OnForce Delivers Mobility to the Freelancer Economy

BOSTON, June 27, 2014 OnForce, a leader in technology-enabled workforce management, today announced the newest version of its mobile app for iOS and Android. The app enables more effective communication between the IT field service freelancer and the buyer, and for the first time allows companies and independent workers outside of the IT industry to leverage OnForces mobile freelancer engagement and management capabilities.

OnForces freelancer marketplace and management mobile app is one of the most widely used in the IT industry. The app offers companies instant access to OnForces network of certified IT field service freelancers, and enables these freelancers to find jobs on-the-go as well as communicate with the buyer and capture signatures for payment while in the field. Since OnForce launched its iOS app in December 2011 and Android app in March 2012, IT field service workers have used OnForces mobile apps to find and manage nearly 250,000 work orders, as well as communicate with buyers and secure necessary signoffs.

I used to find work through my computer or an existing contact, show up for a job with a big clipboard full of paperwork, and fill out all the necessary invoicing and other paperwork when I got home, said Jodie Bass, lead technician at Relentless by Design. Now I secure roughly ninety percent of my work through the OnForce mobile app. Im able to find jobs without being tied to a computer, quickly review the scope of work, pricing and location, and use the app to capture my clients signature for invoicing. When Im finishing up a project that I traveled a ways to get to, its great checking the app to see if theres any other work nearby before heading home.

With its revamped mobile app for iOS and Android, OnForce is further streamlining communication between the freelancer and the buyer, allowing IT workers to spend less time doing administrative tasks associated with managing freelance projects and helping companies avoid costly work order description misunderstandings. The app is also now customized to work with OnForce Converge, the companys newest platform that gives organizations in industries outside of IT such as education, finance and marketing the ability to manage their private networks of freelancers for on-site projects as well as online work.

Key new features of the OnForce mobile app include:

OnForce Converge customization: Companies using OnForce Converge can now ask their private networks of freelance workers to download the OnForce mobile app, which allows for seamless communication about new project opportunities, work order details and directions to the work site. The app can also be used to collect sign-offs necessary for payment.

Custom field and resolution notes entry to mobile: Previously accessible only through OnForces Web application, companies across industries can now set up custom work order and resolution notes fields in the OnForce mobile app. OnForce Pros can also fill out these forms through the app while in the field, instead of having to collect notes on the job and later submit them through a desktop application.

Work order formatting enhancements: Companies now have the ability to add rich formatting to their work order description, from bold fonts to bulleted lists. This rich formatting allows companies to emphasize the most important job instructions, and helps ensure that miscommunications between the buyer and worker are minimized.

iOS7 design updates: The entire OnForce iOS UI has been redesigned to eliminate bugs and make it consistent with Apples iOS7 design schema, providing freelancers with the best mobile experience.

IT field services was the first industry where we saw an intense demand for a mobile freelancer marketplace and management application. Now were starting to see this demand emerge across industries, from school systems with substitute teachers to journalism and Web development, said OnForce CEO Peter Cannone. OnForces new app for iOS and Android makes it even easier for enterprises to find and manage their networks of freelance workers, and gives freelancers in IT field services and across industries the ability to secure jobs and process even more of their buyer communication through their smart phones.

To download the new OnForce mobile app, click here for iOS or click here for Android.

About OnForce

OnForce, a leader in SaaS technology-enabled workforce solutions, empowers companies of all sizes in all industries to gain a competitive edge in how work gets done. Its business model allows customers to rapidly grow their businesses, lower service costs, extend skill-sets, and generate new streams of revenue. For additional information, please visit www.onforce.com.

Contact:

Alex Parks

Davies Murphy Group

onforce@daviesmurphy.com

(781) 418-2412

Reference: OnForce Press Releases 

OnForce Whitepaper Urges Businesses to Re-evaluate their Workforce Management Model

BOSTON, June 26, 2014 OnForce, a leader in technology-enabled workforce management, today announced the availability of its newest whitepaper, Task-To-Talent (T2T) Transformation: Why enterprise leaders need to understand and prepare their businesses for this different way of getting work done. The whitepaper presents reasons why business leaders should prepare for the increased adoption of worker engagement models comprised of smaller, unbundled engagements intermediated across digital platforms, and the advantages of a T2T contingent workforce.

T2T work arrangements, which are shorter in nature than traditional contingent work arrangements and involve finding freelancers with highly specific skill sets on-demand to complete assignments, are increasingly emerging in companies across industries. However, the workforce management techniques of the 20th century that are still prevalent in the workforce are not suitable for 21st century T2T workforce management needs. OnForces latest whitepaper outlines that current executive thinking about future workforce solutions is behind the times executives often do not consider the contingent workforce as a strategic solution, and are even less aware of new forms of work arrangements such as platform-intermediated T2T.

Executive leaders of larger enterprises are rightly concerned about how their organizations will have access to needed talent and skills in the future. But they are often looking in the rear-view mirror, thinking primarily about recruiting and retaining employees. Evolving forms of contingent work are seen as remedial fixes, not as strategic solutions and a new normal. A shift in thinking from old HR paradigms is needed, advises Andrew Karpie, chief analyst of The Research Platform and author of the whitepaper. Many of the skill and knowledge gaps opening up in 21st century enterprises are starting to be and will increasingly be filled with shorter engagements of a variablesometimes on-demandnon-employee workforce. Its the 21st, not the 20th centuryan attitude adjustment is long overdue.

The whitepaper outlines a number of factors and issues, including:

How current assumptions about talent engagement are being challenged in the near future;

Why executives need to shift their thinking to embrace these new workforce strategies for knowledge-based workers; and

How new workforce strategies are available and are being increasingly utilized by businesses today.

We have noted a shift in the development of the Task-to-Talent space for some time due to changes in the economy and technological developments, said OnForce CEO Peter Cannone. Long gone are the days of the full-time, 30-years-at-the-same-company worker who retires with a pension. Were seeing workers now who are self-employed or freelancers who understand that they are on their own. OnForce is providing solutions to help organizations secure qualified talent to perform short-term tasks, and the means to help manage that relationship.

