are saying, hey, we have a VMS, by the way, or we have an MSP arm. And it might be smaller, but they got some of the basics down. We have a reporting, an analytics suite, or we can do direct sourcing. We can do curation.
00:18:08
Speaker
We can do payroll, AOR, EOR. And so there's just a tremendous amount of competition. And I feel like the market has gotten a bit saturated in a good way, healthy competition. With that, sure, there's ah there's definitely a shift happening right now.
00:18:24
Speaker
Sure. Well, i think you kind of explained yourself too, right? People moving around come from the MSP world. Now they're on the internal world where they lived it. Now they know how to run it efficiently themselves. Going back to your earlier question there, what's the best advice that I could give for someone trying to determine whether to go with an MSP or not?
00:18:41
Speaker
Look at what resources you have available, what kind of buy-in that you're going to have, and your complexities. We've been able to manage in-house so because of the saturation or the repetitive nature of our hiring.
00:18:53
Speaker
Like I mentioned, it's heavily focused on industrial. But if I'm looking at a company that maybe they have staffing happening in 10 plus countries and very diverse skill sets from professional to IT to industrial, and they have a whole lot of freelancers and other things, then yeah, that might make the case to have an outside expert come in and help you along the journey.
00:19:16
Speaker
So it's going to be unique for everybody. Along that same vein, I think there are a ton of staffing firms out there who are looking to get into the MSP space, and they might be a commercial industrial staffing provider.
Key Vendor Partnership Factors
00:19:31
Speaker
Is that industry the best industry for an MSP? And second part of that question is, I think commercial industrial staffing is the most relationship-driven staffing that is currently out there.
00:19:44
Speaker
Does having an MSP take away from that relationship, and could it impact that? Not trying to badmouth the MSP side, but just talking about you know specific industries and relationships and how important that is.
00:19:54
Speaker
You said you have a lot of industrial staffing. Is that maybe the reason why you don't have an MSP? Because it's such a relationship-driven industry and you need to have relationships with your vendors and MSP might not be the best fit for industrial staffing?
00:20:09
Speaker
You know, for us, we went with the master vendor on-premise sort of model where we have a select few main manufacturing hubs around the globe. And then we selected one partner to sit on site in each of those locations.
00:20:23
Speaker
And because they're a master vendor on site without competition, we turned to them to handle not only the delivery, We turn to them to handle the ER matters that may come up because they're on site.
00:20:36
Speaker
We turn to them for all of the reporting and analytics for their folks that are on site. We turn to them for the time clocks that are on site. And again, that model just works for us based on our skillset makeup and based on our geographical layout.
00:20:53
Speaker
But if there's more complexity, larger scope, different types of skillsets, you're building the case for a more complex solution being needed. Totally makes sense. and What's it take for a staffing agency to become your go-to vendor, your master vendor at of your sites?
00:21:10
Speaker
Consistency, no surprises, understanding the business, and really embodying that partnership approach and mentality.
00:21:20
Speaker
When I say consistency, I think that's straightforward, but being your number one supplier, not just today or this week or next week or this month, but doing that month after month.
00:21:32
Speaker
There's been plenty of times where we get something sprung on us like, oh, by the way, we can't convert this person because of buth blah blah, blah, blah, even though we have things spelt out in the contract. Understanding the business, that's probably paramount out of all of these. Knowing what you're recruiting for will only make you a stronger recruiter.
00:21:49
Speaker
And a lot of people just focus on the industry and the skill set. But it goes beyond that. It's the industry. It's the product. What are they producing? What is the service offering of that customer that you're servicing?
00:22:01
Speaker
And then being a partner. We don't need to retire off of one or two deals. We should focus on the bigger picture, the long run. There's going to be deals you do really well on.
00:22:12
Speaker
And there's going deals that are a little bit tighter because maybe you had keep the same bill rate and give the person ah a pay increase, right? there's There's going to be that fluctuation of margins and opportunity.
