Contingent Workforce Trends and Challenges - Part III

The final Chapter of my summary of last week's keynote address at the Contingent Workforce Fisk Forum:

New Labor Law Landmines: President Obama has appointed former labor leaders to the National Labor Relations Board, and they are sure to take an extremely pro-labor stance on issues, including the growth of contingent workers. Labor tends to take a dim view of independent contractors, as they are more difficult to organize collectively than traditional employee groups. It remains to be seen how the NLRB will handle this new workforce, but it is safe to assume that union leaders will argue that contingent workers and independent contractors should no be excluded from any collective bargaining units.

Global Legal Issues and the Global Contingent Workforce: According to Mathiason, many assumed that the global downturn would stall the growth of contingent workers. The opposite, however, has occurred. The recession has accelerated the pace of the transition to independent workers into the labor pool. In fact, the post-recession business environment will require a global use of contingent workforce solutions. In the US, we have already seen the addition of 330,000 temporary jobs (26,200 in April 2010 alone), and experts predict that by 2020, professional skill sets will represent 2/3 of staffing spend by companies. One of the drivers of that trend is the loss of math and science expertise to global competition. 18% of college students are enrolled in math and/or science disciplines. Half of these students are from foreign countries, and most will get their education here, and return to their home countries, taking that expertise with them.

Employment Law Challenges of the Virtual Contingent Workforce: Technology is changing faster than employment policies can keep up. New issues seem to appear in the newspaper daily. Students are suing a school system because laptops have webcam installed and active. Employees have been terminated for text messages sent over private networks, but using company equipment. Phones are now cameras, and GPS devices can double as performance management tools. Most of these were not anticipated 5 years ago, and no one can say for sure what challenges (and benefits) technology will provide over the next 5 years. It is safe to assume that potential, as yet unknown employment law fears will paralyze some business owners from moving quickly into the use of contingent workers, however.

Protection of Trade Secrets and Non-Compete Issues: Quick question – who owns the LinkedIn network group that you developed during your employment at Acme Computers? You or the company? This is but one of the questions being asked by today’s employment attorneys.

Disgruntled workers have always had the ability to steal customer lists or financial data from their employer, usually by sticking papers in their briefcases. That risk is now greater since that stolen customer list could now be posted on a blog, or put to music and uploaded onto YouTube. With contingent workers who by definition have no specific loyalty ties to the client business, the risk is perceived to be greater. Contracts will need to be written with care, and enforceability cases will end up in the courts. Access to computerized databases from remote locations over secure networks will continue to be viewed with suspicion, as will the storing of confidential information on laptops that sometimes get “stolen”.

Building a Flexible 21st Century Workforce: Many of the regular full-time jobs that our parents raised us to take are gone. Our children are likely to work in jobs and careers that do not yet exist, participating in groups that form and storm, and then dissolve until the next project. They will work to live, not live to work. They have evolved beyond work-life balance issues, to work-life integration issues. The Information Age has given birth to a nation of free agents and micro-businesses. Large companies will operate with a lean infrastructure, adding expertise and talent only when needed to handle upticks in the economic cycle or projects outside of their core competencies. Businesses will need HR leadership that can understand and manage this new world of work. Who will train these HR professionals?

Mathiason closed his presentation with a final analogy. When speeding down the highway, we race towards our destination, but we do so with a keen awareness of our surroundings and the road conditions. We are ready to tap the breaks whenever conditions dictate, and accelerate when conditions improve. If we floor the gas pedal without regard for the traffic around us, we crash. If we ride the breaks, we may never reach our destination. We don’t always know what is around each curve, but if we proceed cautiously, we’ll arrive safely. The point of the story is meant to illustrate how easily we could be slowed or stopped by legal paralysis when analyzing contingent workforce risk; however, we cannot be cowed into inaction by these risks. The workforce roadmap is changing, and we need to carefully move forward at a safe and reasonable speed. Just as with driving, it is impossible to eliminate every risk. We can, however, stay vigilant and move confidently ahead towards the future of work.