Managing workforce administration in higher education is no small feat. Colleges and universities today are under increasing pressure to do more with less—supporting diverse academic programs, research initiatives, and administrative functions while staying compliant and managing tight budgets.
The workforce behind it all is equally complex: a mix of faculty, researchers, seasonal staff, and a growing population of contingent workers. Add in decentralized hiring, inconsistent pay structures, and limited visibility across departments, and even the most prestigious institutions can lose control. To overcome these challenges, universities need a partner who understands the nuances of academic environments and can drive change without disrupting daily operations. Here’s how DZConneX (DZX) helped one top-tier university do just that.
The Dilemma
With a high volume of contingent workers supporting a wide range of departments and schools, an esteemed university faced growing challenges in managing its workforce effectively. For years, its contingent labor program operated through independently managed processes across various units, which offered limited visibility into thousands of workers and more than $60 million in annual spend. This distributed structure resulted in inconsistent contract terms and markup rates, inefficient administrative processes, and limited control over costs or strategic sourcing. As a result, the university missed opportunities to improve supplier performance, candidate quality, and service levels—while also facing heightened compliance risks.
Faced with these growing challenges, the university identified the need for a trusted partner to bring greater structure, consistency, and visibility to its contingent workforce program.
The Strategy
Aware that gaining buy-in from all of the university’s schools would be a complex and sensitive process, the client needed a high-touch partner that would prioritize change management and integrate all components seamlessly—and that’s where DZConneX (DZX) came in.
Leveraging deep expertise in compliance-driven MSP programs and people-first implementation strategies, DZX tailored its approach to meet the university’s culture and complexity. We led in-depth discovery sessions to assess existing systems, teams, and workflows. Vendor-agnostic, we worked with the client to identify a VMS partner and then configured the platform to the needs of their program. To ensure a smooth transition, DZX facilitated training for hundreds of end users and hosted ongoing meetings, roadshows, and tutorials to drive engagement.
Learn more about the strategy in the full case here.
The Impact
From day one, DZX delivered meaningful improvements that transformed the university’s contingent labor program. Within the first year, DZX helped the university save over $800,000 by introducing a more efficient invoicing process, negotiating competitive markups, and launching a structured compliance system. The program’s launch was met with immediate success, achieving 90% adoption across participating schools and delivering a 99% candidate retention rate—demonstrating both rapid uptake and sustained worker satisfaction.
Over the next four years, those early efficiencies scaled into over $11 million in total cost savings. The university also realized a 40% reduction in estimated total contingent labor spend, benefited from a 1% prompt-pay discount, and aligned its rate card to market benchmarks. By consolidating vendor management under an efficient MSP model, the university retained its trusted suppliers while streamlining operations and introducing comprehensive reporting on spend, headcount, compliance, and supplier performance.
For more information on how our MSP program and EOR solution significantly helped our client, check out the full case study.
