Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/149047
Contingent Labor Raising the Benchmark Today's comparative analytics allow MSPs to capitalize on talent and manage spend for their clients. By Russ Banham Managing staffing suppliers at Hillshire Brands is a complex , process. Multiple suppliers are necessary to ensure specific skill sets are retained in specific regions to generate profitable business growth. Managing these suppliers is left to Staff Management | SMX, which performs and provides valuable benchmarking of average bill rates, pay rates, and overall supplier performance. The partnership between the two organizations allows for consistent onboarding processes, compliance monitoring, and comprehensive reporting and analysis. Similar objectives are being realized by other MSP provider-client relationships, where benchmarking various metrics to similar size companies in similar industries has become standard procedure. "Benchmarking allows us to validate that we are achieving bestin-class performance from our supplier network," says Brian Sajdak, category manager/indirect procurement at Hillshire Brands, a Chicago-based leader in meat-centric solutions for the retail and food service market. "It also enables us to drive continuous improvement in the company, ensuring we make informed decisions and operate in the context of industry trends within what is a competitive marketplace." [42] HRO TODAY MAGAZINE | JULY/AUGUST 2013 Hillshire Brands, maker of such products as Jimmy Dean Sausages, Gallo Salame, and Ball Park Franks, is one of many companies that have turned to MSP providers to manage suppliers of contractors and contingent labor across various skill categories and market geographies. Providers like Staff Management | SMX leverage staffing supplier data from both internal and external sources, turning this data into information for client decision-making purposes. "We look at wage rates, market analyses, supplier metrics within our own network, and a wide range of survey data from the American Staffing Association and government agencies like the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to tailor a program that best meets client needs and objectives," says Janice Weiner, vice president of global MSP services at Staff Management | SMX. "We put all this together with feedback from the hiring managers so clients like Hillshire Brands know exactly when they are hitting the mark." Other MSP providers like Volt Consulting, Yoh Services, and Guidant Group, among others, also can be counted on to benchmark key performance indicators like average bill rates by position, vendor spend, and time-to-hire, in addition to softer metrics like supplier quality and performance.