At Staffing Industry Analysts, we sit at the intersection of several groups where we can observe the changes happening around the edges of the staffing industry. Since we talk to thousands of industry executives each year, we have a unique viewpoint on what the industry is worried about, what are the current hot topics and what is emerging that will change the way the industry operates into the future.
This perspective led us last year to roll out our first ever Workforce Solutions Ecosystem. The ecosystem attempts to describe the broader landscape in which the staffing industry operates among other third-party provided workforce solutions. We call it an ecosystem because we think that is the most apt description, since an ecosystem is classically thought of as a community of living and non-living organisms interacting as an environmental system. If you change one part of an ecosystem, by definition it will have ripple effects throughout the rest of the ecosystem.
We define the Workforce Solutions Ecosystem as comprised of six primary and interrelated segments. They are Staffing, Process Outsourcing, Payrolling/Compliance, Contracting/ Consulting, Talent Acquisition Technology and Other Workforce Solutions. Naturally we place Staffing at the core of the ecosystem, though others might find a different orientation more logical based on their business focus.
When I began in this business more than 20 years ago, the industry and its ecosystem were much less complex. Typically for most firms, the big question was whether perm placement/place and search should really live comfortably in the same business with temporary staffing. While that question has long ago been answered (for most businesses in the industry it is a resounding YES), we now live in a rapidly evolving complex ecosystem. Over the past decade, much of that change has been driven by the growth of complex and interconnected talent supply chains, fuelled by the implementation of vendor management systems (VMS) and managed service providers (MSP). Now the first signs of further evolution in those talent supply chains and the surrounding ecosystem are beginning to emerge with the development of the gig economy and human cloud platforms to more directly connect workers with work that needs to be done.
As we look to the future it is always hard to predict the precise changes that will happen in any given ecosystem. Whatever direction things go, we at SIA do believe that the ecosystem will become ever more interconnected. As part of our mission we continue to seek ways to raise the profile and professionalism of the ecosystem and optimize the performance of the entire talent supply chain. As one small step in that direction, we are this fall launching our first ever attempt to connect the ecosystem together in one place, at one time, with the launch of our new conference, Collaboration in the Gig Economy (www.collaborationgigeconomy.com). The conference is part of CWS Connect week in September, where we are connecting buyers, staffing suppliers, VMS/MSP providers and other players in the talent supply chain. Our goal is to increase understanding between all the groups and help staffing firms on the end of these complex supply chains achieve improved results.
As the ecosystem continues to evolve, there are many more changes coming. It is my hope that by helping staffing firms understand the broader ecosystem in which they operate and bringing them together to connect with buyers, VMS and MSP providers and other emerging players in the talent supply chain, we will together help elevate the entire ecosystem. I invite you to participate in getting to that next step.
