Human Resource Executive - October 2, 2018

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