Task-To-Talent (T2T) Transformation: Why enterprise leaders need to understand and prepare their businesses for this different way of getting work done, is available for download here.

About OnForce 

OnForce, a leader in SaaS technology-enabled workforce solutions, empowers companies of all sizes in all industries to gain a competitive edge in how work gets done. Its business model allows customers to rapidly grow their businesses, lower service costs, extend skill-sets, and generate new streams of revenue. For additional information, please visit www.onforce.com and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Contact:
Alex Parks
Davies Murphy Group
onforce@daviesmurphy.com
(781) 418-2412

Reference: OnForce Press Releases

OnForce Continues to Lead Technology-Enabled Freelancer Economy Movement

BOSTON, June 6, 2014 OnForce, a leader in technology-enabled workforce management, today highlighted various milestones the company has achieved in accelerating the adoption of independent contractor workforce models since the launch of its platform that connects companies with best-fit independent IT workers, and gives companies the tools to manage and pay these workers. OnForce also outlined emerging business opportunities for providing workforce management solutions that address new types of freelancer arrangements outside of the IT industry.

In the spring of 2004 OnForce became one of the first companies to launch an online freelancer marketplace and management platform, which allowed enterprises to quickly find independent IT field service workers with specific skills sets for short-term, on-site IT projects, and also gave enterprises the tools for managing and paying these independent workers. Over the course of the last decade OnForce has become one of the most widely used platforms for engaging, managing and paying independent IT workers in the U.S. and Canada. In the last decade OnForce has achieved numerous milestones, including:

More than 6,400 companies ranging from the worlds largest enterprises like Apple, AT&T, Xerox, Comcast and Pitney Bowes to SMBs have used OnForces platform to engage, manage and pay independent IT workers

More than 2.2 million assignments secured through OnForces platform

Nearly 250,000 work orders accepted through OnForces native mobile applications for iOS and Android

Providing IT field services coverage in more than 99.8 percent of U.S. ZIP codes

Securing patents that serve as the foundation for efficient engagement of freelance workers, which focus on work order development, online negotiation and payment processing systems, as well as real-time clarification of work order requirements and visibility into the updated work orders for all relevant parties

Recognition from numerous industry sources as a leading freelancer management technology provider, including the Red Herring 100, Stevie Awards, CODiE Awards, Webby Awards and Channel Insider Bulls Eye Award

Technology has played an increasingly important role over the last decade in allowing companies of all sizes to quickly gain access to pools of freelance workers with specific skill-sets for completing specialized assignments, said Andrew Karpie, chief analyst of The Research Platform. OnForces platform offers companies a much needed way to engage, manage, and control short-assignment independent workers, and its mobile applications and other tools empower those freelancers to put theirunique skills and expertise to work anytime and anywhere they are needed.

Task-to-Talent Growth Opportunities Emerge Beyond IT Industry

Recent studies estimate that contingent labor accounts for up to 30 percent of an organizations total workforce mix, and forecasts indicate that independent workers will account for up to 50 percent of the U.S. workforce by 2020. As OnForce looks forward, the company sees growth opportunities in providing technologies for managing Task-to-Talent workforce arrangements, which are shorter-term in nature than traditional contingent work arrangements and involve hiring freelancers with specialized skill-sets for completing highly specific, finite tasks.

The IT industry was one of the earliest adopters of the Task-to-Talent workforce model, where companies hire IT contractors for very short periods of time, lasting hours or even minutes, to complete a specific assignment, said OnForce CEO Peter Cannone. Recently weve seen many industries outside of IT, such as education, marketing, publishing and financial services, cultivate their own private networks of freelance workers, and these companies are now interested in implementing Task-to-Talent strategies and supporting technologies. OnForces platform for engaging, managing and paying freelance workers for short-term engagements has been battle-tested in the IT industry over the last decade, which puts us in a strong position to provide companies across industries with the most reliable platform for managing Task-to-Talent workforce arrangements.

This year OnForce launched OnForce Converge, a cloud-based Freelancer Management System (FMS) for giving enterprises the tools necessary for implementing a Task-to-Talent workforce model. The OnForce Converge platform offers a unique set of capabilities for managing enterprises private networks of freelance workers, including on-demand job filling and compliance management, along with consolidated invoicing, administration and reporting. To learn more, visit http://www.onforce.com/converge.

About OnForce

OnForce, a leader in SaaS technology-enabled workforce solutions, empowers companies of all sizes in all industries to gain a competitive edge in how work gets done. Its business model allows customers to rapidly grow their businesses, lower service costs, extend skill-sets, and generate new streams of revenue. For additional information, please visit www.onforce.com.

Contact:

Alex Parks
Davies Murphy Group
onforce@daviesmurphy.com
(781) 418-2412

Reference: OnForce PressReleases 

OnForce Whitepaper Highlights Economic and Technological Factors Driving Task to Talent Employment Models

BOSTON, April 29, 2014 -- OnForce, a leader in technology-enabled workforce management, today released the whitepaper, "Task To Talent (T2T): How Technology is Driving a New Contingent Work Arrangement Paradigm." The whitepaper discusses a new type of workforce arrangement through which enterprises engage independent workers to perform short-term, specific, task-focused assignments. The whitepaper also offers an overview of some of the new Task-to-Talent technology platforms.

Recent advances in technologies, combined with enterprises growing demand to find and manage independent contractors for short-term assignments lasting for a matter of hours (or even minutes or seconds), are driving the emergence of a new Task-to-Talent workforce arrangement paradigm. While traditional staffing technology platforms such as vendor management systems (VMS) process large volumes of contingent workforce transactions and continue to evolve, they were not designed to support work arrangements for more specialized T2T "short assignments," "tasks," or "microtasks."

"The Task-to-Talent work arrangement paradigm is still at an early stage of development, but it is happening and will become an increasingly common feature and institution in our expanding digital economy," said Andrew Karpie, chief analyst of The Research Platform and author of the whitepaper. "While organizations have been engaging contractors for highly specific, very short-term assignments for some time, they've almost always done so using limiting, inefficient, ad hoc management processes that are neither automated nor transparent and may also pose compliance risks. Task-to-Talent technology platforms are now starting to enable organizations to achieve higher levels of workforce efficiency, agility and performance by leveraging, expanding, and truly 'managing' Task-to-Talent forms of work."

