Book Description

The use of contingent labor is one of the most rapidly growing and hotly contested trends in American business today. This vast pool of unattached, "on call" workers currently accounts for nearly 25% of the U.S. workforce, and the number continues to skyrocket. Yet, despite the increasing dependence on temporary labor, there are few thorough, research-based studies that show you how to accurately assess both the benefits - and the drawbacks - of using contingent workers...how to measure the true cost-effectiveness...how to capitalize on the advantages while reducing the risks involved. Managing Contingent Workers provides far-reaching, hard-hitting answers. Written by two human resources experts and based on years of in-depth research and analysis, the volume challenges the prevailing myth that contingent workers are always a cost-effective alternative to using "core" workers. Instead, before blindly populating the workplace with people who have very little attachment to their jobs, employers are urged to address a series of complex, cost-related questions: Is there a limit to how many contingent workers you can use effectively? How will they relate to the regular workforce? How much training is required to get them up to speed? Will they uphold customer service and product quality standards? Step by step, the volume shows you how to accurately analyze the cost-effectiveness of using contingent labor and determine when it will save money - and when it won't; measure the cost-effectiveness of training; manage contingent workers, or a "blended" workforce of core and contingent workers, for greater effectiveness; understand legal, tax, and social implications; and avoid over-reliance oncontingent labor. It then gives you practical tools for determining all of the costs involved, both the obvious ones and the hidden ones. Further, it supplies five invaluable case studies that document the experiences of companies that have relied on contingent labor - and achieved mixed results.