In 1970, Alvin Toffler wrote the best-seller Future Shock, which he describes as “too much change in too short a period of time.” The dawn of the information age has exposed people, organizations and whole societies to an almost debilitating rate of technological change. With each new wonder comes not just an improvement in our lifestyles, but a change in our lifestyle expectations.
It wasn’t so long ago that the two most complex pieces of technology at the desk of any employee in the labor industry were a telephone and a rolodex. Now everyone has a desktop, a laptop, and a smart phone, with the Internet, databases, web-based software, CRM tools, ERP systems, business intelligence platforms and vendor management systems providing near-instant communication along with tremendous amounts of information at one’s fingertips.
It’s supposed to make everyone’s lives easier, everyone’s jobs more productive. And the truth is, workers can accomplish far more than they’ve ever been able to. Businesses can fill positions in a fraction of the time it used to take, and they can make much smarter, well-informed decisions. The trouble isn’t the technology; it’s the increasing level of pressure to perform.
With increasing pressure to perform, companies need not just smarter business decisions for their contingent labor programs. They also need smarter business decisions about the tools and processes they choose to adopt. For every new solution that shows up on the market, you have to ask, “Is this a must-have, or is it just a fad?” If you jump too soon, you’re saddled with an expensive liability. If you wait too long, your competitors gain a critical edge.
Our goal with this new blog is to help stave off future shock in the contingent labor industry. SOW is all the rage right now. How can you use technology to expand your program to SOW? What’s going on globally with worker classification? Can technology help you improve your internal communication? We hear many questions like these, and we’d like to explore them here.
We hope you’ll join us in the discussion.