External Workforce Management Maturity
An assessment tool
According to research by SAP in collaboration
with Oxford Economics, external workers make
up 42% of total workforce spend (see the figure).1
Contractors, consultants, agencies, and service providers offer fast, flexible access to workers with specialized skills, often helping meet a spike in demand. Yet undermanagement of these workers can have serious consequences for your business, including:
- Escalating compliance and safety risks
- Uncontrolled spending and cost overruns
- Quality issues
42%
of workforce spend is on
external labor
Contingent
workers
24%
workers
24%
Service
providers
18%
providers
18%
Employees
58%
58%
How well is your business managing its external workforce?
Try our free, 12-question assessment to see where your organization stands.
Answer a series of questions to assess the maturity of your organization’s current approach to external workforce management, using our
four-stage maturity model. This survey will take approximately 7 minutes to complete.
When the survey is completed, we’ll recommended next steps – all developed by experts for SAP Fieldglass solutions – to help you evolve to the next level.
When the survey is completed, we’ll recommended next steps – all developed by experts for SAP Fieldglass solutions – to help you evolve to the next level.
Ready to get started?
1.
“Agility Isn’t Always on the Payroll: Gain Full Visibility of Your
External Workforce to Help You Drive Better Business Outcomes,” Agile Procurement Insights Research by SAP in collaboration with
Oxford Economics, 2021.
Let’s assess the maturity of your
external workforce management
approach.
Let’s begin!
First, we’ll need a little background on your organization before getting started.
How many employees does your business have?
What is your organization’s annual revenue (in US$)?
Are you operating globally?
Which of the following best classifies your role?
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0
Next
Let’s assess the maturity of your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 1
How many external workers (contingent labor,
freelancers, service providers, and others) work for your organization?
freelancers, service providers, and others) work for your organization?
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Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 2
Are you currently managing your external workforce
using a vendor management system (VMS)?
using a vendor management system (VMS)?
If yes, what categories of external workers are
you currently managing using your VMS?
you currently managing using your VMS?
If yes, is this technology used by:
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Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 3
If you are not using a VMS, how are you managing your external
workforce?
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Note: If you’re using a VMS to manage your external workers and services providers, skip this question by clicking Next.
Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 4
Do you have clear visibility into the locations and departments of all your global external workers?
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Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 5
Can you quickly identify the specific work each
external worker is doing for your business?
external worker is doing for your business?
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Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 6
Do you have fast, accurate visibility into how much external
workers
are costing your business by department and enterprise-wide?
are costing your business by department and enterprise-wide?
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Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 7
Do you have a formal onboarding and offboarding process for all of your
external workers? For example, this may include required certifications,
hire and rehire status checks, building-access restrictions, a physical
asset distribution and return process, and so on.
external workers? For example, this may include required certifications,
hire and rehire status checks, building-access restrictions, a physical
asset distribution and return process, and so on.
Previous
7 of 12
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Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 8
Rate the degree to which you feel your business is able to realize
the full value of its contingent (or nonemployee) workforce?
the full value of its contingent (or nonemployee) workforce?
1
Unable to realize full value
2
3
4
5Able to realize full value
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Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 9
What aspects of your external workforce management are
handled professionally, consistently, and efficiently today? Select all that apply.
handled professionally, consistently, and efficiently today? Select all that apply.
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Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 10
How informed are you about the progress of service providers
against deadlines, milestones, and deliverables?
against deadlines, milestones, and deliverables?
1
Not informed
at all 2 3 4 5Fully
informed
at all 2 3 4 5Fully
informed
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Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 11
How often do business units or managers come to procurement asking to
create
a statement of work after work has already begun – or has even been completed?
a statement of work after work has already begun – or has even been completed?
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Let’s assess the maturity of
your
external workforce management
approach.
Question 12
How often is external worker misclassification a problem for your business?
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Thank you for completing the survey.
Tell us about yourself
Your Results, Next Steps, and Resources
Thank you for taking time to complete the external workforce
management maturity assessment.
Based on your responses, your organization has reached external
workforce management maturity
Level 1: Ad hoc or manual. This
typically means that you do not have an external workforce or
services management practice in place, a VMS deployed, or a
strategy being planned. External workforce management has not
received much attention or focus across your business, so there is
little internal focus on how to source new talent quickly, gain
better visibility of external workers, manage them more
effectively, reduce costs and risks, or extract the most value
from external workforce spend. As a result, you may find that
procuring external workers and external services is often
unorganized and fragmented; and once workers are hired, business
units struggle to realize expected value from them.
