IT projects don’t keep human schedules. A router doesn’t know that if it’s going to malfunction, it should only do so when a tech is nearby. Machines and software are bound to encounter issues at any time of day or night, and those in charge of maintaining and fixing them must be available to handle them at any hour.
Beyond that, enterprises with IT needs understand that troubleshooting and break/fix instances aren’t the only things that occur outside of traditional business hours. From retailers implementing Internet of Things (IoT) devices in their stores to offices upgrading to better software solutions, many IT deployments take place shrouded in darkness so that they’re completed by the time everyone else wakes up and begins to use the newly-installed tech.
On-demand IT workers help you to scale to demand without having to hire or lay off employees.
This anytime, anywhere nature of IT field services has been a primary driver in organizations shifting to leveraging contingent workforces over keeping technicians and other on-site talent in house as full W-2 employees. With independent contractors becoming a larger portion of the IT workforce, tapping into this pool of freelance technicians, engineers, and supervisors is a necessity for organizations of any size.
For those looking to utilize a contingent IT workforce for the first time or others unsure of what can be improved by doing so, here are four tangible benefits an on-demand workforce can deliver.
1. Agility, anywhere
Field service success is primarily measured in response times. The first factor influencing the success of an IT deployment is having technicians available to respond to spur-of-the-moment requests or quickly begin work on a project. Multiple jobs in multiple locations can place a lot of stress on your field services, and your ability to maintain certain key performance indicators like average response and repair times.
Using a contingent workforce that has qualified techs in the locations where you’re executing IT projects provides greatly enhanced agility and availability. By tapping into the network of freelance workers spread across the regions you’re working in, you’re already prepared to take on work wherever it may happen.
You can become even more agile by utilizing an effective field services management (FSM) platform. Organizations with complex, multi-site, and consistent needs are leveraging providers that help manage the contingent workforce. An FSM platform allows for real-time assigning and tracking of technicians as jobs arise, unified communications for getting on-site talent quickly prepared for each project and coordinating the work, and overall talent management to schedule the right number of workers for each open project. That allows for greater scalability to flex with differently-sized undertakings to increase your availability and effectiveness.
2. Affordable and controlled costs
2. Affordable and controlled costsPerhaps the most immediately attractive quality of the on-demand workforce is the savings it can provide an organization. On a fundamental level, this applies to the comparative ease of paying freelancers over full-time employees, but it can extend further than that.
Of course, that fundamental benefit is great enough in its own right. You can pay independent contractors without having to factor in company benefits like paid leave, worker’s compensation and unemployment insurance, state and federal taxes (in the U.S., particularly an organization’s share of social security payments), corporate training, onboarding processes, and company-provided equipment.
Not only do you eliminate those costs from the bottom line, but your overall labor expenses per project also become easier to predict with the help of an FSM platform. Scheduling the right amount of talent becomes far easier, controlling the cost by preventing over- or under-staffing the worksite. A potent FSM platform also helps you extend this predictability to international jobs through factoring in local currency differences and VAT that apply to paying contingent workers in other countries.
3. Accessible specialized expertise
The on-demand workforce available for IT field services offers both quantity and quality. Of course, the talent pool is huge and covers a wide geographic scope, from which your field services get greater agility. But the independent labor force also allows organizations to find specialists to handle the work that requires a certain expertise.
Using the wide array of talent available to find independent contractors with particular certifications or capabilities has two major benefits. It further adds to your IT agility by ensuring that you can find talent for jobs that may not fall under your usual scope of work. This, in turn, allows your organization to handle emergent IT needs for yourself or your clients. Technology solutions are constantly evolving, and having access to talent that can handle new advancements like IoT device installation or enterprise-wide systems upgrade gives you the ability to better keep up with best practices.
4. A managed field service talent base
The key with leveraging the contingent workforce is the ability to manage all this available talent as needed. Through this workforce and the platform you use to manage it, your organization has the flexibility to handle anything.
On-demand IT workers help you to scale to demand without having to hire or lay off employees. That means you always have the right amount of people to deliver quality project outcomes no matter the scope, scale, or location while only paying for the cost of the work done. Furthermore, leveraging the platform used to manage this contingent talent base gives your organization the ability to return to reliable technicians you have used previously and build up a trusted, stable roster of people who can be deployed when needed.
As FSM platforms mature, they become a tool for motivating contingent workers to provide higher-quality work. The incentive of good referrals and quality job experience pushes independent contractors to deliver good outcomes in a timely fashion. Thus, the concern that using an on-demand workforce will hurt the quality of work is becoming a non-issue.
Tapping into the large reservoir of on-demand IT workers has quickly moved from a cost-saving option to a necessary improvement in field services capability. The only uncertainty comes from how best to dive into the talent pool, which is where the ability of a partner who can build and manage FSM platforms comes into play. Consider the benefits your organization wants to gain from using the contingent workforce, and a partner such as Kinettix will provide a way to get the most out of it while also lending the expertise to discover extended benefits you may not have even considered.
