If you're like many professionals in the hiring world, you're coming off a quarter of disruption. With historically high unemployment numbers week in and week out, a growing list of bankruptcies across industries, and continuing disruptions to workplaces as the pandemic continues, it's been a time of near-universal challenge. But upheaval is the time for innovation.
The practice of contingent hiring has become a process continually siloed from all elements of the business culture, brand, and HR best practices. What's left is a "the way we've always done it" mentality that treats temporary talent like any other commodity, discounting the candidate's unique skill set and propensity to impact the company's culture and bottom line.
The result is that organizations are often flying blind with these role players. With the opportunity to onboard temporary workers limited and projects frequently operating under tight deadlines, the potential for a problematic mismatch between a contingent worker and their company contacts is disturbingly high. Yet the stakes can also be high. When a contingent worker underperforms or leaves, deliverables are delayed, revenue lost, and the business suffers.
If we borrow from the best practices that HR professionals have spent decades and millions to develop and validate, we find science-based automations that contingent hiring managers can leverage to streamline selection while finding candidates who will deliver greater returns in both the short and long runs. Rather than a total reliance on the archaic one-two punch of hiring — the resume screen followed by the conversational interview — leading hiring professionals now incorporate a more holistic view of their talent pool. This includes recognition of the importance of "soft skills" and their role in the everyday on-the-job experience, including communication skills, curiosity, trainability, and initiative. Also important: the "fit" a candidate provides, whether that's a match for a company's culture or a good sync between an individual and the role they'll be playing.
But how do we apply these principles to the fast-paced world of acquiring contingent workers? Time is a key variable. When an organization needs a task completed, they don't have time for a lengthy evaluation process. Here's where today's leading HR tech can drive solutions. Those bringing in temporary workers absolutely need to know more about the individuals they're considering — but how can they get what is effectively a deep dive in a short amount of time?
The answer is to use a science-backed assessment. And beyond that, the solution lies in delivering an assessment with high performance and quick data capture. Assessments help us gain an understanding of soft skills and fit, particularly when they are well-researched and based on scientific consensus. The Traitify personality assessment, for example, measures personality by focusing on a decades-old framework called the Five Factor Model, or "Big Five." Using an image-based approach that requires a simple response of "Me" or "Not Me" for each image, it measures each of the Big Five dimensions and requires only two minutes to complete. Organizations gain quick insights into a potential temp worker and therefore understand what to expect from that person. Is this a high-energy, talkative programmer who will engage team members in friendly conversation and thrives on a fast pace? If the task you're hiring for is one that involves extended solitude, limited feedback, and can be repetitive, then this individual may not be the best choice. Whereas professionals lacked that information before and had to choose talent "good on paper," the Traitify Big Five assessment increases the resolution of the candidate's image, so to speak. More is known, without considerable time or effort.
It's an advantage for both organizations and today's gig worker — no one wants to be brought onto a project and a team on which they would not thrive. Organizations develop profiles of the freelancers proven to thrive in their culture and use it to quickly prioritize talent from the pool of candidates. So instead of simply saying, "We need an app developer" and hoping for the best, they can effectively say, "We need an app developer like Diego," and seek out the most qualified talent with the personality and fit characteristics most in tune with past success story Diego. By creating these matches, an app developer isn't just an app developer. They're a vital addition to a team.
The rising prominence of gig workers is likely here to stay, particularly as ongoing economic volatility discourages companies from committing to long-term hires. Simply checking off boxes is no longer enough. Thanks to combining the best of mobile technology with behavioral science, Traitify is able to help organizations bring great matches on board — saving time, money, and headaches along the way.
