Using and managing contingent labor is a growing trend in the workforce. In order to manage these contingent workers as part of your workforce in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central, SAP introduced the Contingent Workforce Management (CWM) feature. Additionally SAP offer SAP Fieldglass Vendor Management System (VMS), a fully-fledged system for managing all aspects of contingent labor, including, sourcing, procurement, vendor management, invoicing, and more. In this blog, I aim to answer some of the common questions around the CWM feature, as well as where SAP Fieldglass VMS fits into the bigger picture.
What is contingent labor?
Before we get started, I thought it pertinent to clarify the definition of contingent labor. Contingent labor is a group of workers who provided services to an organization on a non-permanent basis. These workers are often known as independent professionals, temporary contract workers, labor hires, freelancers, contractors, or consultants. These type of workers are commonly known as contingent workers.
Why manage contingent workers in your SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central system?
Managing contingent workers in SAP SuccessFactors Employee Central system enables a complete view of the workforce and the ability to include contingent workers in select HR processes. This enables executives, HR professionals, and managers to identify how many contingent workers are used in their organization and how they are distributed across the organization. It also enables them to track information such as where they are located, whom the vendor is from where they were procured, and what type of training they may have received, etc.
What can I do to manage contingent workers?
CWM gives users the ability to manage contingent workers in a number of ways. The key features are:
- Add a contingent worker
- Create and maintain list of vendors
- View contingent workers in the Org Chart (and toggle them on or off)
- Convert a contingent worker to an employee*
- Convert an employee to a contingent worker*
- View reports with or without contingent workers included
*these processes require some extra steps and further capabilities are due in a future release.
Contingents that are not mastered in SAP Fieldglass are added in Employee Central using a wizard, although they can also be added through data imports. The Add Contingent Worker wizard is similar to the New Hire wizard, although it has been tailored to include only fields and portlets relevant to contingent workers. Note that the Add Contingent Worker wizard is only available in the People Profile (PP3) UI. Figure 1 below shows a contingent worker being added.
Figure 1: Adding a contingent worker
The Add Contingent Worker wizard is only available if you are using the People Profile UI (PP3).
Once created, you can view contingent workers just like employees. However, the portlets and fields available will be limited compared to a normal employee, as one would expect for a contingent worker. A business rule can be created to hide fields that are not relevant to contingent workers, so only those that are relevant are displayed. In PP3, to help you identify that the profile you are viewing is a contingent worker you will see “Contingent Worker” above the employee’s name. You can see this in Figure 2 below.
Figure 2: Viewing a contingent worker’s profile
Figure 3 below shows a regular employee’s profile so that you can see the difference between the two profiles.
Figure 3: Viewing a regular employee’s profile
Additionally, in Figure 4 below you can see how a contingent worker looks when searched for in the Action Search.
Figure 4: A contingent worker in the Action Search results
In the Org Chart, contingent workers can be viewed as seen in Figure 5:
Figure 5: A contingent worker in the Org Chart
Employee Central uses a specific Event Reason to identify added and terminated contingent workers.
When a contingent worker is added, details of the Work Order associated with the procurement of the contingent worker is added. This includes details of the vendor, the work order number, the start date of the work order, and when it will end. Once the end date of a Work Order is reached, the contingent worker will be terminated by the system.
Unlike with a regular employee, for contingent workers the Employment Details portlet is managed in the background by the Work Order and is not exposed to the UI. The start date and termination information of a contingent worker is managed entirely by the Work Order and the Employment Details of a contingent worker should not be modified. Additionally, the Is Contingent Worker field in the Employment Details portlet should never be modified manually for contingent workers or regular employees and it should never set to “Yes” for a regular employee.
At present contingent workers cannot be managed in talent processes, but this may change in a future release.
Can I use workflow with CWM?
Yes. Standard system workflows trigger, but you can also setup specific workflows by using the Is Contingent Worker field within your workflow trigger rule.
Do I need SAP Fieldglass VMS?