"Task To Talent (T2T): How Technology is Driving a New Contingent Work Arrangement Paradigm," offers an analysis of the economic and technological factors that led to the emergence of T2T workforce arrangements, and an overview and comparison of Task-to-Talent technology vendors including oDesk/Elance, TaskRabbit, Crowdflower and OnForce. The whitepaper outlines a number of factors and issues, including:

• The differences between the Personnel Staffing and Task-to-Talent workforce arrangement paradigms;
• How the co-evolution of technology and work arrangement paradigms resulted in the emergence of Task-to-Talent workforce arrangements; and
• Some of the basic differences among a range of Task-to-Talent technology platforms that are commercially available today.

Having spent the last decade working with thousands of the world's top enterprises including Apple, AT &T and Xerox in managing, engaging and paying independent contractors, we've seen first-hand the Task-to-Talent workforce arrangement paradigm take off in the IT space," said OnForce CEO Peter Cannone. "More recently we've seen the same Task-to-Talent need arise across industries as enterprises seek more efficient ways to manage the large private networks of freelancers they've cultivated to complete these short-term, specialized assignments.

In anticipation of the growing enterprise need across industries to manage Task-to-Talent engagements, OnForce recently announced OnForce Converge, a software platform that can be adopted within any company's contingent workforce program and enable the aggregation and management of a company's existing and future "short-assignment" contingent workforce. OnForce Converge is designed to work in conjunction with current workforce management solutions including managed solution providers (MSP) and vendor management systems, allowing organizations to expand their workforce management capabilities to incorporate contingent workers (independent contractors, freelancers, etc.) who perform smaller, shorter, specialized projects and tasks.

The whitepaper, "Task To Talent (T2T): How Technology is Driving a New Contingent Work Arrangement Paradigm," is available for download here. To learn more about OnForce Converge, please visit http://www.onforce.com/converge.

About OnForce

OnForce, a leader in SaaS technology-enabled workforce solutions, empowers companies of all sizes in all industries to gain a competitive edge in how work gets done. Its business model allows customers to rapidly grow their businesses, lower service costs, extend skill-sets, and generate new streams of revenue. For additional information, please visit www.onforce.com and follow us on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Contact:

Alex Parks

Davies Murphy Group

onforce@daviesmurphy.com

(781) 418-2412

Reference: OnForcePressReleases  

OnForce and ICon Announce Partnership to Offer Leading Freelancer Management Platform with Robust Compliance Solution

BOSTON and Foster City, Calif., April 8, 2014 OnForce, a leader in technology-enabled workforce management, and ICon, a leader in independent contractor compliance, today announced a partnership that will give organizations across industries the ability to engage, manage and pay their private networks of freelance workers while ensuring that their contingent workforce management practices are compliant with state and federal regulations.

Recent studies estimate that contingent labor accounts for up to 30 percent of an organizations total workforce mix, and forecasts indicate that independent workers will account for more than 50 percent of the U.S. workforce by 2020. With the heightened scrutiny of worker relationships by all levels of government, organizations need to proactively address the logistical challenges of engaging and administering contingent workers as well as manage the compliance risks related to the use of independent contractors.

Independent contractor compliance is one of the greatest concerns of companies seeking to capitalize on the efficiencies of the freelancer economy, said OnForce CEO Peter Cannone. With this go-to-market offering between OnForce and ICon, enterprise customers have the opportunity to manage the growing trend towards engaging freelancers while mitigating these state and federal compliance risks.

Organizations across industries now have the ability to use OnForce Converge, a cloud-based Freelancer Management System (FMS) for managing an enterprises private network of independent workers, along with ICons full-service automated compliance solution. Available in subscription-based models, these freelancer management and compliance solutions provide enterprises with the most efficient way of engaging, managing and paying their dynamic, variable freelancer workforce.

Theres really no debating that the use of independent contractors is one of the most advantageous strategies for companies to achieve greater workforce optimization, said ICon CEO Patricia Griffin. Were enabling companies to leverage these benefitsvia our technology integrations and partnerships, while also providing the assurance that they are adhering to the full scope of complex compliance regulations.

About ICon Professional Services

ICon is a leading provider of Contingent Workforce Management solutions which include 1099 contractor compliance, payroll and benefits administration.Since 1997, ICon has applied experience, technology, and process execution to create solutions that deliver on the promise of an independent workforce by expertly navigating the complexity of government compliance. Our award-winning iConnect technology platform remains at the forefront of the industry and provides powerful competitive advantages in terms of cost and performance. This technological advantage, along with our dedication to providing superior customer service, has earned ICon a long list of awards and satisfied customers. For additional information, visit www.gotoicon.com.

About OnForce

OnForce, a leader in SaaS technology-enabled workforce solutions, empowers companies of all sizes in all industries to gain a competitive edge in how work gets done. Its business model allows customers to rapidly grow their businesses, lower service costs, extend skill-sets, and generate new streams of revenue. For additional information, please visit www.onforce.com.

Contact:
Izumi Barker
ICon Professional Services
ibarker@gotoicon.com
(650) 378-4150
Alex Parks
Davies Murphy Group
onforce@daviesmurphy.com
(781) 418-2412

Reference: OnForcePressReleases

Platform version 5.60.4 release

The OnForce team will be releasing an update to the platform tonight. Here’s what’s new: Add rich formatting to work order details

Are you making it easy to understand the requirements of your work? Are you providing clear and easy-to-follow instructions? In a fast-paced on-site environment, how quickly can service professionals extract important information from your job description?

As a service buyer, improving the readability of your work orders helps the service professionals you work with to quickly and completely understand job requirements and instructions — saving time on site, reducing errors and missed steps, and leading to better overall service.

