Whose Workforce is it Anyway?

Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK. 

We welcome back seasoned blogger Mervyn Dinnen, who follows up his previous post with a look at a growing trend within the workforce. (Ed Scrivener)

Whose Workforce is it Anyway?

Many people were surprised by the recent Financial Times report on working conditions at the Amazon warehouse in Rugeley. Most of the employees comprising the ‘human automation’ workforce were not employed by Amazon though, but by Randstad who manage them as part of their ‘onsite-flexible workforce solutions’ service.

As a result of this Amazon are able to ‘release’ workers who are not performing efficiently with little notice, whilst dangling the carrot that it is possible to gain permanent employment with them.

There seemed no shortage of people willing to talk about their experiences. Whose reputation is damaged by what they have to say – Amazon or Randstad?

Similarly many people have been surprised that the cleaners at John Lewis’ flagship store are contemplating strike action. After all, this is an iconic employer of choice, whose business model is held up as a blueprint to others, a paragon of ethical business. The workforce all share in the company’s success, leading to high levels of engagement.

But not the cleaners. They were outsourced through a facilities management company to a cleaning provider and are working for minimum wage with some picking up £72 a week for 6 days’ shifts.

Clearly not everyone who helps to provide the ‘customer experience’ that is so crucial to the company’s success is part of the envied co-operative partnership agreement.

Whilst the flexible/outsourced workforce is a growing phenomenon it’s not a new one.  Nearly 12 years ago a research paper on the challenges for HR in managing the outsourced workforce was published with this remit:

• For most of the twentieth century, the number of tasks and levels in large organizations grew incrementally, adding new job and career opportunities to full-time employees. In recent years this pattern has fundamentally changed.
• Global developments, both technological and economic, have led to many organizations cutting back their operations, closing facilities or outsourcing non-core activities to specialist providers.
• As we move further into the twenty-first century, we can realistically expect that the need for cost reduction, speed and flexibility will become even greater, leading organizations to reduce the number of full-time employees.
• As labour markets are becoming tighter and supply-driven, finding qualified staff will become more difficult and companies will increasingly have to depend on temporary staff and other types of non-permanent employees to meet their staffing requirements

I’m not sure whether we have really grasped this enough. We have performance arrangements in place to deal with outsourced arrangements, to ensure that SLAs are met and inefficient working is penalised.

But what about those much discussed holy grails such as culture, engagement and employer brand?

Both the examples that I gave earlier – Amazon and John Lewis – are from businesses who are employers of choice, strong brands with an assumed high level of engagement. We are used to reading reports of how permanent employees of some of the aspirational digital companies are willing to accept low pay and prospects as a trade-off for the chance to be part of the brand. And in a depressed economy, with meaningful jobs hard to come by, there may be no shortage of takers for low pay, low skilled jobs, either permanent or temporary, particularly within iconic businesses.

But what about less high profile organisations? How engaged are the flexible workforce when they are there for a pay cheque and not to be part of an employee experience? And what effect may this have on the all-important customer?

Many customer facing roles in the service sector – usually also the first point of contact for the customer with the business – are increasingly filled by people on a plethora of zero hour/permanent part year/fixed term temporary/managed outsourced contracts, all with varying levels of engagement and commitment.

I’m sure many readers with 10+ years in the workplace will recall working for businesses in which perks, benefits, parties and away days were for permanent staff only and not the temps. But this was a time when temporary and flexible workers were rare. Nowadays they are becoming an increasingly necessary feature of the workforce, and labour market commentators are expecting this growth to continue. I’m not sure than anyone knows the full longer term impact of a two tier workforce on performance, profitability and culture.

So what should HR be doing to embed these people in the company, especially when they are hired, fired and paid by a third party provider?

Let me know what you think…

Read about Mervyn and our other authors here

*****

Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK.  Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.

*****

If you would like to be a guest writer for Discuss HR, you can find more information here.  Our next guest writer week is the week commencing 29^th April.

Any source