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Some businesses have talent needs that either fluctuate throughout the year or change on a seasonal basis. In these scenarios, hiring permanent employees to meet a temporary need ultimately results in wasteful spending. It’s a major reason why some businesses hire contingent workers in tandem with their permanent staff.
At the same time, company or organizational culture plays a key role in building a successful business. In addition to improving employee morale, it also makes it easier to retain workers while also attracting new talent. A culture focused on engaging new hires while championing their professional development remains a worthy goal for most businesses.
However, when relying on a significant contingent workforce, keeping those temp workers sufficiently engaged remains challenging. Any business ultimately benefits from integrating their contingent staff with the company’s permanent employees. In fact, proactive contingent workforce management needs to be a critical consideration for leadership.
This article explores the importance of organizational culture and a few strategies for integrating temporary workers into the team. If your business relies on a large contingent workforce, use this information to build a more productive organization. These insights on contingent workforce solutions ultimately make your company more efficient, productive, and profitable.
Understanding Organizational Culture
Simply stated, organizational culture defines a collection of concepts, values, and even operational strategies held by a business. It ultimately highlights the unique social environment that sets a business apart from others in its industry or region. This concept sometimes includes both written and unwritten rules while serving to define performance expectations for employees.
Cultural fit also plays a key role in how any new hire performs, especially right after joining the company. It also plays a key role in the long-term retention of your employees. When making a permanent hire, finding candidates with the right fit for your organization becomes important. Someone who feels part of team performs with higher productivity than a new hire making a poor fit.
Of course, when adding contingent workers, this cultural fit equation becomes more complex. It highlights the challenges of successfully integrating temporary talent. Solving this issue helps businesses enjoy higher productivity levels, improved morale, and a more engaged workforce. It allows these companies to enjoy the budgetary benefits of temps with high productivity levels typical of permanent employees.
Recognizing the Value of Contingent Workers
Not surprisingly, contingent workers offer many significant advantages to the companies leveraging their skills, even on a temporary basis. They provide these organizations with the scalability and flexibility necessary to stay nimble in a competitive economy. As a result, companies using contingent workers enjoy higher productivity while also saving money compared to full-time hires.
A temporary worker also helps companies by quickly closing a skills gap on an important project. Your permanent employees benefit from this approach, gaining experience in using that skill in tandem with an experienced professional. As such, this staffing approach provides a great opportunity to upskill your current team in a cost-effective fashion.
Still, your company must be proactive in making contingent workers feel valued and a true part of your team. After all, many professionals remain biased against temps, with the opinion they aren’t as valuable as employees. That kind of stereotype only confuses the issue and obscures the true worth of a contingent staff. A mix between permanent employees and contingent workers offers many advantages to companies adopting this staffing approach.
Strategies for Integrating Contingent Workers into Organizational Culture
Any successful contingent workforce management strategy focuses on integrating your temp workers into the overall company culture. It helps your temporary team quickly feel valued, improving their engagement and productivity levels. Any business that relies on a significant contingent workforce needs to consider adopting nearly all of these strategies. They play a key role in building a successful business using a mix of both temporary and permanent workers.
Clear Communication Channels
Open and transparent communication remains an important piece of any business’s company culture. Of course, this rule applies when communicating with your permanent employees as well as any temporary workers on hand. Your contingent staff needs to understand their opinions and insights also matter and deserve to be heard.
In essence, integrating contingent workers into your company culture becomes easier with a policy aimed at transparent communication. Your temp staff must feel comfortable speaking up and taking part in company meetings. In the end, communicating openly plays a key role in fostering the right kind of culture at your business.
Onboarding and Orientation Programs
An effective onboarding program contributes to making new employees quickly feel like a valuable team member. Similar to the cultural fit issue, it also improves the chances of retaining their employment over time. You need to adopt a similar onboarding effort for any contingent workers joining your team, no matter the length of their contract.
Having an engaging onboarding program for new hires (contingent or permanent) remains a critical part of any company culture. Notably, having temp workers and employees take part in the same onboarding process makes contingent workers feel more engaged. This approach helps you successfully integrate them into your organizational culture.
Inclusion in Team Activities and Events
Also include your temporary staff in any company activities and social events, both during work and afterhours. It’s another simple strategy helping your contingent staff make connections with their coworkers more easily. This approach ultimately provides a sense of family at your company while still keeping everyone focused on work.
Any effective company culture needs to ensure everybody works together towards a common cause. Involving your contingent workers in social activities also contributes to achieving this important goal. Don’t overlook this simple way to build camaraderie at your organization!
Training and Development Opportunities
The modern professional typically wants to work for companies that provide meaningful training and professional development opportunities. When considering your permanent employees, this benefit plays a key role in retaining them over the long haul. With your contingent workers, offering training ensures they have the right skills to help your business thrive.
Providing similar training and professional development programs to contingent workers that your employees receive remains a great idea. It keeps them engaged and inspired while possessing the skills your business needs. Your company might just become the place where everyone (temps and employees) wants to work!
Mentorship and Buddy Systems
A mentorship or buddy program also serves to ensure a new contingent worker quickly becomes an effective team member. Pair them with a permanent employee or another senior-level temp on the same team. This ensures they have someone to answer any questions about the current project or even where to get lunch.
This simple strategy ultimately helps your business build or maintain a culture focused on teamwork and collaboration. It also prevents a new temp worker from feeling left out or disengaged.
Feedback and Recognition Mechanisms
Offering timely and actionable feedback needs to be an important goal for your managers. This includes both your employees as well as the temp workers at your business. It ensures any problems or issues are dealt with before they begin to fester, growing into something worse.
In addition to constructive feedback, also reward your top contingent workers when relevant. This includes everything from a simple word of praise to a nominal bonus, like a gift card. It ultimately contributes to building goodwill among your contingent workforce.
Leadership’s Role in Integration Efforts
Your company’s leadership ultimately plays a critical role in integrating a contingent workforce as part of your team. In essence, this strategy gains effectiveness when leading by example, highlighting the importance of your company’s temp workers. Also ensure your temporary workers receive the support they need to make a positive impact on your operations. Setting the tone from the top in this fashion helps this message truly hit home for your permanent staff.
Of course, some of the previously detailed strategies help in this regard. For example, having a transparent communication policy starts at the top. It fosters collaboration and mutual respect between the permanent and contingent parts of your workforce.
Measuring Success and Continuous Improvement
Of course, any contingent workforce management strategy benefits from the right metrics, allowing your team to track its effectiveness. This includes determining any key performance indicators (KPIs) used for this purpose, including productivity level and similar criteria. Having these KPIs lets you managers easily analyze how your contingent staff contributes to the company’s operations.
Your ultimate goal involves adopting a continuous improvement approach, while leveraging feedback loops and similar iterative mechanisms. It provides the means to adopt improvement strategies boosting your productivity levels over time. Work with your contingent workforce management solution provider for advice on data to track your program’s effectiveness over time.
Partner with a Leading Provider of Contingent Workforce Management Solutions
When searching for a top-shelf contingent workforce solution provider, look no further than the experts at Anserteam. We provide the skilled and experienced temporary talent that help your company’s operations thrive. Schedule a meeting with us to discuss the benefits of a long-term partnership.
