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Changing Workforce Dynamics and Staffing
Trends
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics has
identified contract services as one of the 10
fastest growing employment sectors throughout
the rest of this decade. The reasons are very
simple and probably coincide with similar business
dynamics in your Organization:
- The workload of even
the most successful companies expands and
contracts periodically.
- A typical workforce is
comprised of permanent staff, subcontractors,
and temporary workers.
- The ratio of subcontractors
and temporary workers to core staff is increasing.
- The number of available,
technical contract specialists is dramatically
increasing.
- The ability to employ
temporary specialists is often critical to
an organization's success.
According to Charles Handy, the noted industry
expert in organizational management, by the
year 2000, more than 2000, more than half of
the jobs in industrialized countries will be
held by professionals who will work as subcontractors
or temporary employees within many different
organizations.
In his view, an organization that realizes
the benefits and actively utilizes temporary
professionals flourishes because hiring managers
realize that they don't need to permanently
hire all of the people required to get the work
done, but can rely upon con-tract service agencies
who extend their staffing capacity.
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For these reasons, many companies are reevaluating
and adjusting their human resource strategies
to account for changes in the composition of
the workforce, the organization of work itself,
and the competitive environment. Fueled by global
competition and facing a shortage of qualified
technical resources, such companies are increasingly
turning to contract. New Workplace Staffing
Trends service firms to help with their over-all
human resource planning and technical staffing.
Similar data from the National Technical Services
Association suggest that a key component of
most successful public and private sector staffing
plans will include a thorough understanding
and utilization of contractors.
Technical services firms play a key role in
an organization's efficiency by minimizing the
costs associated with staff increases to handle
peak loads or special projects. The use of con-tract
personnel reduces recruiting and training costs
and also minimizes termination and out-placement
costs associated with reduction in force of
permanent employees. The successful hiring manager
of the 1990s is one who understands equally
well how to plan for, hire and manage both permanent
and contract employees.
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