00:22:23
Speaker
And I think just keeping the partner mindset in mind along that journey. i love that you said no surprises too, because it's staffing, right? There's always surprises. When he said that, like, all right, he's had some surprises in his time.
00:22:36
Speaker
That's awesome. That's how an agency can become your ride or die partner, right? But what about how can they get cut quick from your list? So let's say companies that overpromise, that's going to immediately come to light. Yeah, we can support you in all of your locations and all of your skill sets.
00:22:53
Speaker
And then you send them a heavy industrial wreck. where the person needs to lift 50 pounds and suddenly there's no resumes and you dig into that to understand why and they're like oh yeah sorry our risk department said no or insurance provider said no and it's like well what about all that one in a million talk back there so we see that over promising and the sales team that sold the account is there and then after about a month or two or three months four months later That salesperson is moving on to their new endeavors, righteously so.
00:23:27
Speaker
And the account management team that takes over is just not plugged in the same way. They're not checking in. They're not staying close to your managers or to your talent acquisition or procurement team. And so they're kind of going silent.
00:23:39
Speaker
Everything kind of slips from there. i would say, Casey, that's probably the two main things that'll cause someone to be removed from servicing us. Yeah, that's a huge problem. and Just staffing in general is just over-promising and under-delivering.
00:23:53
Speaker
Your point too, the salesperson's doing their job, but at the end of the day, it's the operations and and and other team that's actually fostering the relationship and finding the people for you. So let's talk numbers.
00:24:04
Speaker
How do you actually measure whether an agency is performing and what KPIs are you guys watching in your program? So again, heavy industrial focus, we're looking at fill rate, time to fill. We're looking at the retention.
00:24:16
Speaker
We are looking at, for the non-industrial skill sets, candidate quality and the higher ratios. We look at the engagement with surveys out to our hiring managers.
00:24:26
Speaker
And then I would say we look at compliance. Compliance with the contract, compliance with the law, compliance with our policies. And speaking of engagement, I mean obviously the folks that are coming on site to work at your facilities from those agencies want to be treated well. How important is that to you? Just the engagement that they have with their agencies and how they're treated?
00:24:47
Speaker
This is always something I hear about, no matter what the client is, and matter what the skill set was, no matter what the location or country was.
Worker Engagement and Tech Implementation
00:24:57
Speaker
This always comes up.
00:24:59
Speaker
It's always about what kind of engagement does the worker have with their employer, the staffing agency. Those that have really good engagement models or check-in or health checks, those are the ones we hear the least amount of noise from.
00:25:15
Speaker
And there are plenty that focus on getting the deal, getting the placement, and then they move on to the next placement. And that contractor never hears from their staffing company ever again outside of getting paychecks.
00:25:27
Speaker
So engagement is high up on the list and it comes to light way more than our staffing partners may realize because who does that contractor talk to every day? Their supervisor, which is an employee of ours.
00:25:40
Speaker
So we get that information really easily. And I would stress that as something that it's not a moneymaker, but it's absolutely unnecessary costs for all supplier partners out there.
00:25:52
Speaker
so it sounds like, I mean, you've personally seen how engagement with their employees affects retention. And I mean, people stay longer. Without a doubt. Sometimes it's such a simple thing of somebody just wants to be heard and they want vent.
00:26:06
Speaker
And if a contractor can talk to their employer, the staffing agency, and they can just vent for five, 10 minutes, and they did that once a month. That could be the difference between someone resigning or someone deciding to work another day.
00:26:20
Speaker
It's not rocket science, but i do feel like sometimes we lose sight of the most basic elements of this business. Absolutely. and Back to tech.
00:26:31
Speaker
Everybody's talking about AI, automation, predictive analytics. What do you think staffing agencies should do when it comes to their own tech operations and how should they balance that?
00:26:42
Speaker
Make sure it works. What do I mean by that? There is so much AI, and we all heard about this over the last like five or so years, about the person that is a college student, and they go into ChatGPT and they say, write me an essay on this, this, and that, and it spits out this essay.
