Episode 90 : Including the Contingent Workforce

Rebecca Perrault (RP) 0:01
How are we making sure we tap in and open doors to diverse individuals, we want to make sure that we’ve opened all of those doors. And this is a great way to open those doors for full time talent, but through your contingent workforce programs, for many reasons, we have a very diverse for the people. And you and I are examples of that. Right? Very diverse populations are within this. And there’s multiple reasons for that. But how do you tap them, you tap into that door from contingent to full time. And knowing that whether they’re contingent or full time, they’re still contributing success by providing innovation? If you have the inclusion side, right, so we know we have the diversity in this, are we thinking about the inclusion of contingent workers to create the innovation to allow them to provide those innovative ideas and to create the benefits, so really thinking about those numbers that this is a diverse pipeline of talent. And I’ll say with our clients, we do have the clients that are really on the upper tier of this, they have about 30% of their contingent workforce converts to full time, and these are some of the largest companies in the world. So it’s on that high end of 30%. That’s a large percentage.

Jolene Mei (JM) 1:17
Hello, everyone. This is JOLENE MEI, your host for the DIVERSEEK podcast, where we talk with real people doing real work in the diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging space. If you want to explore what people are doing right, what positive impacts are happening or even how positive changes can be done. You’re in the right place. We welcome you to join us.

Today we have Rebecca Perrault with us. Rebecca is the Global Vice President of Culture and Diversity at Magnit. She has a deep-seated passion that revolves around empowering individuals, and fostering an inclusive environment that propels the entire organization towards excellence. Rebecca has spent over 15 years helping organizations harness the power of the individual. She is a TEDx speaker, Forbes contributor, and has been recognized for her leadership and strategic abilities. To Rebecca true success lies in extending reach to those who might otherwise be marginalized, to ensure that every voice is not only heard, but celebrated. Also, Rebecca is a mom to three boys and is often seen completing DIY projects around the house with her miter saw and safety glasses on. And please note, all statements made by Rebecca during the podcast are solely your own and do not express the views or opinions of her employer. And yeah, with that, welcome, Rebecca. So happy to have you today.

RP 2:34
Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

Jolene Mei 2:37
Yeah, me too. I’m excited for you to be here. The stars have aligned for us today, as we have talked about. And yeah, let’s just go ahead and get into it. I know I talked a little bit about you. But you know, share anything else you’d like the listeners to know about yourself and your background?

RP 2:50
I think it’s interesting when people have been doing DNI work for a long time, because the question always is, well, how did you get into this? It’s not something you study in school, or that many people, especially over 10 years ago, when I started doing it, that people think about doing as a career path. And so for me, I had been doing consulting work, I was working for one of the big four firms working very hard, lots of hours. And I had this realization that there were a lot of very smart, hard working women around me and very few in leadership roles. So I was actually looking at our leadership team thinking about how we progress and what we do and working on our internal work there. And have this thought of something is preventing these people, right? The organization had great DNI, they had a focus on gender, they had focus on people of color, and still this was occurring. And so what it did is sparked my interest in the research in the data of why is this happening? There’s great intent, right? People are well intentioned, for the most part, what is preventing it and so that unconscious bias research, what we saw in kind of a resume reviews, what we saw, of how people’s brains work, how we’re kind of programmed with stereotypes, all of these aspects really got me interested in so I did a career shift from just human capital work, change management, mergers and acquisitions, to really diving in to the research and then how we can make it actionable, how we can take data and research and academics and put it into real life. And so then I started doing consulting work, but specifically for DNI and now I’ve been doing this work for going on 12 years. So before it was popular before it was cool. I had this kind of aha moment to switch my career. So that’s kind of beyond the resume piece of what happened to change my career trajectory.

