Total talent management, integrating full-time employees, contingent workers, and external partners under one strategic approach, has become essential for business success in today’s dynamic environment.

Organizations that unify their workforce management create smoother experiences, accelerate onboarding, improve project efficiency, and adapt quickly to changing market demands. This approach requires consistent systems and processes that provide uniform experiences for both workers and hiring managers while respecting necessary classification differences.

Why contingent workers matter more than ever

Within this unified approach, contingent workers play an increasingly vital role. Organizations now turn to these flexible workers to complete projects and fill specialized skill gaps precisely when needed. This strategic shift helps businesses meet evolving customer demands while controlling costs and gaining advantages over competitors.

According to TotalJobs research, temporary hires increased by 69% in the UK in 2024, showing that companies across industries are prioritizing skill-based recruitment as job market competition intensifies.

These benefits materialize only when contingent staff integrate properly into company processes and culture from day one. A total talent management strategy ensures holistic onboarding and retention, with training and daily practices including permanent staff, temporary workers, and service partners.

Gartner’s research confirms that organizations successfully embracing flexible talent approaches can increase their talent readiness by up to 60%.

It’s worth noting the distinction between “total talent management” and “total workforce management.” While complementary, talent management focuses on skill and career development, while workforce management covers the hiring process.

Key challenges in creating a unified approach

Implementing a successful total talent management strategy requires overcoming several significant obstacles that can prevent organizations from fully realizing the benefits of an integrated workforce. Understanding and addressing these challenges is essential for companies seeking to leverage diverse talent types effectively.

Breaking down departmental silos: Companies must align service procurement, human resources, and talent acquisition teams on a common strategy, removing walls between departments involved in hiring and onboarding.

Connecting different technology systems: Organizations often maintain separate systems—human resource information systems (HRIS) for permanent staff and vendor management systems (VMS) for contingent workers. These technological divisions create disconnected data environments that hinder informed decision-making about the total workforce.

Protecting data and ensuring compliance: A typical project might involve a mix of permanent employees, independent contractors, and service provider staff. Managing data access requires carefully tailored protocols across IT systems to ensure secure, appropriate access.

Setting up compliance in a multi-talent team of internal and external workers is crucial. Companies are exposed not only to data security risks but also to taxation rules and worker misclassification issues that can result in significant penalties.

Beyond data encryption, businesses need contractual protection that documents access controls for all staff types to prevent breaches.

Managing service procurement effectively

Service procurement requires special attention during onboarding and access management, especially given that investment in external resources can be three to four times higher than spending on contingent staff.

Companies often make mistakes by assigning service procurement oversight to the wrong personnel. Traditional managed service providers (MSPs) that excel with contingent workforces typically focus on managing talent through supply chains of staffing and recruitment agencies, which tends to be transactional. 

Service procurement requires different skills than HR management, so MSPs may not have the right expertise to address operational gaps within the companies they work with. However, we currently see a clear trend that the main MSPs are investing heavily in this area to expand their capabilities in this service procurement space.

Additionally, long-term reliance on the same service partners without comparing alternatives can lead to overspending. Clear requirements and data access permissions must be defined in the Statement of Work (SOW) before onboarding external staff.

Partnering with workforce management experts

With increasingly international hiring and artificial intelligence playing a larger role in processes, organizations need expert support to implement and maintain effective total talent management strategies.

Partnering with a workforce and payroll management provider reduces the burden on HR and management teams when overseeing diverse employee types. Such partnerships can:

• Increase visibility into workforce spend, workforce types, roles, skills diversity, and global data privacy regulations
• Provide guidance on smooth onboarding and training
• Help ensure all staff understand company processes and culture

Employer of record (EOR) and agent of record (AOR) services bring together proper worker classification, onboarding, benefits, and payroll management in a single comprehensive system.

Building success through integration

Just like individual departments within a business, no organization succeeds in isolation. Complete visibility over staffing, recruitment, and project management across all systems remains essential to achieving long-term goals.

By unifying all worker types under one talent management strategy, companies build more flexible, skilled, and cohesive teams ready to meet tomorrow’s challenges.