CW program service delivery management needs to operate where engagement managers reside and work — on their phones! This has been said numerous times before due to all the advantages.

There are numerous benefits to going mobile operationally. Key ones that come to mind include: speed to overall processing decisions, enhanced CW program and engagement communications, increased remote CW engagement requirements, and greater visibility to overall engagement status and program performance. If an engagement manager can take a quick look at their contingent worker resources’ status and make on-the-fly decisions — both tactical and/or strategic— then timely CW program process participation rates will skyrocket to the required levels of effectiveness.

Perishable product. At any point in time, talent resource inventory are perishable items, contingent and full-time employee alike. This is especially true in today’s pandemic environment; labor markets are extremely tight for a majority of skill sets. Therefore, losing available, quality talent due to a slow, burdensome, or inaccessible process step or decision point is simply unacceptable.

The process-management reverie of eliminating non-valued added approval steps will probably never come to fruition in our careers, with 90% or more of these decision process points being blindly approved. However, let’s at least allow them to be executed with the speed of mobile processing so they can’t ever negatively impact the functioning performance of a CW program process.

Source: North America Staffing Company Survey 2021: Initial Findings

CW engagement operation processes are increasingly being automated for both the buyer and the CW talent resource. In SIA’s recent “North America Staffing Company Survey 2021: Initial Findings” report, staffing firms reported that their staffing website or operation app enables staffing buyers to execute a number of key CW engagement functions without the aid of a human. Just imagine the value captured in terms of process speed, competition for scarce talent resources and cost-effectiveness and quality in executing CW program processes if programs enabled engagement managers to execute these CW engagement function elements via their phones. They could do so while they are sitting idly in an airport, attending a sporting event off-hours or while attending a tedious weekly meeting of limited consequence (no offense to the weekly meeting organizer).

The automation of CW engagement process steps is growing by leaps and bounds; it is also getting more complicated with the addition of multiple talent sourcing channels in a CW program, such as direct sourcing, SOW projects and services management to name a few. Therefore, at this point in time, “going mobile” via just email will probably not meet the needs of today’s CW stakeholders. A true mobile application is called for to ensure CW engagement management technology is “mobile-access enabled.”

Being restricted to a workstation/laptop for CW engagement management systems is too slow and uncompetitive in today’s marketplace. The market has moved on and email in lieu of a real mobile application capability is no longer a competitive experience for one’s primary CW program stakeholders. And while this advisory focused on the experience of the engagement manager, other stakeholders, including contingent talent, would greatly benefit from mobile access as well. The list of CW engagement process functions automated for CW talent resources alone, without the aid of a human, is also growing rapidly — and, coincidentally, they too reside and operate on their phones.

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