Jolene Mei 4:43
Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I always find it super interesting to hear. And I really do believe I say this a lot. But I think that just knowing everybody’s backgrounds and where they came from and where they are now it just speaks more to like the mindset that that they’re coming in with that’s uniquely there. So yeah, just interesting to hear more about you. So I’m interested to see how your perspective is going to shine during this conversation. Today, we will be talking about contingent workers, which I did not even think about until I talked to you. So yeah, let’s just get into it. First, if you can define who contingent workers are. And secondly, tell us more about the benefits that you see in including them in the organization’s workforce. So a

RP 5:24
contingent worker, that term might not be something that everybody knows or thinks about. But we all are familiar with contingent workforce, even if we don’t know the name. The contingent workforce is really anyone who’s contributing and working for a company on a limited basis. And they’re not actually an employee of the company. So sometimes that’s a temp worker, it’s contract workers, it can even be consultants that are working on the on projects of the company. And they can be they’re hired and employed by another company. And so consulting firms is kind of the easiest way. Or if we think about the gig economy, and people doing project work. So all of that is included in this contingent workforce, really not employed by the company itself, but contributing to the success of the organization. So that’s what we think of as a contingent workforce. And really including it in gives organizations flexibility, and the ability to bring in skill sets as they need. So you think you might only need a role for a little while you have a project base, we just need to get this done. And it’s not long term, we’re not going to need this afterwards. That’s when you bring in the contingent workforce, right? It’s a perfect avenue to bring in expertise to bring in manpower, right to bring in that human power that you might need for limited time. So allows organizations, a lot of flexibility and flexibility for the people as well. So it’s a win win, to be able to provide that for people.

Jolene Mei 6:51
Thank you for that quick, but very succinct definition. And I’m like, Oh, I am a contingent workforce person as well. I’m like, Oh, look at that. And in

RP 7:01
my past life, I was as well during my consulting work as a former DNI when I first transitioned to that I was a contingent worker, but like you, it is not something I thought about. And so that coming in to Magnit working in my current role, was a really exciting shift to think about a population of people that have not been so for 10 years, I did DNI work, not thinking about the contingent workforce.

Jolene Mei 7:25
Yeah. So because of that, I’m like, well, that’s so interesting that, Hey, I am part of this workforce. And, you know, for me, I like the lifestyle. You know, that’s where I’m at right now in my life. And before we get further into it, I think that more will be answered with your responses. So let’s go ahead and bring the AI into this conversation. So where do you see like d i, and the contingent workforce like intersecting? Like, how is that part of the picture here?

RP 7:49
It’s something that should be very easy. And it should be something that we have been thinking about, right, I said that I hadn’t been thinking about it. But once you start to realize the significance of this population, and how many people are involved in it, and their impact on an organization, it seems absurd that we haven’t included them on this journey. But really what dei work is diversity, equity. And inclusion is about creating a really good mix of people, right, that you give opportunity to all different types of people, you’re creating that equity within all populations. And making an inclusive environment for people, for humans, for individuals, doesn’t really matter if they are a full time employee or a contract worker and a contingent worker doesn’t write the same needs, whether they be a social business case of we have to do this because it’s the right thing to do, or whether it’s a business case for innovation, for return on investment for increased sales, all of the reasons that we want to focus on diversity, equity and inclusion are the same, because we’re just people and we are trying to do good work and make a company successful. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re classified legally, as a contingent worker, or whether you’re a full time worker. And so that connection is really very simple. Because we’re all people. And we’re all trying to do a good job. And so these are really important topics to include, regardless of unemployment classification.

Jolene Mei 9:16
Yeah, definitely. It’s kind of interesting, because I feel like it’s the law of attraction type of thing. Or the new car thing. I don’t know if you’ve heard of like the red car, where it’s like, Oh, you, once you, you identify a car that you want to buy, you see it everywhere, and you didn’t realize it before. But after our initial conversation, just things kept popping up to me, I had friends that were like, oh, have you heard about this new platform? Like, you can just sign up, tell them what your skills are. And then they will let you know if other businesses need you to just pick up a shift there. And I’m like, is this what Rebecca was telling me about? And I think it’s so interesting to consider this, regarding how like, you know, the workforce and hiring and the employee and employer type of balance just it changes, right. There’s all these changes that were happening especially during COVID The quarantine and Now it’s like where are we at now. So I think it’s just another interesting opportunity to consider. So hence why I’m glad we’re having this conversation, before we move forward wanted to make space for any data or statistics that you’d like to acknowledge regarding the discussion before we move forward as that might provide some background. You

