How I Met Your Supplier: Barney Stinson's Guide to MSPs

Not everyone likes Barney Stinson from the show “How I Met Your Mother”, but that’s okay. He does have many flaws. However, one of the things the Neil Patrick Harris character is best known for in the show is having “a guy” for just about everything. He even had “a guy guy” if he didn’t have a guy for something. Some might say that having a hookup for anything you might need is the dream. When you think about it—a Contingent Labor Managed Service Provider (MSP) program is just that.

The Benefit of Having “A Guy”

How do you get the people you need when you need them? Do you need a marketing person, facilities person, engineer, administrative assistant, or call center personnel? How about IT professionals? A customized MSP can help you get those people for you. Most MSPs have a large supply base of various specialized suppliers who recruit specifically for the skill sets you are in need of. These programs can also help you plan and scale your business accordingly. A good MSP understands that there are seasons and cycles to your business where sometimes you need more people than other times of the year. But who at your company manages the relationships with all of these suppliers?

Managing Supplier Relationships

Oftentimes, a hiring manager ends up building a relationship with a supplier outside of the contingent labor program and that can cause noncompliance, cost increases, and employee experience issues for that worker. Remember when Barney had his own “Bro Code”? Similarly, with an MSP program, you are getting a service that vets suppliers to ensure risk mitigation, worker compliance with Department of Labor laws, and insight into all of the spend in the program. As Barney would say, “New is always better,” especially when it comes to compliance practices.

Ensuring Compliance and Mitigating Risks

 How do you get those insights? Partnering with a trusted provider, and they will be able to centralized the technology for the program in a VMS or vendor management system and get the insights necessary to have a full understanding of your contingent workforce. I don't know how much money that Barney Stinson spent on “his guys”, but that's probably because he didn't have a centralized way to see how much he was spending. Like Ted's endless search for "The One," managing your contingent workforce without proper insights can be chaotic and costly.

Achieving Supplier Diversity Goals

An added benefit to using an MSP program is you can partner with a vendor that will Help you achieve your supplier diversity goals One of your most expensive categories: labor. Just like Barney’s “Playbook” was essential to his schemes, an MSP can be your playbook for achieving workforce diversity and efficiency.

Learn more about how PG helps you meet Supplier Diversity goals.

If you've read this and thought:

I need more insight into my supplier, contingent labor spend, are unsure of worker compliance, or need help with your supplier Diversity goals… Let’s talk! As Barney would say, “Challenge accepted!”