External Workforce and Employee Management with Fieldglass and SuccessFactors

Freelancers and outsourced staff are continuously increasing, boosted by structural factors such as the growing desire for autonomy among qualified professionals, but also dedicated ecosystems (such as platforms), and the growing need of companies for innovative and talented profiles.

Gain visibility on external workers, within the company

All non-traditional workers: self-employed and freelancers, sub-contractors, temporary workers and seasonal staff, … count for an average of 44% of total labour costs covering all types of positions within the organisation.

Developer, IT project manager, graphic designer, manager, reception staff and even director… you can recruit externally all the necessary profiles to successfully carry out a project.
In this context, limited visibility with regards to those external resources holds a company back in the race for talent. This lack of visibility also exposes decision-makers to significant operational and legal risks!

Upstream: structure a pool of freelancers and providers

In most companies, operations staff hire freelancers directly, possibly involving the Purchasing Department, while the HR department is left out of the loop. And an external worker’s assignment is usually carried out without information about the collaboration being accessible in a documented and transparent way, such as an evaluation of the work done or even information relating to rates and contracts.

We are far from a joint approach between the HR, Purchasing and Business Departments, which could be implemented from the referencing to the evaluation, selection and hiring stages.

This lack of visibility also impacts on executive committees.

Organisations need to know which specific tasks external workers are fulfilling, what their profile is, which teams they work in, how much they cost, but also which company resources they have access to and what are the operational and legal risks (data security, but also illegal sub-contracting).

Managing both Employees and External Workforce: this is Total Workforce Management

Some companies have implemented a « Vendor Management System » (VMS), for the Procurement Department. HR doesn’t use this system. Talent management thus remains compartmentalized: internal employees management with the HCM system, external workforce in the VMS.

As we now find external workers in all sorts of positions within a company and often in a ‘mixed’ team with employees, a highly operational integration of both HCM and VMS systems becomes essential.

How does the Fieldglass solution integrate with the SuccessFactors solution?

SAP Fieldglass solution enables you to monitor external labour on two levels: on an individual level for freelancers, contractors and temporary resources (the fields to be completed are similar to those in a HRIS); and on a company level for consultants (delivering an asset or working towards milestones, in particular). This database can be used daily to track the work of external workers, and for contracting purposes to run a campaign and find suitable profiles.

SuccessFactors and Fieldglass integration provides HR consistent information about both internal and external workforces: CVs, certification and accreditation, rates, assignment start and end dates, reporting team, supervisor, availability, contract terms and conditions, billing and payments. VMS information goes through the HR system so HR has exactly the same information for all of the talent.

Both solutions share the same DNA: 100% cloud-based, flexible and intuitive. Integration of the SAP Fieldglass VMS and the SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central for core HR processes takes place in three stages: replicating base fields (log-in, legal entity, site, cost centre, etc.) from SuccessFactors to Fieldglass, creating requests, then replicating data from Fieldglass to SuccessFactors. Total Workforce Management can be up and running within one or two months.

Listen also: Intelligent and Strategic Procurement – HR an often forgotten procurement category (podcast)