External employees are a significant part of the business world and are becoming increasingly important in today's agile working world. Nevertheless, they are often not treated in the same way as permanent employees and are perceived as a marginal issue. A central problem is the lack of clear responsibilities, which are essential for the effective handling of external specialists and the associated processes. In this Specialist article, you will find out how the employee journey differs from the workforce lifecycle and what measures our experts recommend for improvement.
The growing relevance of external employees
External employees are playing an increasingly important role in a fast-paced and agile world of work. This is not just about outsourcing complete services such as payroll accounting or IT support, but also about the targeted use of external specialists. They are now being deployed in all kinds of functions and at all hierarchical levels.
These trends are also accompanied by new challenges. Many companies find it difficult to clearly define the responsibilities for managing external employees. In particular, there are often discussions between the purchasing and HR departments about who is responsible for external employees.
Employee journey vs. workforce lifecycle
Internal employees are usually recruited jointly by line managers and the HR department. The specific division of tasks can vary depending on the company. The HR department is usually responsible for job advertisements and interviews.
External employees, on the other hand, are usually sourced by the respective teams in collaboration with the purchasing department, as purchasing has the necessary expertise in procurement, suppliers and price negotiations. The processes already differ significantly when the vacancy is advertised. After procurement, however, the subsequent steps are often the same.
The steps for onboarding new employees are clearly defined to ensure a consistent and positive Employee Experience - at least for internal employees. HR supports internal employees either directly or in an advisory role to support line managers. The process is different for external employees. The induction steps are defined and managed independently by the teams, and in some cases also by Purchasing as part of the procurement process.
The fact that these processes run independently of each other is not ideal. There should be no difference between internal and external employees. HR Campus believes that internal and external employees should be treated as equally as possible. This would facilitate the integration of external employees and help to recognise any challenges more quickly.
Recommendations for the ideal workforce lifecycle
External employees and orders should be procured as usual by Purchasing. However, support during the assignment should be provided by HR and the respective line managers. This allows each department to optimally utilise its strengths. Offboarding responsibilities clearly helps the departments to understand their responsibilities for the individual process steps. This leads to greater efficiency and better support for external specialists throughout the entire workforce lifecycle.
For Large Enterprises with a large number of external employees, an MSP (Managed Service Provider) setup can be useful. An MSP relieves the burden on internal HR and purchasing by taking over procurement and recruitment, for example. It can also be helpful to create a new position or department that coordinates the responsibilities for external employees in order to improve overview and communication.
As with internal employees, internal communication with external employees should be handled by HR or the respective line managers. Purchasing should take over communication between the company and suppliers. This clear offboarding of responsibilities is a challenge, but can be supported by a vendor management system (VMS) software solution. Such a solution clearly assigns the responsibilities of the individual work steps to the respective departments and persons.
Conclusion
A clear allocation of responsibilities is crucial for the efficient handling of external employees. It is important to define exactly which department is responsible for which steps and tasks in the workforce lifecycle. This definition enables complex work processes to be handled more quickly and efficiently. The work steps should be divided up in such a way that the competences of the respective departments are optimally utilised: Purchasing takes care of procurement and maintaining supplier relationships, while line managers and the HR department look after the other steps of the workforce lifecycle. A VMS software solution can digitise this division and make it efficient by providing a clearly defined workflow with defined responsibilities.
Author
Etienne Herren
Total Workforce Management
Etienne has a degree in industrial and organisational psychology. Since then, he has been advising companies in the area of external employees in connection with SAP Fieldglass. Thanks to his own experience as an external employee, he knows both sides of the process and continuously optimises it.