SOLVING THE CONTRACTOR TRAP

The challenge is that this is a candidates’ market. People with the most in-demand technical skills are juggling multiple offers at the same time, and competitors are inflating salaries and market rates in their battle to secure them. There’s less loyalty too: people who jumped to the public sector for job security when Covid first hit are now returning to the private sector for a higher salary. It seems the desire for stability has dissipated, and more people than ever are willing to take a leap into new roles. Organisations are therefore facing a shifting landscape, and must reconsider how they recruit, engage, and retain the talent they need if they are to succeed.

A never- ending cycle

The initial response to immediate skill gaps is usually to hire contractors or traditional consultants while conducting a separate search for permanent hires. The problem is, many companies find that once they have contractors or consultants in place, the search for permanent talent goes on the back burner. When their contract is up, however, the need is once again urgent, and businesses can fall into a never-ending cycle of short-term temporary solutions.

The services of contractors and consultants also come at a premium. The price of contractors has risen in line with national insurance, and the regulations that govern off-payroll working (IR35) add to the already heavy administrative load of procurement. Meanwhile, traditional consultancies must maintain a bench of experienced talent that can be deployed rapidly, and the high cost of this is transferred onto their clients.

Fig. 1: Average review scores

Making the temporary permanent

Capita Flexible Workforce Solutions breaks this cycle. While contractors and consultants divert time and money away from permanent recruitment, Flexible Workforce Solutions helps you to build, borrow and buy talent all at the same time. Our Employed Resource model plugs immediate skill gaps with temporary consultants, but also offers the option of transitioning them to permanent employees after a year. This means project knowledge is retained, cultural fit is ensured, and procurement expenditure is reduced.

Our Employed Resources are approximately 50% less expensive than traditional consultants, because we recruit on demand instead of maintaining a bench. This lowers the cost, and it means clients get exactly the skills they need, rather than a close approximation. We also reduce administrative load by mitigating IR35: Employed Resources already pay national insurance as Capita employees, and we match salaries and annual leave entitlements to client bandings.

A partner, not a supplier

When recruiting these Employed Resources on demand, Capita’s process stands out in the market. While competitors dive right in, sending off multiple CVs that often don’t meet the mark, Capita spends time at the start to fully understand client requirements, ensuring we get it right first time.

Many competitors’ responsibilities also end once they place people in the role, whereas Capita acts as a partner for the long term. We score our resources at 3, 6, and 12 months, and every 6 months after that on key skills and criteria to monitor their progress and rectify any issues (Fig. 1). While they consistently start strong at 3 months, our data shows that as they continue to become more embedded in the team, they also add increasing value.

Beyond plugging the gap

Once any initial skill gaps are taken care of, it’s time to think about ensuring a robust talent pipeline. There’s not an infinite supply of skills available in the market, which means either new talent must be trained up or the existing workforce must be reskilled. That’s where Novus Future Talent comes in. Novus trains graduates, career shifters, and people returning from a career break in key digital skills.

Unlike a traditional graduate scheme, where graduates pick up general business skills through on-the-job learning in a variety of departments, the Novus Future Talent programme delivers highly specialised training through technical academies. We don’t just provide classroom training either – each stream involves real-life, live-project training, so they can hit the ground running and deliver for clients from day one.

We also offer Blended Squads consisting of Employed Resources and Future Talent graduates, which provide the added benefit of our experienced consultants continuing to tutor and train graduates while on the job. This also means that instead of having experienced consultants work on BAU tasks, resources can be assigned to tasks of an appropriate complexity. As clients are only billed for hours worked, this also brings further cost efficiencies.

Upskilling the current workforce

Once clients see the results that our Employed Resources and Future Talent graduates can deliver, the next step is often to request that their permanent workforce is upskilled. Workforce training is vital for talent succession and engagement. If you can offer upskilling and career progression, it gives employees more incentive to stay loyal.

We can design and deliver workforce training sessions according to client business needs, and even send existing employees to our Future Talent technical academies. This training is never off the shelf and it’s not about ticking a box – it’s carefully crafted to deliver results. We partner with organisations to ensure we understand their training needs completely up front, and we develop and add to their training programme as their business strategy continues to evolve.

When implemented together, Flexible Workforce Solutions’ Employed Resources, Future Talent programme, Blended Squads and Workforce Training cover clients’ short, medium, and long-term resource planning while delivering substantial cost efficiencies. But clients can buy any part of this solution – it’s modular and flexible, and explicitly designed to work around your needs.

Get in touch with a Flexible Workforce Solutions’ specialist today to discuss your needs here.