They’re Not Employees, They’re People

They’re Not Employees, They’re People I found this article to be very interesting. Business analyst, Peter Drucker explained the changing dynamics of the workforce and covered “two extraordinary changes in the business world” as he stated in the article that has taken many by surprise. The first one is the overwhelming number of people in organizations that are not traditional employees and secondly, how many businesses have outsourced employee relations. The rise of the temporary worker has been unbelievable. Incredibly, 8 million to 10 million temporary workers are placed each day worldwide. Adecco is the world’s biggest private employer which places nearly 700,000 temporary and fulltime clerical, industrial, and technical associates worldwide. They do 250,000 workers in the United Sates alone. What I found mind boggling was that temps are not just filling in at reception desks; there are temporary suppliers for every kind of job, even to be a CEO. The second topic Drucker discussed in the article was the businesses that are outsourcing their employee relations to professional employee organizations which are referred to as PEO. Basically this means that a third-party handles the numerous administrative tasks related with managing employees. Temps and PEOs relieve management to focus on the actual business rather than on Human Resource related issues. It all sounds good, but Drucker did state that if companies continue to do this, it can potentially damage the relationship with the employee. The interpersonal relationship will no longer be there and can be a bad thing as we discussed in our first class. I have not worked in a company where we used temps, but it makes financial sense to do so and I agree with it. As for outsourcing the employee relations, I understand the pros of doing so, but I believe there are more cons in it. You can potentially loose talent over this.
References
Harvard Business Review article “They’re not employees, they’re people”

References: Harvard Business Review article “They’re not employees, they’re people” by Peter F. Drucker (2002)