OnForce service buyers can now apply rich formatting to their work order description, instructions, and terms of agreement fields, making the scope of work and service instructions easier to read, understand, and follow. With our easy-to-use formatting toolbar, you can add any of the following formatting and styling options to your work order text:

• Bold Italics
• Numbered lists 
• Bulleted lists 
• Horizontal rules 

Some tips for improving work order readability:

Avoid using all capital letters

Part of the way our brains make sense of printed text is by recognizing letter shapes. Because capitalized letters are all the same height, we actually have to work harder to distinguish between them. A study in the American Journal of Psychological Research concluded that using capital letters for emphasis actually decreases reading comprehension. What to do instead: Use bold or italics to emphasize important details and highlight critical steps or procedures. Break up large blocks of text

Presenting job details in large blocks of text increases the amount of time required to read and decreases comprehension and retention. It’s much easier for our brains to assign meaning to what we read when visual characteristics, such as lists and spacing, are used to help us understand how the information is organized. What to do instead: Use section headings, spacing, and horizontal rules to organize your work order into smaller, more manageable sections. For example, maybe you want to provide instructions for what a Pro should do prior to going on site, while they’re on site, and when they are closing out the job.

Want more help?

Our support and account management teams are here to help you if you need pointers on how to structure an effective, easy-to-read work order.

Reference: OnForce Blog

OnForce CEO Among Staffing Industry Top 100 Most Influential

Peter Cannone is the president and CEO of OnForce, a workforce solutions company that delivers proven offerings to today’s pressing labor management issues for the Fortune 1000 and beyond. He brings deep insights regarding trends in the staffing and service sectors and an extensive understanding of the technology services industry. Through Cannone’s leadership, OnForce recently won the prestigious Red Herring 2013 Top 100 North America award. As an award winner, OnForce joins the short list that honors the year’s most promising private technology ventures.

Mitigating the Biggest Risk in Hiring IT Service Professionals

Posted by Peter Cannone, CEO of OnForce

If you haven’t caught the latest Gartner global analysis on IT staffing trends, it’s certainly worth a closer look. One of the key findings from this year’s report is that staffing remains the largest cost category for the IT budget, representing a global average of 41 percent. Along with that news is the recent PayScale survey, which found that tech companies have the highest reported turnover rate.

When you consider how much of the IT budget is allocated to staffing, the high turnover in our industry, an unemployment rate holding steady at 7.4 percent, and shrinking employee benefits packages, it’s clear that a new business model must emerge for identifying and vetting IT talent. Reinforcing the need for a new model is the results from a recent survey, which found that 60 percent of IT service professionals voluntarily joined the ranks of the self-employed.

Combined, these factors have resulted in the emergence of the Workforce-as-a-Service model, where businesses hire skilled IT talent for contract assignments to address short-term business needs.

It sounds ideal for the IT service professional who wants to be their own boss and it’s a viable alternative for businesses that need to keep the business running whether they’re quickly growing, needing to sustain a product line or are managing gaps in the workforce.

Yet as this new WaaS business model emerges, companies and independent contractors need to prioritize the “business of their business.” Specifically, protecting themselves from liabilities should anything go awry during the course of the assignment.

These incidents can range from simple falls resulting in physical injury to more complex scenarios driven by the fact that the IT service professional has access to sensitive information and infrastructure.

What often happens when a 1099 employee comes on board is that both the client and the IT service professional have a standard contract in place. It’s not uncommon for both parties to give the contract a cursory glance and assume they’re safeguarded against any physical incidents or compromises of intellectual property. And if a third party introduces the IT service professional to the service buyer, it’s often assumed that the assignment is fully protected.

Yet what is not widely known is that in many instances the assignment is only partially protected. Or worse, the IT service professional opted out of obtaining insurance.

Of course, the last thing anybody wants to think about when they’re bringing on an IT service professional is that something could go wrong. And sure, insurance isn’t always the sexiest topic to discuss – until something goes wrong and it creates a substantial impact and/or captures the attention of the mainstream media.

So what should service buyers prioritize before they enter into an agreement with an IT service contractor?

• Insurance that covers liability, workers’ compensation, and errors and omissions. 
• Proper classification of contract employees according to federal and state guidelines. 
• Full background checks and client reviews. While background checks are table stakes these days, let’s not overlook recent innovations in technology that allow us to check on the public ratings and service buyer experiences of working with individual IT service professionals.

As more businesses look to maximize returns on that 41 percent of the budget they’re allocating toward IT staffing, it make sense that they look to the independent workforce to augment their teams on an as-needed basis. In fact, many service buyers report a cost savings of between 30-60 percent through the Workforce-as-a-Service model.

Yet before the service buyer signs on the dotted line, they need to be sure the proper mechanisms are in place to protect them and their business before any IT service professional steps foot onsite.

Resource : Innovation Insights

The New Staffing Reality: Workforce-as-a-Service

Posted by Peter Cannone, CEO of OnForce

Let’s face it. The dynamics of the workforce have radically changed over the past few years. Unemployment is holding steady at 7.4 percent. Unsteady economic growth is prompting employers to think twice about their staffing models. And without the safety net of employer benefits, a lot of talent is switching from being a traditional W2 employee to join the growing ranks of independent contractors. In fact, when it comes to IT professionals, 60 percent of them willingly joined the independent workforce.

What all of these factors have created is a new staffing model where businesses bring on skilled professionals for short-term assignments. For example, let’s imagine you need extra hands to quickly seize a hot market opportunity or you want to reallocate your staff to focus on a new initiative, yet need to sustain your existing product line. For companies in various stages of growth and development, the independent contractor model makes sense because it allows businesses to focus on operational efficiency and maximize productivity while reducing, if not completely eliminating idle time.

Of course, the concept of hiring 1099s is not exactly new. In many scenarios, a former colleague or a friend-of-a-friend was brought in for a specific task. What is new, however, is the way that independent contractor talent is identified, vetted and secured.

PREMIUM CONTENT: Online Staffing Platform Businesses ‐ 2013 and 2014 Industry Segment Forecast

Specifically, advances in technology enable us to not only access a skilled pool of talent that is located right under our noses, but also publicly share feedback on our experiences with the independent contractor. This way, we’re able to find the right talent when it’s needed, a.k.a. “Workforce-as-a-Service” (WaaS).

Going beyond job boards, online marketplaces or social media sites to identify and hire talent for short-term assignments, the WaaS model has three critical differentiators.

