Aligning Managed Services Programs to Projects

Part One - Five predictions for the evolving global talent landscape

As organisations continue to move through the recovery stage post-pandemic, demands on talent mobility are increasing. The option for a flexible workforce is paramount to growth with technology influencing new mobility options. Yet companies still look to reduce costs, adopt digital processes and refocus delivering value. 

Amid the disruption and uncertainty of recent times, it can be difficult to know how these demands are influencing routes to the best talent, skills mobility and worker availability tomorrow. The following are five predictions on how I believe the global talent landscape may evolve over the next few years. 

1. Advancement in technology will reshape global contingent worker mobility

As global HR teams confront rising complexity and risk, they also face demands from their own management, finance departments, business units, tax authorities, and other regulations - all requesting more information with tighter turnaround times. This new reality requires a future-focused approach to managing both internal risks across the organisation and external risks from local, domestic, and international regulations. 

To do so, more and more companies will look to technology for a centralised and comprehensive data management solution that acts as a 'single source of truth' spanning the whole spectrum of contingent workforce mobility. 

As part of this focus on digital transformation, many organisations are evaluating how to bring further innovations to their workforce planning and how technology can augment their current flexible workforce and expand their tactical ability for mobility. According to the results of KPMG's GAPP Survey Report, participants were particularly interested in solutions for automating assignment initiations, producing assignment cost projects and identifying risk factors. 

Using a Managed Services Provider that offers artificial intelligence to automate repetitive tasks can improve efficiency and reduce operating costs. The MSP's technology can help shift internal resourcing teams to higher value tasks, providing more rewarding challenges and helping with retention. Automation speeds up administrative and transactional processes and delivers a better experience for contingent workers, hiring managers and those responsible for onboarding and finance duties. 

2. More focus on worldwide talent mapping and predictive insights

Organisations are investing heavily in digital transformation, so they can gain easier access to higher-quality data across the organisation. In fact, global contingent worker mobility sits at a unique crossroads within the organisation, bridging, HR, finance, procurement and all the compliance throughout. Therefore, global contingent worker mobility often has access to more complete data than other parts of the business. For global contingent mobility, this rich mine of current and historical data can enable powerful predictive workforce analytics to support program success and measure assignee experiences. 

As digital transformation continues to grow, the use of analytic techniques to predict wider patterns, trends and irregularities, will be able to contribute significantly more value by delivering strategic insights into areas such as: 

• Operational effectiveness across multiple business units
• Assignment spend, cost control and budgeting
• Root cause analysis of rising costs
• Worker attrition statistics and outliers
• Post-repatriation retention and attrition
• Wider access to skilled contingent workers
• Risk-free, cross-regional compliance through your external worker base
• Business traveller and equity compensation exposure analysis 
• Career mobility and business unit success

These types of insights can promote higher-quality, strategic business decisions and help elevate the profile of global mobility teams across organisations as strategic business partners who create value. 

3. Managed Services Solutions will become vital to delivery landscape

With fewer traditional relocations, more assignment flexibility and an emphasis on cost savings, many companies may look to outsource more of their global mobility and payroll programs. As business travel and international assignments return, this could be especially true for organisations that were forced to downsize their internal teams during the pandemic.

I predict a greater focus on talent, not transactions. Fast-moving companies do not want to be bogged down in transactions and typically outsource high-volume complex work like payroll, regional vendor chains, compliance and off-boarding activity so they can focus on their own employees experience, participate in talent planning and workforce shaping with HR.

In fact, one of the key benefits of managed services is the ability to rely on the provider to adjust resources up and down in pace with mobility service demands. 

Other key reasons why companies choose managed services models include:

• Opportunities to streamline global resource activities and tasks to achieve system and process efficiencies, often via technology enhancements available through a tech-enabled MSP
• Lower staff head counts
• Less need to invest in developing and maintaining homegrown mobility software solutions 
• Improved processes that eliminate redundant efforts and enhance the use of technology interfaces between vendor and company systems
• Access to the global resources, leading practices, and proven know-how of the vendor organisations

From immigration and logistical relocation support to payroll and compliance, companies can choose to outsource some or all the tactical functions of global mobility while retaining ownership and accountability for the program. In the KPMG Survey mentioned earlier, immigration services and relocation management services were the activities most commonly outsourced to support mobility logistics and global compliance. 

Along with the potential for securing greater program cost efficiencies, and faster and more consistent service delivery, engaging a third-party provider can help create a more satisfying environment for leaner and more strategically-focused teams, with less routine and more work that delivers challenge, variety and intellectual reward. Rather than spending time on day-to-day administration, teams will be freed to play a more strategic role in supporting core business initiatives.

4. Embedding Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) across the total workforce

Many global organisations are pursuing strategies to improve DE&I. Leaders in DE&I and HR are looking to attract the best talent and critical new skills for the future; fill talent gaps temporarily or permanently; and provide innovative opportunities to engage, develop and retain their most valuable employees. 

A formal DE&I initiative embedded in an organisations' values and culture can create an innovative, productive environment that is better positioned to meet organisational goals. Diverse workplaces produce diverse thinking, ideas, and skills. 

Where global mobility is concerned, companies have much to gain by aligning recruitment programs with their DE&I agenda. With strategies that address both mobility and broader talent management needs, competitive advantages can be achieved, for example, by reviewing program demographics, designing strategies for broader talent pools, and creating broader educational and communication plans for audience expansion.

Some leading practices for embedding DE&I into global mobility programs include:

• Linking company's general recruitment strategy to the selection of prospective global mobility candidates
• Using diverse candidate slates for international assignments
• Visibly targeting diverse groups for international assignment opportunities, including women, racial, and ethnic minorities, and LGBTQ candidates
• Factoring in more lead teams for diverse workers, as they may require more time for pre-assignment activities
• The clear overlap between DE&I and global mobility creates strong synergies for formally aligning international assignment programs with the broader DE&I agenda. Global mobility leaders can contribute significant insights, knowledge and experience in mobilising and supporting the growth, development, and retention of a diverse pool of talent. 

5. Smaller, more intimate programs that offer immediate and continual benefit as they mature

One of the primary challenges when considering an outsourced approach to contingent worker management programs is the implementation costs and disruption to operations during the integration. Bring in global mobility and suddenly it seems all too daunting.

I predict a shift in the way Managed Services Programs are set up and managed. Starting in a single location or project, with an emphasis on quick deployment, instant results and data insights that support a tactical approach to a broader program that mitigates the historical challenges around cost and stakeholder buy-in from the outset. 

Focusing on a single project helps the provider to understand internal processes, company ethos on a personal level, making the MSP a more integral part of the day-to-day activity. Once outcomes have been achieved, the program can move into phase 2, capturing more of the business and starting to standardise the approach, supported by advocates from the initial phase.

By the time the focused and strategic elements of the maturity model take place, the business is seeing added value throughout the recruitment lifecycle, vendors, workforce planning, DE&I and so on.