To evolve your external workforce management maturity to
Level 2 – Enlightened:
Get informed
Start learning about the strategic role the external workforce
plays today and the growing risks and costs when external
workers are undermanaged.
close
Get informed
Start learning about the strategic role the external workforce
plays today and the growing risks and costs when external
workers are undermanaged. Read analyst papers and VMS provider
information to learn how procurement can play a key role in
helping lines of business realize key goals such as increased
workforce visibility, compliance, efficiency, quality, and
cost savings for this large and growing category of workforce
spend.
Start the conversation internally
Raise awareness of the
opportunities and risks
posed by external workers.
Start the conversation internally
close
Raise awareness of the opportunities
and risks posed by external workers.
Engage key stakeholders in conversations about the maturity of your
organization’s current external
workforce management approach,
the risks and costs of the status
quo for their department, and what
they wish they could change and
improve. Capturing details on their
challenges and priorities will
be vital to defining a strategy.
Prioritize goals
Once people become
educated about external
workforce undermanagement, it’s natural to want
to address every major
priority . . .
Prioritize goals
close
Once people become educated
about external workforce undermanagement, it’s natural to want to
address every major priority, such
as increasing workforce visibility,
strengthening compliance, maximizing
sourcing and management efficiency,
and boosting work quality and cost
savings. But the key to success is
focusing on the top one or two priorities for your business to drive your
strategy and implementation. Once
this is achieved, you can start focusing
on next-level priorities as part of a
continuous improvement process.
Start planning for an external workforce strategy
Apply what you learn from
reading and conversations to
begin outlining an external
workforce strategy . . .
Start planning for an
external
workforce strategy
close
Apply what you learn from reading
and conversations to begin outlining
an external workforce strategy that
addresses stakeholder priorities and
enables them to extract the most
value from external workers while
controlling costs and risks.
Want to share your results with colleagues?
Check your e-mail for a link to these results and recommended next steps.
Ready for the next step?
Read the e-book “Jump-Starting Your External Workforce Management Strategy: Expert Insights and Recommendations to Help Ensure Your Success” to learn how to develop a strategy for your business – and how and why success is easier than you think.
Your Results, Next Steps, and Resources
Thank you for taking time to complete the external workforce
management maturity assessment.
Based on your responses, your organization has reached external
workforce management maturity
Level 2: Enlightened. This means you are aware of
the problems and risks of having an undermanaged
external workforce and are seeking best practices
and solutions to address them. You see the opportunity
for improvement and savings, but no one is officially
responsible for running an external workforce
program enterprise-wide. You may have tackled
low-hanging fruit (such as a single worker category)
using spreadsheets and other manual processes,
but no VMS has been deployed yet. Decisions about
where to focus your efforts are based on what “feels
right” rather than an enterprise strategy for external
workforce management that is embraced by key
stakeholders across the business. Without a clear
and executed strategy operationalized across
your business, critical categories of spend are still
mismanaged and compliance and safety risks
issues are still an issue.
To evolve your external workforce management maturity to
Level 3 – Systematic:
Secure buy-in from
key stakeholders
Engage key stakeholders,
including hiring managers,
procurement, HR, legal, IT, and
finance, to secure buy-in . . .
Secure buy-in from key stakeholders
close
Engage key stakeholders, including
hiring managers, procurement,
HR, legal, IT, and finance, to secure
buy-in for the need to focus on –
and invest in – modern, holistic
external workforce management.
Work with them to define needs
and priorities, the top business
outcomes you want to realize (the
expected business value), and
the key performance metrics to
track to measure this value.
Prioritize goals
Once people become educated
about external workforce undermanagement, it’s natural to want
to address every major priority . . .
Prioritize goals
close
Once people become educated
about external workforce undermanagement, it’s natural to want to
address every major priority, such
as increasing workforce visibility,
strengthening compliance, maximizing
sourcing and management efficiency,
and boosting work quality and cost
savings. But the key to success is
focusing on the top one or two priorities
for your business to drive your strategy
and implementation. Once this is
achieved, you can start focusing
on next-level priorities as part of a
continuous improvement process.