RP 10:16
know, we talked about the contingent workforce, and I mentioned how large it is and how significant it is. But to give a little bit of data behind that it actually grew by almost 50%, between 2016 and 2023. So a really large increase in this population of people, right, it is a, it’s a very large group of people, and that we’re continuing to see organizations rely on this workforce, and that it’s boosting diversity in offices and Korea, throughout organizations. And specifically, if we think about diversity, and racial diversity within that population, it is 39%, black and 36%, Hispanic in the contingent workforce space. And to give you some context, in the US population, we have 13%, black and 18%, Hispanic. So if we think about that difference, the contingent workforce, they are over represented, that means this is a very diverse population. And organizations that I’ve been talking to for 12 years are always thinking about, where’s the pipeline to talent? How are we making sure we tap in and open doors to diverse individuals, we want to make sure that we’ve opened all of those doors. And this is a great way to open those doors for full time talent. But through your contingent workforce programs, as for many reasons, we have a very diverse group of people. I mean, you and I are are examples of that, right? Very diverse populations are within this. And there’s multiple reasons for that. But how do you tap them, you tap into that door from contingent to full time. And knowing that whether they’re contingent or full time, they’re still contributing success. They’re providing innovation, if you have the inclusion side, right, so we know we have the diversity in this, are we thinking about the inclusion of contingent workers to create the innovation to allow them to provide those innovative ideas and to create the benefits. So really thinking about those numbers that this is a diverse pipeline of talent. And I’ll say, with our clients, we do have the clients that are really on that upper tier of this, they have about 30% of their contingent workforce converts to full time, and these are some of the largest companies in the world. So it’s on that high end of 30%. That’s a large percentage. And it’s a curated pipeline of talent. And who is it curated by it’s curated by the managers themselves? So really thinking about the this is a way to get talent into your organization? Yeah,

Jolene Mei 12:48
I love that. You mentioned inclusion as well, as part of that picture, like, okay, what are we doing when we’re curating these programs? And I think, obviously, people work better. And I work better with examples. So let’s start there with moving forward. Can you outline maybe like two or three ways that you’ve seen like making those connections between the contingent workforce, and businesses have resulted in a win win?

RP 13:08
You know, I mentioned a little bit earlier about the benefits for organizations, it provides them flexibility, they can bring in talent as they need it for a short term. And there’s also that when that you mentioned, right, it fits your lifestyle, you’re flexible, you can choose what projects you want, and what projects you don’t, it can allow you a really large breadth of experience, because you’re not in one role. You take one type of project one time, maybe another project another time, and figure out what you like and what you don’t like, and you’re able to choose those. So a lot of flexibility for both the employers and the organizations, but also for the individual. It also on kind of a little less of the flexibility note, but it gives both individuals and organizations a chance to try out the role, right? Try out the organization, is this a fit for me? Right? Is this something that I really want to do. And it also gives an end to some really big companies. So we find that actually some of our surveys and some of our research we did one a couple of years ago, in coordination with the mom project, we partnered with the mom project, and their research arm work labs to do research on the contingent workforce and what inclusion meant, what were they looking for. And we did find that diverse individuals, many of them a higher percentage than if we looked at non diverse or white individuals were wanting in into a big company. They didn’t feel they had been trying to get in, right? If we think about these, the biggest companies in the world, many of them are tech companies, too, that are doing using contingent workforce. This is an avenue to get their foot in the door in order to become full time. So we think about all these different aspects, right, the flexibility for both and then also a foot in the door to a role that maybe they wouldn’t be able to get. And so this allows them that opportunity Great, great

Jolene Mei 15:00
points that you brought up here. And, you know, I know you mentioned earlier about hiring managers and leaders. So for those that are listening to this conversation, they’re like, What should I consider when I’m curating my program? So with that, like, what are some do’s and don’ts that you’d like to give them? When it comes to welcoming the contingent workforce into their teams?