1. Each assignment is fully protected with insurance against general liability, workers’ compensation and errors and omissions.

2. The contract professional is properly classified as a 1099, therefore mitigating risks for the service buyer.

3. There is a 100 percent service buyer satisfaction guarantee to support quality outcomes before the independent contractor is paid for completed work.

Let’s examine these three differentiators a bit more closely.

The insurance factor is significant yet can be easily overlooked. What service buyers and independent contractors need to be mindful of are gaps in coverage that can expose both of them to risk. Before a contract is put into place, make sure that the assignment is not just partially covered or that insurance is optional. You need the guarantee that each assignment is fully insured before an independent contractor arrives to a job site.

As for the second differentiator, we’ve all seen or heard about the huge financial burden associated with misclassification of independent contractors. As more businesses look to the WaaS model, they need to be sure due diligence is executed when it comes to properly classifying independent contractors.

Finally, in fairness to all parties involved in the engagement, satisfaction ratings must be consistent and specific to the task.

WaaS is the natural, next step in the evolution of our workforce. Yet for the model to be successful for service buyers and independent contractors, both sides must agree to and enforce the principles outlined by those three critical differentiators.

Firm Takes On-Site Approach to Online Staffing at Enterprise Level

Online staffing and services firms continue to roll out enterprise-level offerings for large customers. OnForce, an online services provider, last week announced two new enterprise-level offerings — its “workforce expansion” and “workforce optimization” services.

OnForce allows client companies to find independent contractors online, manages the flow of work and facilitates payments. Buyers can find independent contractors online or use OnForce to build a network of independent contractors through its database of U.S. and Canadian independent contractors.

Online services is one part of the "human cloud" category that includes online staffing (firms such as Elance and oDesk) and crowdsourcing (firms such as Crowdflower).

OnForce differs from other types of online staffing and services firms in that buyers use its online platform to send independent contractors directly onto a site where work is to be performed. On other online platforms, the work takes place entirely online.

The company’s workforce, for now, includes information technology specialists and consumer electronics specialists (whose work includes product repair).

“We provide a variable workforce virtual engagement, but do local delivery,” said CEO Peter Cannone.

It’s “workforce optimization” offering will design a customized workforce model for enterprise customers, an optimized labor plan and provide key performance metrics.

The “workforce expansion” offering allows large companies to add to their workforce to expand a product line or conduct a new product rollout. One example is a cable television provider who wants to provide network installation along with other installation services provided by its workers so customers have one place to go. Instead of hiring more workers, the company is providing the network installation through the OnForce platform.

Resource - Staffing Industry Analysts

New Offering Shifts Online Staffing Model

By Andrew Karpie

OnForce, a provider of platform services that enable businesses — like cable companies, electronic equipment providers, etc. — to engage and dispatch “field service contractors” across the U.S., has introduced a set of service offerings that enable any kind of large enterprise to deploy an IT-related “managed contractor workforce” in almost any U.S. location.

OnForce announced yesterday it is introducing two new service offerings coupled with its sophisticated online contractor management platform. The company places both of these service offerings in a new enterprise workforce solution category that it calls “workforce-as-a-service.”

Effectively, workforce-as-a-service provides an enterprise with a fully managed workforce of contractors who can perform work assignments on demand. But unlike a managed service program/vendor management system kind of model, where contingent workforce suppliers (like staffing firms) are managed as vendors, in this model OnForce manages the contractors directly, and provides crucial services such as workers’ compensation, general liability, and errors and omissions, as well as risk mitigation for misclassification of independent contractors. In this sense, OnForce acts as a general contractor, but one which can provide different kinds of (highly-flexible, even on-demand) managed contractor workforce service offerings based on its digital platform.

The two managed workforce solution offerings being launched are:

• Workforce Optimization, a solution is designed for businesses that need to increase operational efficiency and maximize productivity due to a variety of reasons such as the need to sustain existing product lines while new ones are in development. 
• Workforce Expansion (a solution designed for companies that need to rapidly expand to support a product rollout or new line of business, especially in a new geographic market area.

This is an important development in the shift toward online platform models enabling innovative, flexible, on-demand work-outputs for large enterprises. Online platforms typically have been leveraged to support remote freelancers in virtual work categories like software development. Now we are seeing online platforms deliver ‘boots on the ground’ in offerings that shield businesses from independent contractor compliance and similar risks. These new offerings are unique in that they provide companies with a “managed workforce” service that delivers work outcomes as opposed to workers.

Resource - Staffing Industry Analysts

What Lurks Beneath? A Tectonic Shift in the Work Arrangement Landscape?

Earthquakes occur when sufficient stress has built up along fault lines, such that the earth moves all of a sudden, and what’s on the surface is often drastically altered. Things in our 21st century world are now happening so quickly that we rarely pause to examine what changes actually occurred and how those changes overtook us (they often come quietly from behind).

Just over the past 20 years, we have known many such instances. One of the most visible ones (you can think of all the rest!) was the advent of iTunes. Prior to that, we were all very comfortable with our time-tested way of consuming music: we would own our own player devices (phonograph, Walkman, CD player) and we would buy our music on some corresponding physical medium (vinyl, cassette, CD containing the IP/content we desired) from some retail outlet (first a physical store and eventually an online store like Amazon.com).

Even as digitization set in, this old pattern or form of arranging access to musical content we did not own — but could pay to use — did not change right away. But at some point — after internet, MP3 technology, and Napster — it did (rapidly and completely). At some point, technology, economic forces, human behavior shifts brought about a major shift — not some major discontinuity or leap in underlying technologies or a suspension of the laws of supply and demand (or laws of intellectual property, for that matter), but a substantial change in how access to music was structured or arranged.

So is such a shift possible in the world of “work arrangements?”

Until quite recently, human capital-related information technology (including HCM and TMS) has not had much impact on the shape of “work arrangements.” Job Boards did not change the form of the traditional permanent employment work arrangement, and Vendor Management Systems (VMS) did not change the form of the traditional contingent/temporary/SOW work arrangements. Both of these information technology developments basically targeted improvements in talent supply chain performance, not the “restructuring” of actual “work arrangements.”

