When it comes to employment, do you think in terms of “Total Workforce?”

At Global Human Resources Outsourcing (GHRO), we have to.  We provide outsourced HR services that help companies navigate risk, increase productivity and reduce the costs, complexities and administration burden related to employment.  Doing this successfully on an ongoing basis requires an in-depth understanding of workplace dynamics within the larger economy.

The “Total Workforce” includes ALL forms of labor that execute work in an organization’s name.

First, consider that focusing just on regular employees makes less and less sense as this group comprises an ever-shrinking percentage of the modern enterprise workforce.

Next, the significance of today’s contingent workforce should not be underestimated. Unfortunately, even the U.S. government does this. In the United States, it is widely reported that between 8-10 percent of the workforce is contingent, but like most government-supplied data, that figure is flawed.  It represents only the portion of the U.S. workforce that is employed through temporary staffing firms, most notably in security, facilities, maintenance and administrative roles. This statistic does not account for the millions of people who work as independent contractors, work for consulting firms, or work for service providers.

Full-time, temp or freelance, the concept of the “Total Workforce” suggests that a great labor pool realignment is in full force.

In the November 2011 issue of HRO Today, writer, reporter and freelance journalist Russ Banham analyzes this subject in an article titled “The Total Workforce.” Click here to read the whole article.

One of the trends that Banham reports on is the increasing merger of the roles of the managed services provider (MSP) and the recruitment processing outsourcing (RPO) company.  Up until quite recently, one type of firm historically recruited full-time labor positions, and the other recruited contingent labor. The reason, in part, had to do with client companies. Within U.S. organizations, procurement typically rode herd on buying the contingent labor, while HR was in the driver’s seat when it came to more permanent positions. This model is now changing.

Another trend is the shift in general expectations about employment.  People right out of college these days are more willing to be free agents on the contingent labor side. Full-time, seasoned workers are open to more contingent positions, particularly retirees not yet ready to retire in the present volatile economy. And some contingent workers often are open to a full-time job at the hiring organization at some point in the future.

What does all of this portend for the future?  With the unofficial (i.e., not recognized in government statistics) number of Americans who are either unemployed or underemployed now at nearly 27 million persons, flexibility in both offering (employers) and finding (employees) paid work is paramount in keeping people working steadily through the current economic situation.

The “Total Workforce” must always be ready to go to work.  And employers must be ready to hire them.