00:26:59
Speaker
But when you go through the facts and you fact check that essay, Some of those things didn't even check out. It wasn't valid information. wasn't accurate. And so I'll apply that mentality to agencies using tech.
00:27:12
Speaker
Make sure it's really accomplishing what you want it to accomplish. That could be how it filters out resumes or how it scorecards resumes. When we think about different tech stats that do scorecarding and ranking of candidates, it could be ones that do technical evaluations.
00:27:31
Speaker
All of that stuff is great. And you can't get through a business conversation these days without mentioning ai But if you're using AI or whatever tech, make sure it's really marching towards what you're looking to achieve.
00:27:43
Speaker
Don't just plug it in there because you're going to use it as a selling angle for some prospects. All right, Daniel, before we wrap up, what's something you think people in our space aren't talking enough about right now that maybe we should be?
00:27:55
Speaker
I would say staffing operations, whether you're a staffing agency, a tech provider, some sort of a service provider, or if you're an in-house buyer like myself, in the most basic sense, these programs, these staffing operations, these services, these techs,
00:28:13
Speaker
They're all about servicing the hiring manager and getting the hiring manager what they need. And I mentioned pillars of success earlier, right? So in a timely manner, high quality, priced competitively with compliance.
00:28:27
Speaker
So when we design these programs, I'm thinking from an in-house perspective here, there needs to be cross collaboration across procurement, across talent acquisition and HR.
00:28:38
Speaker
across legal, finance, right? Everybody needs to acknowledge that we're setting these programs up to service our hiring managers and make sure that they're getting what they need. And the second that that pendulum starts to swing too much in one direction, that's when we start to get off base.
00:28:56
Speaker
For example, if we make this too much about cost savings and the rate card and markups, we're going to compromise something. If we make this all about integrations and technology, is it a good user experience for the hiring manager?
00:29:11
Speaker
And so you can keep giving those examples as you go through each part of the organization. It's got to be balanced. I would strongly recommend a governance committee. And I think that the same applies whether you're in-house, whether you use a VMS, whether you use an MSP, there needs to be some sort of governance committee.
00:29:29
Speaker
And if there's none of that and you're a staffing partner, you probably have a ton of autonomy and flexibility in selling your solution. And I would like to think that suppliers of staffing services may breed and thrive when there is a lack of that governance in place.
Advice for Staffing Agencies
00:29:46
Speaker
Yeah, well said.
00:29:47
Speaker
If you could give any of the staffing agencies trying to break into the enterprise space with the contingent programs, but advice what advice would that be? Have your ducks in a row because servicing the mom and pop accounting firm or a smaller size company, it's a lot easier. There's a lot more flexibility. They don't have someone grueling through the contracts.
00:30:07
Speaker
They're not going to have someone perhaps measuring your submittal to hire or submittal to interview to hire ratios. But when you start to go with the bigger players, you better believe that they are looking at those things and they're going to give you a tough contract.
00:30:20
Speaker
and their expectations are going to be high in terms of delivery of candidates. So really be ready for it. And again, know who you're selling, know who you're going to be supporting, know them well.
00:30:32
Speaker
Well, Daniel, this has been awesome. Really appreciate you jumping on and talking with us. Yeah, my absolute pleasure. Appreciate you guys having me here. And everybody listening, thanks for hanging out with us again here on Staffing Made Simple, brought to you by Simple
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:30:45
Speaker
VMS.
00:30:45
Speaker
If you got value from this one, go ahead and hit subscribe, share it, send it to your team, whatever helps get more people talking smarter about staffing and make it simple. And as always, if you'd like to learn more about Simple VMS and how we can help simplify your staffing program for both clients and staffing agencies, head on over to simplevms.com.
00:31:04
Speaker
Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next episode of Staffing Made Simple. This has been an episode of Staffing Made Simple, powered by SimpleVMS, the vendor-friendly VMS.