WTF? The Workforce Trust Factor

The US Department of Defense (DoD) had been identified at risk in its use of third party services providers for years and was asked as recently as May 2013 by the General Accountability Office (GAO) to inventory and tighten up its use of contractors. DoD is now learning a tough lesson from “contractor” Edward Snowden, the high-school drop-out, $122,000 USD annual salary computer systems administrator for the National Security Agency on the lam for stealing and leaking state secrets. If one disaffected employee can do so much damage to the largest employer in the world, today’s executives need to consider much more seriously their own workforce strategies across the spectrum of full time staff, contractors, consultants, and third-party outsourcing firms. HfS analysis shows there is wide-spread worker malaise in the business world today and old ways of operating are likely to blame. In fact, the rise of outsourcing and technology may be causing worker disengagement, yet few firms are seriously considering the implications. This Rapid Insights piece outlines the issues in the workplace today as well as identifies the need for new thinking around optimizing the workforce regardless if someone is on an organization’s official payroll or not. Given the on-going interest in companies to remain nimble and scalable through the use of flexible resources, business leaders need to get on the offense on workforce-related issues.