No. CWM enables you to manage contingent workers without the need for SAP Fieldglass VMS. However, CWM is not a replacement for SAP Fieldglass VMS and it is also important to note that CWM only enables management of contingent workers as part of your workforce for a total view of the workforce and doesn’t enable management of procurement processes, vendors, or work orders.
Is CWM integrated with SAP Fieldglass VMS?
Yes. SAP provide a packaged integration to integrate SAP Fieldglass VMS and Employee Central using SAP HANA Cloud Integration (HCI). HCI extracts active workers (those with worker type of “Contingent Worker”) and confirmed work orders from SAP Fieldglass VMS using a web services call and then uses this data to create contingent workers in Employee Central via an OData API web services call. The architecture of this integration can be seen below:
Figure 6: Integration architecture (Source: Using SAP Fieldglass VMS with Employee Central integration guide)
HCI pulls the following fields from SAP Fieldglass VMS, along with personal information of a worker:
- Security_ID
- Company Code
- Business Unit
- Location Code
- Cost Center
- Supervisor ID
- Work Order Status
- Worker Status
- Worker Start Date
The integration uses the following fields in Employee Central:
- User:
- Username
- Person Information (Biographical Information):
- Person Id External *
- User Id
- Personal Information:
- First Name *
- Last Name *
- Preferred Name *
- Formal Name
- Email Information:
- Email Type [set to “Business”]
- Email Address *
- Is Primary [set to “Yes”]
- Job Information:
- Start Date
- Event Reason
- Company *
- Business Unit *
- Division *
- Department *
- Location *
- Cost Center *
- Manager *
- Country *
- Employment Details (maintained in background):
- Hire Date
- Original Start Date
- Service Date
- Is Contingent Worker [set to true]
- Work Order (Generic Object):
- Vendor ID *
- Work Order ID *
- Work Order Name *
- Work Order Owner ID *
- Work Order Start Date *
- Work Order End Date *
* fields are required in Employee Central by the integration. Note that the Employment Details is updated based on the Work Order.
Some configuration is required in SAP Fieldglass VMS to enable the integration and necessary fields. The SAP Fieldglass VMS field Security_ID is mapped to Username, User Id, and Person Id External in Employee Central.
Detailed information on integrating and using SAP Fieldglass VMS with Employee Central can be found in the Using SAP Fieldglass VMS with Employee Central integration guide at http://help.sap.com/hr_ecintegration.
What about reporting?
All standard reports in Employee Central Advanced Reporting include a filter to generate reports with or without contingent workers.
Figure 7: The contingent worker filter on a report in EC Advanced Reporting
There are no specific reports for CWM today and nothing is planned. However, product management are open to including CWM reports based on customer demand.
A metric pack for SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics is available that supports analytics for contingent workers. The Fieldglass Contingent Workforce Metrics Pack enables users to measure:
- End of Period (EOP) Headcount – Total Workforce
- End of Period (EOP) Headcount – Contingent Workers
- Staffing Rate – Contingent Workers
- Average Workforce Tenure – Contingent Workers
- Average Pay Rate – Contingent Workers
The figure below shows the EOP Headcount - Contingent Workers report.
Figure 8: EOP Headcount - Contingent Workers analytics in SAP SuccessFactors Workforce Analytics (Source: SuccessFactors Q1 2015 (1502) Release: Reporting and Analytics)
What’s on the CWM roadmap?
At present, the following features and functionality is planned:
- Initiation of request for contingent worker in SAP Fieldglass VMS from Position Management
- Enhanced job history timeline
- Process integration with SAP Fieldglass
- Enhanced contractor conversion
- Handling of multiple Work Orders (including gaps between Work Order records)
- Point-to-point integration between EC and SAP Fieldglass VMS
Where can I find more information on CWM and SAP Fieldglass VMS?
More information on the CWM feature can be found in the Contingent Workforce Management implementation guide located at http://help.sap.com/hr_ec.
For information on SAP Fieldglass VMS can be found at:
- http://www.fieldglass.com/solutions/fieldglass_vms and
- http://global.sap.com/community/ebook/Fieldglass/enUS/assets/VMS_Overview.pdf.
- SAP Managed Tags:
74 Comments
