Provade Perspectives

Contingent Labor Analytics: Metrics That Matter

Once you select a VMS system, you begin the real work of defining and implementing your approach to contingent workforce program measurement.  With the right tool in place to support you as your business and the market changes, you should have a solid foundation to define and drive your business intelligence strategy.

One key factor to consider when setting targets for your key performance indicators (KPIs) and service level agreements (SLAs) is making sure you design the measurement to give you the data you need at the right level of detail.

One example of a metric that often gets over simplified in how it’s measured is “Time to Fill.” We often joke that if you ask 5 people how this KPI  should be measured you will get 6 answers. In some ways this is as it should be because it is so dependent on business process.  In most cases defining “time to fill” as the time from when the manager creates a requisition, to the time that the requisition is filled, does not give clients enough details to identify areas for improvement. 

In one situation, we had a client see an increase in their “time to fill” but they were struggling to determine the issue. During the economic downturn, they added several levels of approval to the requisition and this was not being included in the measurement. We fixed the issue by breaking down how they measured “time to fill” from requisition creation to approval, from vendor receipt to submittal and time from submittal to fill. This provided the client with the tools to understand:

• How long their approval process was taking
• How quickly their vendors were responding to requests
• How long the candidate evaluation process was taking.

The client used these more detailed analytics to identify problem areas, conduct root cause analysis and make improvements.

This example demonstrates the importance of taking time to consider what and how you measure performance, to ensure you have true actionable intelligence.

For more information on deploying a strategy to provide actionable insights into your non-employee workforce, check out our new VMS Analytics white paper.