Upwork Launches Partnerships to Enhance Workforce Management

Upwork has launched a pair of collaborations designed to offer an improved approach to workforce management.

The work marketplace announced Tuesday (Dec. 5) that it was beginning the first of many partnerships with vendor management systems (VMS) and managed service providers (MSP) for its enterprise suite offering, starting with SAP Fieldglass and Flextrack.

“Upwork’s dynamic synergy with VMS and MSP partners tackles many age-old challenges in our work ecosystem, revolutionizing project visibility, quality assurance, and industry standards adherence,” Christopher J. Dwyer, senior vice president of research at Ardent Partners and managing director of the Future of Work Exchange, said in a news release.

He added that the integration of VMS and MSP services on Upwork offers a solution for companies searching for “agile, on-demand talent.”

Upwork argues that business leaders and hiring managers are contending with an increasingly complex web of specialized workforce management tools and platforms.

With the help of SAP Fieldglass and Flextrack, the company says it can help firms searching for talent gain a solution for “seamless” sourcing and hiring, connected to a pool of workers with 10,000 skills in more than 180 countries.

“In addition, these VMS partnerships will mitigate risks of departmental hiring outside of existing procurement processes, provide comprehensive control over sourcing and hiring, and reduce extraneous approvals and hiring workstreams,” the release said.

And as PYMNTS Intelligence has found, finding gig workers has gotten tougher, especially among younger people.

That’s because zillennials — the 30 million consumers born between 1990 and 2000 — are more cautious than other younger generations to take on gigs via platforms such as Uber, Care.com or Upwork.

“Specifically, the study reveals that half of individuals in this bridge generation between millennials and Generation Z steer clear of gig work,” PYMNTS wrote last month.

“Although the other half who have embraced gig work is higher than the population-wide average of 38%, it remains significantly lower than among other young consumers — 59% of Gen Z workers, 54% of millennials and 52% of bridge millennials engage in platform work.”

A further look at this data shows that zillennials are less likely than others close in age to work from home. The study found that just 56% of zillennials said they worked remotely, which is lower than the nearly two-thirds of comparable generations (64% of Gen Z, 63% of millennials and 64% of bridge millennials) who have engaged in remote and platform work.