SAP Fieldglass launched External Talent Marketplace, a free platform that connects employers and staffing agencies when they need temporary workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Available through Dec. 31, 2020, the marketplace is available whether or not organizations are customers of Fieldglass.
External Talent Marketplace is meant to provide a single place where businesses in need of temporary workers can connect with multiple staffing firms. That allows them to tap into a large pool of temporary labor, while staffing firms can find more opportunities to place candidates, Fieldglass said.
.@SAPFieldglass's External Talent Marketplace designed to help employers connect with staffing firms as pandemic complicates landing temp workers. #HR #HRTech #Staffing Click To TweetStaffing firms connected to the marketplace include Adecco, Experis, Guidant Global, KellyOCG and Randstad U.S.
Pressure Finding Temp Workers
The project’s genesis was “purely COVID-19,” said SAP Fieldglass General Manager Arun Srinivasan. “What really prompted it was speed.”
As SAP units fielded services to help businesses cope with the pandemic—such as Qualtrics’s Here to Help tools and open access to Ariba Discovery— Srinivasan’s team examined solutions Fieldglass could offer based on its own expertise.
“When we looked at what was happening in our ecosystem, we saw that clearly there were some organizations that had been heavily impacted,” Srinivasan said, particularly the hospitality and travel sectors. In March and April 2020, some segments of the Fieldglass network saw fill rates plunge from around 70% range to between 30% and 35%. The marketplace resulted from the identification of a “disconnect between the demand from organizations on one side, and the ability for suppliers to fulfill that demand,” Srinivasan explained.
Srinivasan observed that the pandemic has imposed constraints that employers have never faced before. For example, workers are unable to easily travel, or may shy away from certain work environments, such as factories or warehouses. In the automotive sector, “we’ve heard of instances where shifts had to be reduced because there weren’t enough workers to meet three shifts,” Srinivasan said.
Also, many organizations don’t have a structured way of engaging staffing firms, especially when they must quickly scale activity across a number of firms and business units.
Srinivasan adds that the External Talent Marketplace is meant to be flexible: It doesn’t put companies into an either/or situation. “So one case could be, ‘I just don’t have anything, so this is my go-to solution,’” he said. “And the other case is, ‘It’s a complementary add-on to what I already have.’”
SAP Fieldglass regards the marketplace as a solution specific to the current crisis. As 2021 approaches, “if we go down a path where there’s still a need for the solution because of the pandemic, we’ll definitely consider extending it,” Srinivasan said. “If the pandemic by then is ‘under control’ and we are getting closer to normal business, then the solution would basically be sunset.”
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