RP 15:19
Yeah, there’s a couple of things, I think, for program leaders for hiring managers, just like you would for a full time role, demand diverse talent, right? Ask for it. Because it can be not always that it can be more difficult take a little bit of extra time to find that diverse talent. So program leaders, hiring manager saying, Do we have a diverse slate, right, we have to be safe with data we have to look at, we have to really safeguard that data. But if they are demanding that diverse talent, if they’re taking a minute to say, hey, let’s let suppliers let’s let staffing agencies look for diverse individuals, this is very important to me, that they take that extra time, it does have a downward effect when you say that. And so even if we’re all thinking about it, when the hiring managers say that this is important to them, it makes an impact, it makes an impact throughout the whole contingent workforce programs, what staffing agencies are focusing on if they know that clients are looking at that, and hiring managers are thinking about it and looking at it, it does make a difference. So saying those words, saying you’re willing to spend one more week or a few more days to wait to really get a good slate of candidates is very important. And then really thinking about once we get somebody on board, or once you’re into the hiring process? Are you asking the same questions to every single candidate? Are you being equitable in that way? Because if we have a connection with somebody, if we feel that connection, and it’s, it seems easy, sometimes you ask a lot of questions, oh, it was just such a great feeling. And then the next person, maybe it was a little harder, because we don’t we’re not from the same demographic group, we haven’t lived the same experiences. But that might not be that they’re not qualified for the job, they might still be the best person for the job. It just wasn’t a quick connection with you. So thinking about asking the same questions to every candidate, really making sure there’s an equitable process throughout your hiring process, then when they’re ultimately on board, how are you giving them feedback on their role, right and on their job, not full career coaching, like you might do to your employee on the full time side, but you can give them feedback on their product, right, and what they’re doing. So thinking about those aspects of still providing feedback, although they’re not your employee, in the right and in the appropriate ways, and also encouraging them to be as much as appropriate, involved in the company, right, when there are all hands that they’re allowed to be in have been there, if they are able to go to employee resource group meetings, that are open to the whole company, have them be a part of that, so that they feel the culture and they feel included, there is a segmentation, right, they are not full time employees. But in many cases, there’s lots of avenues that they can be involved in, and helping them do that whenever they can.

Jolene Mei 18:12
Hello, listeners, time for a quick break to give your brain a quick rest. If you have not done so already, and would like to support our mission, please follow our podcast, leave a review, or share this episode with someone you think would enjoy it. Thank you so much for listening in. And let’s get back to the conversation. You know, I loved about your answer, just the different ways that you expressed how we can include them. That just makes sense, right? And it’s like, oh, I think it’s easy or not, it’s not easy, but I have seen it where, you know, leaders or managers have treated contingent workers like, oh, well, you know, they’re just, they’re just contingent workers. You know, and I love that your responses gave very specific examples of how does it still make sense because it makes sense to talk to them about their development about their product, it makes sense for them to be included in certain meetings that will affect them, and that their performance will affect the company. So just wanted to highlight that, you know, because I love that answer that part and that theme that you’ve had in the answer. So thank you for that. You mentioned data. So let’s talk about that. Just a little bit. Data collection. I don’t think it’s I mean, to me, in my perspective, probably to you. But from what I have heard, I don’t think it’s often discussed data collection with contingent workers. So you know, what some of that were some data opportunities that you think would benefit a business to know so that they can better define maybe their people strategy.