However, over the past six years, a set of forces has been converging (these include, increasing global economic competitive pressures, businesses requiring more flexible workforces and scarce talent, and changes in workforce demographics, expectations, and preferences). These forces, mixed with new possibilities engendered by integration of technologies like social, cloud, mobile, et al, have been having significant impacts on work arrangements (actually spawning new forms). Perhaps one of the most radical of these has been “crowdsourcing” work arrangements, while one of the most pervasive has been “online freelancing” enabled by online staffing platforms like oDesk, Elance, and others. Concepts of “extended workforce” (Accenture), “private talent clouds” (Elance), “workforce-as-a-service” (OnForce) are now not just fantastic ideas, but in 2013 refer to functioning “work arrangements” that have unprecedented characteristics of being fractional, variable, mobile, on demand, etc.

SIA started studying this phenomenon over the past two years, and we continue seeing clear signs of development, innovation, and growth--in what today still looks like a small spot in a petri dish. Some of these visible signs can viewed through the microscopes of two recent SIA reports, The “Human Cloud” in 2013: What It Is, and Why It Is An Emerging and Real Opportunity For Staffing Firms and “Online Staffing” Platforms: 2013 industry segment landscape.

Resource - Staffing Industry Analysts

Workforce-as-a-Service Scales to Meet IT Staffing Needs on Demand

What if you could scale your IT personnel requirements as you would computing resources? Using a workforce-as-a-service model lets you add a skilled, vetted and insured workforce when you need it and release it when you don't.

-By Sharon Florentine

Cannone says that OnForce has nearly 1,000 independent contractors signing up with the company each month, but that doesn't mean they're all hired. Applicants go through a rigorous screening process, he says, that includes a personal and skills questionnaire, an online battery of tests, a phone screening, a background check, drug testing, all to guarantee that customers are receiving 'W-2 quality' workers.

OnForce says it also uses proprietary talent matching algorithms that take more than 20 data points into account to make sure workers are a good match for the job. These algorithms are constantly reviewed based on on-site performance, and workers are given continuing assessments and performance reviews to make sure they're performing at peak levels, Cannone says.

"One issue we address with this WaaS model is the misclassification of workers - how many times have you hired someone for a position and found their skills weren't quite right? That's a costly mistake, and one we can address," he says.

Consistency and Communication

OnForce also ensures its workers are covered under the umbrella of its insurance policy, which can remove a major administrative headache for customers, says Leslie Rudolph, vice president of Operations, Field Services Division, for Tampa, Fla.-based OnForce partner Vital Networks, which delivers networking solutions, monitoring and management, as well as rapid-response support.

"We are a services delivery company, but we saw that with the increasing mobility of our customers that it was tough to provide a consistent staffing solution; we have our own field services engineers, but it was hard to communicate with them consistently, and difficult to manage all the insurance and risk management for all of them," Rudolph says. "It was becoming an administrative hassle and a quality assurance problem," she says.

"We still have our own teams of field service engineers, but we partnered with OnForce to increase our efficiency for customers," Rudolph says. "This is an innovative way to approach the business. It's flexible to the needs of our customers, and it means we can be responsive and fast at addressing their needs," she says.

Resource - CIO

How the Sharing Economy is Evolving Into Workforce-as-a-Service (Infographic)

Posted by Peter Cannone, CEO of OnForce

It would be impossible to overlook all of the talk about the collaborative, sharing economy, which is estimated to be a $110B plus market. Even Thomas Friedman penned a New York Times op-ed column on it. Not to mention IT luminary Irving Wladasky-Berger’s take on it, which recently appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

With companies like TaskRabbit and Airbnb capturing the spotlight, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that there is a significant opportunity in the IT slice of this market. In fact, of the $3.5B that will pass through the sharing economy this year, approximately one-third of it will go toward IT.

So how exactly does IT play in today’s sharing economy and how is it evolving into Workforce-as-a-Service (WaaS)?

Well, let’s first step back and understand what we mean by the sharing economy. Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group offers the best definition. He explains the sharing economy is “an economic model where ownership and access are shared between corporations, startups and people. This results in market efficiencies that bear new products, services and business growth.”

Now you already know that this whole notion of sharing isn’t exactly new. Rather, the sharing economy has resulted from the evolution of our workforce since the days of the Industrial Revolution.

During that time, the majority of employment opportunities for the first generation workforce were in manual labor and it wasn’t until the World War II economy that healthcare was introduced by employers as a recruiting tool.

As innovations in the Industrial Revolution eventually led to the Digital Revolution, the second generation workforce, marked by the rise of knowledge workers, soon outnumbered all other workers by a ratio of 4:1.

Then, as the Internet age morphed into Web 2.0 where collaboration reigns, came the third generation workforce. In this sharing economy, contract employees double as entrepreneurs carving out flexible work arrangements, funding their own healthcare, and taking more control over their destiny.

It’s not a coincidence that the sharing economy has taken off during a time of unprecedented change in the workforce, especially when it comes to IT. Let me explain.

On the one hand, you have businesses that want to optimize efficiencies without bringing on a slew of full-time employees. On the other hand, there are a growing number of skilled IT professionals that, after weighing the pros and cons of being on someone else’s payroll, voluntarily joined the ranks of the independent workforce and are thriving as entrepreneurs.

When you look at the converging forces in the economy, advancements in technology and the shifts in the traditional employer/employee arrangement, you can see how we’ve arrived at the sharing economy and how it’s evolving into the on demand “Workforce-as-a-Service” (WaaS) business model.

Going beyond tactical tasks of the sharing economy, the WaaS model applies to the fourth generation workforce. In it, knowledge workers are able to satisfy the needs of businesses by successfully executing short-term assignments, anywhere.

For example, let’s consider WaaS for IT. Imagine a business that needs to ramp up quickly or perhaps sustain an existing product line while they focus on other initiatives. In both of these real world scenarios, independent IT service professionals can help with these transitions.

WaaS is an ideal work arrangement when you look at a company’s desire for modular staff to complete a project or get geographic reach quickly, and the rise of independent contractors that want the flexibility and consistency that come from steady, short-term assignments. Yet before you embrace this model, be sure that the assignment is fully protected should anything go awry.

