HIGHLIGHTS
To tackle complex projects, today’s workforce must extend beyond permanent hires. According to research by Ardent Partners, 40
percent of the current global workforce comprises
non-employees, including independent contractors,
freelancers and professional services. This number is
expected to rise up to 50 percent by 2020.
Deloitte Australia is engaging this growing
group of contingent workers with processes
tailored to contractors’ needs and lifestyle.
“Our response to this trend, and our method of
engaging with contractors, is to ensure that we’re
future-proofing ourselves and becoming more
agile as we get bigger,” says Ben Ryrie, Deloitte
Australia’s digital talent innovation lead.
As part of a global-professional-services
firm, Deloitte Australia has approximately
7,500 permanent employees and nearly 1,000
contractors. For the past few years, the company’s
workforce has increased by 14 percent year over
year. However, contrary to traditional growth
metrics, the goal isn’t to gain more staffers.
“Over time,” Ryrie says, “we want to get more
technology-driven and agile.”
Technology-Powered Recruiting
This past year, Deloitte Australia implemented
a new platform designed to manage white-collar
contract workers, from candidate attraction to
re-engagement. The company uses the technology
to pursue sought-out profiles, create talent pools,
manage the interview process, and contract and
onboard new hires.
Prior to implementing this platform, Deloitte
Australia worked entirely with external recruiting
agencies. There was no centralized records
management, no unified onboarding and
offboarding processes, and no visibility over data.
Contractor spend, demand and overall management
were unknowns to the recruiting team.
“Now we have all that information at the click
of a button,” Ryrie says. “We’re keeping a track
record of what’s going on.” One of the most
significant drivers for change was “becoming an
agency to ourselves” with centralized, workflow-driven processes that could be adapted in-house
over time.
To engage different recruiting stakeholders,
Deloitte Australia built a few distinct portals:
one for candidates, one for
hiring managers and one for
agencies. The company is still
working on the agency portal,
which will allow agencies to
submit candidates for assigned
projects.
Welcome to the
Network
To source contractors,
internal recruiters now utilize
the Open Talent Network, a
new jobs portal catered to
contract workers. Potential
candidates can register to the
talent community, adjust their profiles over time
and apply to open work. Within the network, they
have access to a broad range of projects.
“It’s as much about engagement as it is about
management,” Ryrie says. “We’ve tried to put
ourselves in the shoes of a potential contractor
and make the process as simple and refined as
possible.”
The idea is to have skills-based talent pools of
contractors who continually come back to work
with the company on numerous projects. Since
implementation, Deloitte Australia has deployed
450 contractors— 30 percent of whom were
deployed for a second assignment. The Open Talent
Network has amassed 5,000 members without any
proactive promotion. After testing the system with
a soft launch, the company is now focused on top-
of-funnel marketing to broaden the network.
Automation in Onboarding
Onboarding is now paperless and completely
automated. New hires receive emailed forms
based on their job type and location, and their
data are automatically delivered to the contractor-
management system. With the streamlined
processes, onboarding communications have
dropped from 10 emails to just two.
Vendor Partnership
When choosing a technology partner for
these initiatives, Deloitte Australia sought a
platform with the ability to self-service throughout
the contractor life cycle. It opted for Avature
Contingent Workforce Management, a new
Avature solution that combines capabilities for
finding, deploying and re-engaging independent
talent, all from one platform.
“Avature is intuitive and flexible—pretty
much anything can be changed,” Ryrie says.
“We’re growing fast, we’re expanding to new
business areas, and this requires speed and
flexibility. The technology is there to make it
possible.”
For more information about Avature
Contingent Workforce Management, visit www.
avature.net/contingent-workforce-management.
Organization: Deloitte Australia
Top HR Technology Challenge: To ;nd and deploy independent talent for
complex projects
Results Since Implementation: 5,000 independent contractors in skills-based
talent pools; 450 deployed contractors, with 30 percent deployed for second
assignment
Primary Business: Audit, consulting, advisory and tax services
CASE STUDIES
IN HR EFFECTIVENESS
Building an Agile Workforce: How
Deloitte Australia Engages Independent
Talent in the Gig Economy