RP 19:37
So data is really important because it creates accountability, as well as helping you understand where to focus. And we know that right we think about that all the time when it comes to business objectives to different projects. Obviously, we need data obviously we need goals, SMART goals, right? We need to know how we’re measuring success. us, but for some reason, in general, when it comes to DNI, sometimes it’s left off. But the becoming more and more that we need that on the full time side. But as you mentioned, for the contingent size, oh, they’re not our employees, right? Oh, we don’t collect this data because they’re not our employees. And to some extent, I understand because there is this line, right? They are not full time employees are not employed by a client or organization. So it’s about when clients are determining who they work with, right? Who are their partners, their managed service provider, like a company like Magnit, or with their staffing agencies? Are they working with partners that are collecting this data? Are they partnering together to determine what those questions should be? Are they working with a partner that is holding that data safely? Making sure that the questions are asked inclusively, and then doing something with the data. So we I have seen in the last few years, about four years ago, very few organizations were collecting this data. And they were just kind of saying, Let’s do work on diversity and inclusion. Now, many more, especially our largest clients are working with us. So we’re the ones collecting the data for the whole program. So then, again, that keeps that line. But we’re collecting the data. And we partner with what to do with that and to look at it beyond just for contingent workers, right and beyond just who is the mix of people on the client, but also who are the candidates that are getting submitted, and what’s happening to them throughout the lifecycle. So similar to what we see on the full time side, but translating it to the contingent side. So on the full time side, which is more traditional, we see looking at hiring rates, looking at promotion rates, looking at who’s leaving the organization. And that’s like, Oh, who’s getting promoted? Does this quite make sense? On the contingent side? It doesn’t quite. So what are the metrics we should look at? We should look at of course, hiring rates, we should look at who are leaving contracts early. Right? So that’s kind of similar to leaving their jobs. But they’re saying, yeah, there’s for some reason, I’m not going to finish my contract, we need to see are more women doing that? Are more people of color out of proportion to their representation, as well as converting to full time who’s actually getting converted to full time? Do we see what we would like to see it and we see the right flow through of representation there? Or maybe is there something less transparent with the process to get converted to full time? Is it not a transparent process? So data is so critical to see, where do we focus if we see any of those challenges that I mentioned, we can dive deeper, we can create new processes, we can create interventions, if we don’t have the data, we’re just throwing some good ideas out there. And sure, it’s not going to do anything wrong to do some awareness campaigns or make processes more efficient. But we don’t know that it’s fixing a problem unless we have data. So I understand hesitancy. But it’s needed, right? Just because we put our head under a rock doesn’t mean things aren’t happening. It doesn’t mean we’re safe from lawsuits or from any of the repercussions and risks. We just don’t have the data. So yes, we have to do something with it if we have it. But data is so critical. Yeah, you know, it’s

Jolene Mei 23:16
so interesting to hear you talk about the employee lifecycle in this context to I’m like, oh, so interesting. And when you’re talking about who’s leaving the contracts early, I was like, wow, really interesting. I’m glad that you talked about that. And like, Well, those are great, great starting points to look at with data. So that’s awesome. Okay, last on this topic, what are two or three takeaways that you would like to leave our listeners with? When it comes to rethinking the pathways we can use to develop our teams, I know, we’ve basically talked about that in little chunks in details during our conversation, but just to kind of close it up wanted to give you that space. So think in this

