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Contingent Workforce Growing

A new report predicts that within two years, 10 percent of the entire U.S. workforce will be made up of contingent workers, with pharmaceutical, biotech, and retail sectors experiencing the largest growth in temporary and contract workers.

According to the survey, Fortune 1,000 companies will expand the use of contingent workers to manage variable or unpredictable workloads.

They will also be required to handle the strong overall growth at many companies and to cope with the difficulty of finding quality workers in a low-unemployment environment.

As the contingent workforce grows, corporations will need to be much more sophisticated in managing this increasingly large expense. They must look closely at crafting a well-conceived contingent-workforce program, leveraging technology, and assigning talented managers to oversee this area of operations.

According to the report, 77 percent of the companies surveyed expect to grow their contingent workforce in the coming years. It also found that decision-making about the contingent workforce is currently dispersed across several different corporate levels, and the typical manager with responsibility for contingent labor decisions spends only 20 percent to 39 percent of his or her time on this task.

The report also found that procurement managers, rather than HR professionals, will increasingly control the management of contingent-labor programs – a notion that could lead to trouble.

Procurement managers approach buying people in the same way they approach buying pencils. While a contingent workforce allows companies to put elasticity in the budget, organisations leak millions of dollars annually because they do not effectively manage their contingent workforce.

Companies must also focus on the "three Cs" of cost, compliance and control in order to achieve the best possible returns from their contingent workforce.

In order to achieve this, you may wish to consider investing in a time and attendance system, which automates the process of recording and paying your contingent workforce.