Research and engage with
potential VMS providers
Engage leading VMS providers
to explore their solutions and get
expert guidance on how their
solutions can address your goals.
Research and engage with
potential VMS providers
close
Engage leading VMS providers to
explore their solutions and get expert
guidance on how their solutions can
address your goals. This can also
involve talking with managed services
providers who bring best practices
to external workforce hiring and
management – and to whom you can
outsource some or all tasks, if needed.
Make sure the VMS provider you
ultimately choose has the resources
and expertise to help you design
a program around your specific
business objectives, implement the
solution to achieve them, and continually optimize it to address evolving
business requirements going forward.
Build your business case
Leverage analyst research and
VMS provider expertise to build
a business case to influence
buy-in further up the chain.
Build your business case
close
Leverage analyst research and
VMS provider expertise to build a
business case to influence buy-in
further up the chain. As a best practice
for influencing proper funding and
program adoption, secure C-level
backing for it and work to have top-down mandates and key performance
metrics to track before and going
forward after the implementation
to measure achievement of
business value.
Define an external
workforce strategy
After securing stakeholder
support and understanding their
primary needs and goals, develop
your external workforce strategy.
Define an external
workforce strategy
close
After securing stakeholder support
and understanding their primary
needs and goals, develop your
external workforce strategy. Consider
working with your preferred VMS
provider for guidance, best practices,
value drivers, and more.
Start thinking about how to
operationalize your strategy
For example, you’ll need the
right IT systems (a VMS) and a
program management office to
operationalize your strategy.
Want to share your results with colleagues?
Check your e-mail for a link to these results and recommended next steps.
Ready for the next step?
Read the e-book “Jump-Starting Your External Workforce Management Strategy: Expert Insights and Recommendations to Help Ensure Your Success” to learn how to develop a strategy for your business – and how and why success is easier than you think.
Your Results, Next Steps, and Resources
Thank you for taking time to complete the external workforce
management maturity assessment.
Based on your responses, your organization has reached external
workforce management maturity
Level 3: Systematic. Typically, this means
you have made significant strides in developing
and operationalizing an external workforce strategy.
You may have an external workforce management
strategy in place with clear ownership of the policies,
processes, priorities, and goals outlined in it. You
may be tracking headcount in an HR system and
have at least one VMS in place, but it is likely either
focused on just contingent or services workers, not
all external workers. Your program may be regionally
or nationally focused rather than set up for global
compliance, so it cannot scale with your business
as it expands internationally. You may be effectively
using your VMS to tackle low-hanging fruit (such as
a single worker category) as part of a comprehensive
strategy. But currently, holistic management of all
external workers – contingent, services providers,
and global resources – is still a future goal.
To evolve your external workforce management maturity to
Level 4 – Empowered:
Gain a holistic view of
your external workforce by
consolidating on a single,
comprehensive VMS
You may be using distributed
systems to manage different
categories of spend . . .
Gain a holistic view of
your external workforce by
consolidating on a single,
comprehensive VMS
close
You may be using distributed
systems to manage different
categories of spend, which can
fragment visibility of your external
workforce and result in parallel
processes, duplicate data, and
swivel-chair integration. By consolidating management on a single,
comprehensive VMS, you can
address all worker types.
Prioritize integration
and automation
As you consider VMS solutions,
keep in mind the need to integrate
with other business systems.
Prioritize integration
and automation
close
As you consider VMS solutions,
keep in mind the need to integrate
with other business systems. VMS
providers can offer guidance into
which systems must be integrated
to enable the automation and workflows their software supports. Be
sure to get a clear understanding of
the amount of time, cost, and
resources required to successfully
integrate with their VMS solutions.
Centralize your external
workforce management program
One of the best practices for
managing external talent is to have
one central program to drive new
policies, standards, and processes
throughout the organization.
Centralize your external workforce
management program
close
One of the best practices for
managing external talent is to have
one central program to drive new
policies, standards, and processes
throughout the organization. If you
haven’t already, consider centralizing
all aspects of your program as an
initial step to gain more consistency
and control to achieve your
desired business outcomes.