RP 23:52
area. And when we think about the contingent workforce and what you can do, there’s so many different things you can do, right? But if you’re just gonna get started, what do I need to do? And how do you start to develop your people? I would say it’s starting with the data, we just mentioned it, but knowing the data and knowing if, for example, you do have 50% women and 50% men and your contingent workforce. But you see, women are 90% of the people leaving their contracts early. There’s something happening there. So using data to create real interventions that can help people succeed. So thinking about the data to be able to do that and understanding it, and then doing something with it, right, actually creating interventions that help those populations. And that’s where you get that development, because you know, what’s happening with them. So data is the biggest piece, and then starting somewhere, right data is one of those most important pieces. But if you can’t start with data, can you start to look at your processes, can you think about where it might be inhibiting people from succeeding? Is there a really onerous hiring process and you know, five different things meetings that they need to do is it all in one day that they have to do and find childcare and get out of their current job to be able to do. So thinking about your processes and where it might be closing doors? My team, and my clients know, I relate to this analogy a lot that diversity, equity and inclusion is about opening doors. It’s not about opening some doors and closing other doors. It’s about making sure every door is wide open. And so you didn’t just say, Oh, well, I opened it, it’s unlocked. No, it needs to be wide open, not just cracked, not wide open with a big boulder in front of it right or a cliff right off the side, once it’s open, that all of those doors are open. And so when you think about your processes, when you think about the companies that you’re working with the staffing agencies, the recruiters, are they making sure all those doors are open. And sometimes it’s a matter of opening the door and then even reaching in and helping somebody through it a little bit, right, they still got to make it to the job, right? They got to make it all the way through the path. But did you need to reach through because there’s nobody, when you open the door, right? Oh, we open the door, and there’s nobody there do we need to go reach through and find that pipeline of talent. So really thinking about those aspects in every part of your program. So that’s in recruiting the talent, it is in the hiring process, and then onboarding, and then while they’re there as well. So really looking at those processes and seeing if there’s little any little pieces you can change, because that gets us on the journey, that’s what you want to do is get on the journey and not be standing on the outside. Because it feels too complex, because it is complex, but starting somewhere, starting somewhere small to create change. Another piece that’s it’s kind of an easy one to just get started, is through education and awareness. It’s a small investment. And it’s actually something we do with our clients for free. It’s just included as a part of our services, is to do awareness campaigns, every year, sometimes they’re about gender awareness, racial literacy, we will likely have one on LGBTQ coming up this year. So thinking about how you just start to invest in them in very small ways. And that gets you on the journey. And that’s what I encourage everyone to do is think about what small acts you can do that magnified to create real change. I love that, you know, I heard a lot of access and strategic action in your response. And what I loved about it, as you know, you’re talking about, hey, like, we can make this step, the smaller step if you want to. So yeah, that’s just giving my two cents of receiving a response here.

Jolene Mei 27:30
But yeah, thank you so much. I have one last question for today for you. We have been talking about inclusion this whole time. But to bring it to a personal space for you, what does an inclusive workplace look like to you? Yeah,

RP 27:45
an inclusive environment really changes no matter who it is, right? So each individual takes what inclusion means differently. But to me, and what I think is kind of broad and resonates with everybody is that you are able to bring a part of your true self, it feels safe to bring your true self, which also means your ideas, your innovation, your individuality, right? All of these aspects, if you are able to bring those comfortably to the workplace doesn’t have to be your whole self, right? I mean, there’s different parts of all of us and some of our personnel, we keep those at home. So it’s not about bringing our full selves to work. But bringing a really true authentic part of ourselves to work that allows us to really contribute fully right, contribute and thrive in the workplace. And that’s important, whether you’re a contingent worker or a full time worker to kind of bring it full circle back to the contingent workforce, that that piece of your authentic self and being able to contribute is so key. Thank

Jolene Mei 28:49
you so much. It wasn’t bad that when I was listening to you, I was like, I will not bring my pajama self to work. There has been times I’m like, Huh, no, I think I should change.

RP 29:00
Because it puts on your you’re like, Oh, hey, this is the part of myself that I want to be at work, right. I’m and I’m gonna get ready. I’m going to be this part. So yeah, it’s it is, is there’s a piece of that I’ve heard a lot a few years ago, it was all this thing about your full self. There’s different parts, right? I bring a different part. As a mother, I bring different parts with my friends. And that’s okay. It’s okay. But you want to still be you? Mm hmm,

Jolene Mei 29:23
exactly, exactly. And no shade to those who do want to bring their pajamas off sometimes. But, you know, I totally agree. And I love just everything that you said today about access about the strategy that you have. And you know, just again, being yourself. I think it ties back to the intro when I was talking about you, and you wanting to bring in the power of the individual. So again, thank you so much for being here today and sharing your insights with us. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us today. As we continue to explore how we can enable diversity at work, follow us and get notified of our latest episodes. Also, we want to hear from you. Please like rate and review us on your podcast app or wherever you’re listening in. If you want to contact us, please visit diverseek.com – that is d i v e r s e e k.com. This episode was produced by Madhu Nair, edited by Cansin Dalak, researched by JOLENE MEI, music composed by Nicholas Lang and our production team includes Keisha Williams, Prashant Balbar and Maria Querina. I am your host JOLENE MEI and you have been listening to DIVERSEEK.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai