4 reasons to focus on contingent workforce management. | media & entertainment
With increased competition and shifting consumer habits, media and entertainment companies can hone in on contingent workforce management to access creative and IT workers more quickly.
| 3 min read |
Even before the pandemic, media and entertainment companies faced a rapidly changing industry landscape. From the entrance of new players, such as online streaming services, and the rise of gaming and esports as new major entertainment media channels, to the movement to direct-to-consumer content distribution, the industry is vastly different than it was a decade ago.
According to an EY survey released in January 2020, 34% of senior media and entertainment leaders believe that their company will no longer exist in five years without reinvention. Half of them also state that they can no longer rely on traditional business models.
And with millions of people all around the world living in lockdown during the COVID-19 crisis, changes in the way we consume media have accelerated quickly. Consumers are growing even more accustomed to over-the-top (OTT) channels, while movie releases and production have been delayed. Media and entertainment enterprises need to reinvent their businesses to meet these shifting customer expectations and trends.
Talent is critical to the success of any organization; this is particularly true for media and entertainment organizations, where so much of that success depends on creativity and digital skills. Companies need to transform their talent acquisition and talent management strategies to win over the most creative and forward-thinking minds in order to stay ahead of the increased competition.
According to The Motion Picture Association, the American film and television industry supports 2.5 million jobs. Many of these workers, especially those who work in physical production, are freelancers and contractors. This presents some challenges for the industry, such as compliance, decentralization, lack of visibility and control, and cost containment.
That's why many media and entertainment businesses are using managed services providers (MSP) to make a big business impact: to engage and re-engage highly skilled individuals faster than the competition. There are further benefits for media talent leaders to focus on transforming their contingent workforce management strategies:
- Ensure regulatory compliance at all times.
As an industry that relies heavily on hiring and onboarding freelancers and contract workers at short notice to kick start projects, it could be difficult to ensure regulatory compliance when hiring managers just pull out their “little black book” and use their own source of referrals.
If workers’ employment status is not being correctly classified, it can lead to government fines, back taxes and reputation issues. An MSP can help ensure workers are correctly classified, and support other local regulatory requirements, such as taxation management, data security and privacy policies.
- Consolidate your payroll to a single global platform.
When it comes to paying contingent workers, you may be relying on a local payroll partner to help manage the process. For multi-country operations, working with multiple providers in different countries makes the payroll process complex to manage.
By consolidating payroll to a single global provider, not only does it help to standardize the process across countries, the business is also able to gain greater reporting and insight capabilities with a central source for your data. This can also empower you to make more effective decisions around your contingent workforce moving forward.
- Get creative and IT talent at the drop of a hat with talent pooling and talent communities.
Apart from a strong competition for creative professionals — such as producers, editors and graphic designers — the talent supply for corporate services professionals — such as lawyers, paralegals who are well-versed in broadcasting laws and media marketing experts — is also very limited.
Innovative sourcing strategies, such as talent pools and talent communities, can help you engage high-quality people faster. MSPs can help you develop, build and regularly nurture branded talent pools and talent communities to attract, engage and build strong relationships with your target talent. And when the right individuals can’t be found in your talent pool, MSPs also work with a larger supplier base, further expanding your talent supply and helping you get the right people on board when you need them.
- Get better control over your project-based work engagements.
Statement of work (SOW) service procurement is one of the largest categories of human capital-related costs for many organizations, and is likely the case for your organization too.
But SOW, or project-based work, can be complex to manage and administer. How many SOWs are there across the organization? How much are you spending? How do different suppliers perform in delivering the projects? These are just some of the questions you might have.
More organizations are including SOW as part of their contingent workforce programs to gain greater invisibility into SOW engagements. By building a complete view of your entire contingent workforce and all engaged service, you can enhance compliance and spend control, and uncover opportunities for significant cost savings.