Plan for ongoing program
optimization and excellence
Make sure your VMS provider
has the expertise to continually
optimize the solution . . .
Plan for ongoing program
optimization and excellence
close
Make sure your VMS provider
has the expertise to continually
optimize the solution to fit evolving
business requirements (including
global growth) long after the
implementation is completed.
Engage with your VMS
user community
Staying in touch with the broader user community for your VMS will give you information needed to evaluate your program against others.
Engage with your VMS
user community
close
Staying in touch with the broader
user community for your VMS will
give you information needed to
evaluate your program against
others. This community can also
be a source of new ideas on how to
push your program to the next level
(for example, by choosing a VMS
that delivers real-time analytics and
spend analysis) and help you achieve
a better return on your investment.
Want to share your results with colleagues?
Check your e-mail for a link to these results and recommended next steps.
Ready for the next step?
Read the e-book “Jump-Starting Your External Workforce Management Strategy: Expert Insights and Recommendations to Help Ensure Your Success” to learn how to develop a strategy for your business – and how and why success is easier than you think.
Your Results, Next Steps, and Resources
Thank you for taking time to complete the external workforce
management maturity assessment.
Based on your responses, your organization has reached external
workforce management maturity
Level 4: Empowered. This means your organization
truly demonstrates external workforce management
excellence. There is executive alignment between
procurement and HR around an enterprise-wide
external workforce management strategy. You have
a comprehensive, global-ready VMS in place that
centralizes data and supports all external worker
types, giving you visibility and control over all external
spend categories and labor types, as well as the
tools to align these workers with fulfilling opportunities so you get the best from them. You have
integrated a global-ready VMS for contingent
workers and services providers that centralizes
data, enables real-time visibility and analytics, and
automates and integrates processes. You also have
a full program management office in place to
manage day-to-day operations.
As a result, your business has the agility it needs to quickly scale its multichannel workforce up and
down as needed; the ability to manage all spend categories, costs, and work quality metrics; and
the real-time analytics to drive total spend management and total talent management. As your
business expands globally, you can manage your external workers with ease, facilitate compliance
with local regulations and laws, and control costs. Congratulations on your achievement!
Your focus is now on improving continuously, sustaining success,
and adding more value to the business. For example, you can:
and adding more value to the business. For example, you can:
Expand your talent pools
and VMS systems
You can tap into an extended
ecosystem of digital partners,
including niche talent providers,
to source the resources you need
even faster.
Free up HR and procurement
staff to act as strategic
advisors to the business
With so many processes
automated, tasks outsourced
or handled internally by a
dedicated program . . .
Free up HR and procurement
staff to act as strategic
advisors to the business
close
With so many processes automated,
tasks outsourced or handled
internally by a dedicated program management office, holistic visibility
and reporting, and analytical
tools, you can proactively redirect
procurement and HR staff to
add value to the business.
Invest in external workforce analytics, mobile apps, and cross-departmental integrations
Your current VMS may be delivering
core functionality well today, but
there’s always room to improve.
Invest in external workforce analytics, mobile apps, and cross-departmental integrations
close
Your current VMS may be delivering
core functionality well today, but
there’s always room to improve.
Explore how analytics can give
executives key insights for better
planning and decision-making,
use mobile apps to improve user
experiences, and automate more
work with new integrations
with human experience
management, procurement,
finance, and other systems.
We’ve provided the following resources to help you get started:
- Where Does the Money Go? SAP and Oxford Economics Research reveal issues with managing spend across the enterprise.
- SAP Store site: Explore SAP Fieldglass solutions and partner solutions that can take your program to the next level. For example, you can transform sourcing by automating the demand-to-statement-of-work process with AI, reduce risk with automated identity verification, or tap into highly specialized talent pools.
- SAP Fieldglass solutions success guides (coming soon): Read our three success guides that help explain how to measure and quantify the business impact of your external workforce management strategy – and why it’s so important to the sustainability of your work.
Want to share your results with colleagues?
Check your e-mail for a link to these results and recommended next steps.
Ready for the next step?
Read the e-book “Jump-Starting Your External Workforce Management Strategy: Expert Insights and Recommendations to Help Ensure Your Success” to learn how to develop a strategy for your business – and how and why success is easier than you think.
We look forward to helping you make external workforce management excellence sustainable.
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