More specifically, what a lot of service buyers may not be aware of is the fact that many assignments are only partially protected, therefore exposing their businesses to significant risk.

If you’re a business or an independent contractor that wants to seize part of the multi-billion dollar sharing economy as it evolves into WaaS, you must have the assurance that each assignment is protected against liability, errors and omissions, and workers’ comp.

Now you may be thinking this adds too much complexity to the idea of hiring on demand but don’t let it be a gating factor. Instead, look to those proven online networks that bring together service buyers and IT service professionals and ask the tough insurance questions before you commit to bringing an independent contractor onsite.

There’s tremendous upside in the WaaS model for businesses and independent contractors as long as both sides are properly protected throughout the engagement.

With flexibility and expertise as it’s hallmarks, and the prediction that 50 percent of the American workforce will be classified as 1099s by the year 2020, it’s clear the WaaS model is here to stay.

Reference - http://insights.wired.com/profiles/blogs/how-the-sharing-economy-is-evolving-into-workforce-as-a-service#ixzz2eWQYMFZg

Poor Attendance Leads to Poor Results

By Terry Stockham, Human Capital Advisor at OnForce

According to The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, the definition of absenteeism is:”Habitual absence from work, thought to reflect employee demoralization or dissatisfaction.”

Absenteeism at work is not only about the direct costs related to an employee’s absence (sick pay, overtime, etc.), but also about the related effects that ripple throughout the organization. Here are just a few examples of the extended impacts of poor attendance:

• Safety implications: working short-handed, hiring inexperienced temporary staff, or relying on overworked employees on overtime can all lead to increased accidents and downtime, as well as have a negative impact on cost and profitability


• Productivity loss: because of reduced staff, your company may shorten certain processes to get things done


• Quality compromised: product and service defects tend to increase when you do not have sufficient staff; also, employees already working a full schedule and asked to put in additional hours tend to make more mistakes


• Performance loss: high-performing employees with good attendance will gradually become disengaged and their performance will suffer as a result of carrying shifted burdens and workload, especially over an extended period of time


• Employee turnover: poor attendance may eventually lead to more high-performing employees leaving, compared to low-performing employees. Over time, this dynamic can drastically impact your organization on multiple levels and inhibit its ability to meet the needs of customers in a quality-driven, sustainable, and profitable manner.

As you can see from these examples, attendance issues are reflected not only with employee cost, but also have cost and performance impacts that can affect your entire organization and your bottom line. While attendance is a relatively complex issue with no single solution, there are things you can look for in your organization such as:

CULTURE: Take a hard look at your culture and how employees are treated and recognized for performance. Do you have a culture of inclusion and collaboration rather than “command and control”?

TALENT: To borrow Jim Collins’ phrase: “Are you getting the right people on the bus…in the right seats?” Work environments, cultures, and jobs change over time. The right person, in the right place, at the right time, doing the right things is crucial. Conversely, mismatches result in disengagement and poor attendance.

RECOGNITION: Pay and benefits come to be perceived as entitlements to an employee in a very short time. They are important, but not true motivators. Look at how your organization recognizes the contributions of employees. It is human nature to desire and seek acknowledgment of successes and performance, which is why recognition is a cost-effective way to get lasting results with positive impacts to the bottom line.

JOB STRUCTURE: Review how your jobs are structured. Maybe it’s time for a change. Does the structure of the job challenge and motivate the employee? Does the employee feel he/she can make a difference in his/her current role? If the answer is “no,” it is time for a change. Some jobs may need to be restructured or redesigned to improve employee satisfaction with the work. If this does not help, some duties may need to be outsourced or fulfilled via an appropriate contingent labor model.

If your company has an attendance problem, the key is to act quickly, before it negatively impacts your entire organization.

Reference: OnForce

Three Ways To Deliver Exceptional Service

Guest blog by George Harris, VP of Business Development at OnForce

Whether you’re a managed service provider, an OEM, a VAR, or even a full-service company in the 3rd-party arena, achieving exceptional service is always a top part of your organizational mission. Although your product or service may be very different from the company down the street, that goal remains the same.

As George Harris, VP of Business Development at OnForce says, “There are a hundred ways to bake a cake, but some taste better than others.” How can you make sure that your efforts are resulting in a robust, tasty strategy? Here are Harris’ picks for top ways to garner exceptional service.

• With a certified, qualified tech trained on a specific product. When bringing in a tech, look for one trained by a manufacturer or who’s been through a formal training program — that way, they understand how a product is being used. Also, glance at work history and get a sense of a tech’s skills and knowledgebase. You want someone who can keep pace with innovation, and supplement existing skills with fresh ones in order to stay sharp in today’s rapidly changing business marketplace. So, find indications of that in a tech’s experience.


• Bring in a tech who understands the business environment in which your product or service is being used — knowing the details of a product is crucial, but a tech should also be savvy about how that product is affecting your business or your industry.


• Increase your company’s “soft skills” by utilizing techs who have exemplary listening and problem solving skills, as well as true passion for their work. A successful IT consultant will be flexible when on a project, dealing with unexpected issues and seeing solutions instead of problems.

Focusing on these types of strategies helps a company operate with lower margins, keeping costs in line, Harris notes: “You have a workforce that’s available now through an online platform, which helps mitigate most of the concerns through a strong vetting process, verification of certification, background and drug testing, performance reporting, and insurance, so why not make the most of that?”

Reference: OnForce

Workforce Problems: Are You Addressing the Symptoms or the Cause?

Guest Blog: Terry Stockham, Human Capital Advisor at OnForce

The Director of Sales at an FMCG organization contacts the company’s HR manager and requests sales training for his staff. Recent high turnover in the sales team has depleted the experienced staff and left him with the majority of the sales members with less than 3 months on the job. He also instructs the marketing team to create a new ad campaign to bolster slumping sales (sales have been declining over the past six months).

Three months later, the sales staff is fully trained and the new ad campaign is running, but sales are still declining. In addition, costs to conduct the sales training and support marketing efforts amounted to $3.5 million. To address this issue, the Director of Sales decides to talk with the company president and they decide to bring in a consultant.

