If your organization is not utilizing a workforce solutions partner yet, you are already falling behind your competition. An organization's workforce has a profound impact on whether or not it succeeds, so having an expert partner that can help build and optimize your workforce solution is essential to remain competitive in today's fierce market.
In this episode of our Talking Talent Solutions podcast series, our host, Joe McIntyre, talks to DZConneX's Vice President of Enterprise Sales, Ariane Brennan, about the key strategies for building and optimizing a workforce solutions program. Ariane shares her insights on what it takes to build a solid program, best practices for choosing the right partner, and strategies to ensure a seamless program adoption throughout your organization.
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Building a Program
When your organization first realizes you are interested in implementing a workforce solutions program, the provider should facilitate initial discovery sessions to gain an understanding of all stakeholders' perspectives regarding which components of your talent acquisition and management strategy are currently working and which ones are not. The key considerations should focus on: your organization's goals, challenges, values, processes, ROI drivers, internal and external resources, and your technology.
Your organization also needs to share what your desired state looks like so an agreed upon strategy can be determined towards the end of the discovery phase. Your short- and long-term goals need to remain top of mind while the program is being built. The program should be designed to solve your immediate issues, but it should also entail a flexible roadmap detailing how operations will be optimized in the future.
Once the strategy's foundation is laid out, a good workforce solutions partner will move onto the customization phase. Ariane comments that no two programs are alike because Company A's goals are always going to vary from Company B's goals, so a program needs to be customized to align with your culture, processes, controls, etc. If a program is not tailored to your specific needs, the program adoption process will suffer significantly.
Choosing the Right Partner
Just as every client is unique, every workforce solutions partner is unique, too. There are so many partners to choose from, but some essential factors to consider in the selection process include: a partner's flexibility when it comes to technology, their ability to stay up to date with market trends, their communication style, their willingness to customize, and the strength of their network connections.
It's best to look for a partner that is not trying to push a cookie cutter program on you − a good partner will listen to your workforce pain points and recommend a customized solution to meet your needs. Your workforce goals will never be met if you have the wrong partner by your side.
Ensuring Successful Program Adoption
A lot of time and effort goes into building and implementing a workforce solutions program, so successful program adoption is crucial for the investment to be worthwhile. Once implementation begins, your organization's employees at every level need to be convinced how this program is going to make their jobs easier and why they should be excited about this new strategy.
In the podcast, Ariane shares that successful adoption stems from strong and consistent communication, a change management plan, having a support team in place, frequent follow-ups, and continual learning and training sessions. Trainings should be tailored to each organization in order to be effective because everyone communicates in their own way.
Conclusion
Once the implementation process is in motion, a good workforce solutions partner will continue to adapt the program strategy when necessary to ensure you are getting the maximum value. Business needs are often changing, so a program is only useful if it's changing along with the business.
To close out the podcast, Ariane gives some insight into how DZConneX's process works and what our clients can expect when they work with us. For more information regarding the essential strategies for building and optimizing a workforce solutions program, listen to the full podcast here.
