In 2021, US mid-market businesses saw a rapid increase in business activity. Ohio State University's National Center for the Middle Market (NCMM), a leading source on mid-market-focused research, defines a midsize business as one with an annual revenue between $10 million and $1 billion.

The NCMM’s Year-End 2021 Middle Market Indicator reported a 12.3 percent increase in revenue growth in the middle market between December 2020 and December 2021. To support this growth, midsize leaders have needed to grow their workforces significantly, with year-over-year middle market employment seeing a 10.8 percent increase. Amid the Great Resignation, midsize employers have realized the flexibility and agility afforded by non-traditional talent and are increasingly turning to a wide range of worker types to manage workloads, address labor shortages, and hire for critical skillsets.

Source: National Center for the Middle Market, Year-End 2021 Middle Market Indicator

What Is a Total Talent Plan?

Total talent management (TTM) integrates permanent (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) and contingent (Contingent Workforce Management) talent solutions to create an all-encompassing and holistic approach to talent management. TTM combines the acquisition and management processes for a full range of talent sources—from traditional full-time employees to the many contingent workers that an organization works with. Companies who have implemented formal programs around both full-time and contingent labor are seeing the benefits in combining the two interrelated processes into one all-encompassing program.

How Midsize Businesses Can Benefit from a Total Talent Management Solution

At a time when companies are competing for the best workers, mid-market organizations still developing their human resources and recruitment infrastructure may lack sufficient tools, resources, and headcount to successfully navigate their talent goals and challenges amidst an unforgiving candidate market. Here’s what midsize organizations have to gain by partnering with a TTM provider.

Segment Worker Categories with Ease

Mid-market businesses often face difficulty in managing a blended workforce due to the various complexities of worker categories involved, and the inherent resource limitations that come with being mid-market. TTM programs help mid-market companies gain access to a broad range of worker types, while managing compliance requirements. On top of this, total talent management experts can evaluate business goals and provide strategic consultation on worker types that will optimize open role demand and critical skillsets.

Comprehensive Workforce Insights and Data-Driven Decision-Making

When managing a blended workforce, companies with limited resources often struggle to track actionable data across worker types. Fortunately, a TTM strategy addresses this issue and enables organizations to make meaningful, data-driven talent decisions. As part of managing your workforce, TTM providers consistently track key metrics and workforce data, providing increased visibility into:

• Workforce composition—who is in your workforce and what are the talent types you have available?
• Workforce spend—how much you are spending on your talent program across various worker types?
• Key metrics such as time-to-fill, employee retention, employee turnover, quality of hire, employee satisfaction, time-to-productivity across worker categories
• Talent mobility within your organization

These insights provide organizations with a highly comprehensive view of their workforce while surfacing challenges and success factors in the total talent infrastructure. TTM providers use this information to identify top performers while evaluating skills shortages, critical skills, overall talent spend, and much more.

Workforce Supply and Demand Planning

A TTM program can help midsize organizations optimize their worker supply and demand forecasting and planning capabilities. TTM providers utilize advanced workforce planning tools to (1) determine the scarcity and abundance of skillsets across markets, (2) evaluate competition within key markets, and (3) uncover untapped markets for talent. Using this information, they will make strategic recommendations on where and how to source and engage quality talent while ensuring results that align with an organizations strategic business objectives.

Let’s look at an example: A Chicago-based organization is looking to hire software engineers locally. Leveraging their tech stack, their TTM partner reports a strong demand for software engineers in the Chicago market— with a large number of competing firms hiring locally for the same role. Along with this information, the TTM provider presents other US cities in which tech talent pools are growing and the competition for software skillsets is significantly lower. The TTM provider may then recommend that the client expand their search criteria by location and enable these positions to be filled remotely. If hiring locally is a must, the TTM provider may recommend competitive pay, an enhanced benefits package, or a redesign of the client’s employer brand to combat competition.

Employer Brand Development

In today’s candidate-driven market, it is crucial for midsize business to keep employer brand top of mind if they want to set themselves apart from the competition. Unlike the industry big names, middle-market employers are less likely to attract qualified candidates by virtue of being famous. Additionally, midsize corporations tend to have weaker branding capabilities than larger rival companies.

TTM providers can increase your brand visibility by developing a consistent and effective employer brand inclusive of all types of talent. Companies engaging with a TTM partner will gain access to comprehensive employer brand planning and employer value proposition (EVP) development services. Your TTM provider will leverage comprehensive market insights on what attracts employees to an organization and recommend strategies for improving your employer brand and EVP. Acting as an ambassador of your brand, a TTM partner will emphasize your strengths as an employer through impactful brand messaging, crafted job descriptions, positive interactions with potential candidates, and more.

Total talent management provides visibility into talent processes, spend, quality of talent, and worker compliance, ultimately offering a seamless process for organizations to manage flexible and agile workforces. Midsize employers will face talent challenges in 2022 as they continue to compete against big companies for talent. Get strategic and evaluate if a blended workforce could work for your organization.