Very quickly, the consultant discovers the real problem is in the production of the company’s products. The production process has not changed in over 20 years. High demand had taken its toll on the employees, processes, and equipment in the production department. The quantity and quality of the product line were the real cause of slumping sales! The production workforce was completely disengaged; they just didn’t care anymore. They had brought the problems forward to management many times, but their complaints were ignored. They were just told to work harder and faster.

It may seem strange that management did not recognize or address the production problems, but it is a true story! They treated the symptoms of the problem and ignored the true cause of the problem.

What can you do to avoid making the same mistake when addressing business problems? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Don’t react – respond. Do not panic and impulsively react to a symptom. Take the time needed to investigate the entire issue before taking action. Symptoms are very obvious and easy to see but causes are usually not as easy to identify.
2. Talk to ALL the people involved in the situation. Create a team comprised of a cross-section of the organization to ensure that you capture all of the critical information and perspectives needed to identify the true cause of the problem. This team approach will be important when developing the solution.
3. Gather data. Make sure that you have all of the data necessary to complete the investigation of the problem. Most serious business problems don’t happen overnight. You need “data history” to identify when, where, how, and why.
4. Test the problem/solution. Make sure you have the true cause-and-effect identified before implementing a solution across the organization. Test it on a small scale before rolling it out. If you’re “fixing” the wrong cause, you may make things worse.

Bottom line: Do it right the first time or you will be doing it again and again and again…

Reference: OnForce

Are Your Employees Disengaged?

Guest blog by Terry Stockham, Human Capital Advisor at OnForce

Are your employees productive, content, and motivated? How can you tell? Typically, employee engagement can be measured with surveys, assessment tests, and by simply observing your employees as they work. Do you see strong contributors, poor performers, or a bit of both? If you’re a manager and see less than par players on your team, beware, they are sabotaging your success and your bottom line. All it takes is just one vocal, influential, and disengaged employee to spread his/her discontent to other team members for your group’s productivity to plummet.

According to recent research (the Gallup 2013 State of the American Workplace report and the AON Hewitt Global Engagement Survey), the current global employee engagement level is at 60%, an increase from 58% in 2012. This level of engagement equates to $550 billion a year in lost productivity within American companies. Yet these same companies spend billions of dollars a year in an effort to improve employee engagement and performance, only to get very little improvement in either!

To further illustrate the negative impact that employee disengagement can have on productivity and the bottom line let’s take, for example, a service employee who completes warranty work for a large technology company. This employee’s weekly salary is $1,000 (based on a 40 hour work week, $25/hour) and receives health benefits, insurance, training, etc., all totaling $1,400 ($1,000 + $400) paid by the company.

During the 40-hour work week, the service employee performs approximately 10 hours of non-service work such as traveling to customer sites, completing paperwork, waiting between job assignments, attending meetings, taking training classes, and so forth. This means that the company is paying for 40 hours but actually getting only 30 hours of service performance, translating to about $750 ($1,000 – $250) of “lost” productivity time. But, wait, there’s more.

If we take the 30 hours of actual service work performed and factor in the global engagement level cited at the beginning of this blog, we get only 18 hours ($450) of targeted service performance (i.e., 30 hours x 60%, or $750 – $300 = $450). If we look at the bigger picture, the company is paying $1,400 for $450 of performance! This is equal to $49,500 of lost productivity per year for this employee alone. If this company has 25 service employees, it amounts to $1,235,000 in overpayment for performance!

The past two decades have shown time and again that traditional incentive programs are not working. It is time to look at innovative and flexible labor models (e.g., flex-staffing or an on demand workforce) that offer workers autonomy, while driving positive business results for you and your company. Which jobs within your organization would benefit most from these new labor models? Given the cost implications of traditional labor models, can you afford the status quo?

Reference: OnForce

Necessary Protections to Prevent Business Risk

Bill Price, COO of OnForce

OnForce was an early, and at times controversial, adopter of comprehensive risk mitigation and insurance coverage for our customers. We were the first variable labor platform to offer General Liability, Workers’ Compensation and Errors and Omissions insurance coverage for every service event. We knew that insulating our customers from these real-world risks was a very important part of helping them to take advantage of our workforce solutions.

So why be a pioneer? We had two key reasons. First, OnForce is a true solutions provider that offers a comprehensive suite of services, including protections that allow our customers to focus on their core businesses, while we provide peace of mind. Second, our Fortune 100 enterprise accounts demand comprehensive protection against business risks. Based on this, OnForce believes that providing insurance solutions that meet this standard for ALL of our customers – both SMB and enterprise accounts – makes sense. Our goal is to remove the burden from you, our valued customer, and place it on us. From investigation to resolution, OnForce handles the insurance claims and protects you from losses related to property damage or personal injury. This enables us to provide superior solutions with protection against risk for you and all of our customers.

Now we see other platforms attempting to imitate our solution offerings and protections. While we’re not surprised to see them come around to the idea, we encourage companies in the market for variable labor to dig into the details and read the fine print. We don’t just offer access to technicians who carry their own insurance – we insure every work event on our platform. Unless your provider is offering General Liability, Workers’ Compensation and Errors and Omissions insurance for all of the work that you do with them, then you are at risk. After all, we all know that accidents do happen. Can you afford to be exposed?

Reference: OnForce

Freelancing Is Alive and Well

Almost every day I see news articles that highlight the growing trend for freelancers and, in turn, the thriving independent workforce. For example, this latest article from Parade.com – 4 Reasons Why Freelancing is the New Career – offers very compelling reasons why freelancing works and is likely here to stay. With advantages such as having the flexibility to work locally or globally, being your own boss and determining your work schedule, there’s a lot to like!

Demographic data today shows that there are almost 17 million independent workers in the U.S. and that this is expected to grow to 50% of the American workforce by 2020. At OnForce, we clearly see this trend continuing within the IT sector. Our business forecasts continue to show growth opportunities demonstrating that freelancing is working and thriving in the IT space through the OnForce platform.

Whether you are a company looking into the benefits of leveraging independent workers or a seasoned veteran in the world of managing variable labor, there’s no question that the individual economy has arrived. Are you taking advantage of it?

Reference: OnForce