Contingent Force of Work

Force of Work 

Diana started working as temporary and part-time employee at a small private accounting company, Conrad & co., located at Spartanburg, South Carolina before she finally moved on and took over the designation of accountant at the firm. The method which she followed to become a full-time worker at the firm was to learn about her job and then for doing all her jobs well and submitting assignments on time and she also gave suggestions to the company on how it could improve more and become more successful. However, all temporary workers of not get changed into permanent workers at a company and it needs a certain level of determination and dedication to achieve what Diana achieved. Before becoming a permanent member of the company, Diana was only a member of the contingent force. These contingent workers can be described as being freelance, temporary or workers on a contract where employment based on the demand or need of their services.

The latest recession was accompanied by a lot of layoffs which were not just massive but also quite disruptive in nature. This led the companies to start rethinking the method or ways they have adopted to get their job done. The elimination of  jobs by these organizations under the garb of organizational restructurings and downsizing, the entire dependence falls on the contingent force of work to replace the downsized people and filling as and when needed. Such is the flexibility of the workers at contingent workforce. Also as per a survey which took place in the year 2008, asked the HR department to look 10 years into the future and predict what the situation will be in the year 2018. The HR expert predicted that most of the companies will be looking forward at engaging and sourcing transient talent on a short term basis on short term requirement and focus a considerable amount of energy on retaining of these core groups of talent for a long period of term. You will see an approach pf this contingent structure in the industry of film making.

Here you will find that most of the people are nothing but agents who drift from one project to the other and apply their skills of talent casting, directing, costuming, designing the set, doing the makeup and so on, so forth based on the requirement. All these so called “free agents” will gather together for the making of a particular movie and once the project is completed, they will all disband and go about their individual path looking for more such projects. This is the best example of the design of a contingent worker and it is also very common organizations of project. These contingent workers are also at times mere temporary employees who are hired to do specific jobs like seasonal projects. Either ways, lets concentrate on some of issues of organization with these contingent workers.

The biggest issue is to classify the contingent workers successfully as independent contractors. The process of classifying is difficult which also makes it difficult to understand who qualifies and who doesn’t. the decision might seem unimportant at the moment but it is not so. The companies are not bound to extend any of the privileges which are given to the permanent employees. The independent contractors do not get med claim, social security, or any kind of insurance taxes in case of unemployment. This is why companies nowadays are looking forward to employing these contingency workers as it relieves them of a lot of investment. Thus the decision is quite important. For example, almost 12000 of the package deliverers of Ground Division of FedEx are independent contractors. For this reason, FedEx had to fight battles with state governments, the Internal Service of revenue as well as the competitor UPS who have described FedEx ‘s policy to be an unfair one with respect to the competitors, the taxpayers as well as the workers. Those companies who misclassify the workers will be penalised severely by the government. Thus it is highly necessary that the classification of independent contractors done is absolutely correct and appropriate. The formal definition of the term contract worker is based on the amount of power and control the employer has over the worker and the way he gets their job done. If the company can have greater control over the worker, he or she is more likely to be an employer than an intendent contractor. Also just paying taxes is not what is important, the performance and the solving of problems is also important too.

Another issue is the placing and screening of these workers in fields where their efforts will be needed maximum. The correct people have to be at the correct place for the job to be done inane efficient manner. Thus it is important to be attentive while hiring these contingent workers so they can do their jobs effectively.

Another issue which is faced by the organization is the necessity given to their performance. The contingent worker is supposed to do specific jobs like the regular employees. Thus the managers need to get some goal and time schedule for these workers so their performance remains top notch and the company also should monitor their performance and their target achievement especially is the person works off-site.

Links of Previous Main Topic:-

• What is social responsibility
• Managing change and innovation
• Managers as decision makers
• Foundations of planning
• Strategic management
• Basic organizational design
• Adaptive organizational design

Links of Next Fundamentals of Management Topics:-

• Todays organizational design challenges
• Adaptive organizational design
• Case application 1 drivers seat
• Case application 2 the virus hunters
• Chapter eleven summary by learning outcomes
• Preparing for my career adaptive organizational design
• Managing human resources
• Managing teams
• Understanding individual behavior
• Managers and communication