25 Sep What’s keeping more hiring managers from using your VMS?
A VMS should be saving you money, time, and resources.
Vendor Management Systems (VMS) were designed to streamline hiring processes, improve efficiency, and, most importantly, save money. Today’s VMS options are mostly legacy systems. Built for an earlier era of workforce management, they often lack the features and flexibility needed to address emerging contingent workforce challenges. Over the past decade, users have expressed discontent with the technology they have.
The VMS space is not immune to stagnating expectations and the lack of optimization and technological advancement many other sectors face. This leaves many teams either relying on struggling to use legacy VMS technology or bypassing it altogether. As a result, organizations miss out on potential savings and efficiencies and fail to engage top talent.
In short, outdated legacy VMS solutions drain efficiency and resources, leaving teams grappling with tech that no longer serves them or the modern workforce.
So, what’s holding your team back?
To unlock your VMS’s full potential, it’s crucial to understand what’s holding hiring manager adoption back and how transitioning to next-generation VMS solutions can move your organization forward and help prevent future issues.
Whether it’s because the VMS is too complex or fragmented, it’s essential to discover what aspects of the tool could be seen as a roadblock by your team.
Here are some common reasons hiring managers might hesitate to use your VMS.
Understanding the areas of pain that workforce managers face is the first step in being able to address them.
1. Clunky user interface / bad user experience
Slow performance, frequent glitches, manual tasks, inconsistent technology, and complicated workflows frustrate users. This often pushes teams toward manual processes or external tools they find quicker and more reliable.
One of the most significant barriers to VMS adoption happens when your team struggles with the user interface. Many individuals don’t spend a lot of time inside the VMS, so when these casual users end up in counterintuitive or difficult-to-navigate solutions, many revert to manual (and therefore difficult to track) processes or find outside tools that they may find more accessible, even if these prove to be less efficient.
2. Change management takes forever
Whether new to VMS or familiar with legacy systems, implementing or upgrading to a better solution is often complicated and costly for managers. Time-consuming transitions, communication blocks, IT coding times, or loss of autonomy with a clunky experience may deter teams from using the system. A poorly managed transition can make users feel like they’re spending more time learning a system than actually hiring the right talent.
3. Not enough analytics /reporting
When dealing with the contingent workforce, robust analytics and reporting features must be part of your solutions. When a VMS doesn’t provide adequate data or easy-to-use reporting tools, the team might not only see no value in using what you have available but may also worry about the risks that come with software mismanaging information or reporting incorrectly or stress about workforce spend due to limited visibility.
4. Lack of sourcing support and management
Teams that need to support local and global business requirements in sourcing need a VMS capable of adaptability when it comes to sourcing and onboarding the contingent workforce in local markets and industry segments. A legacy VMS that fails to leverage the latest tech advancements and team needs results in teams overpaying for talent, a lack of departmental control, and exposure to fines and lawsuits due to compliance violations; this lowers leadership credibility and the trust the team has in using the software, leading to abandonment.
5. Integration Issues with other systems
Many hiring managers rely on multiple tools to manage contingent talent and vendors effectively. A VMS that doesn’t seamlessly integrate with other systems creates additional work and frustration, leading to low adoption rates. Legacy VMSs often rely too heavily on IT teams for integrations, adding pressure to due dates and deliverables.
6. Fear of data leaks
Data security has always been a significant concern for teams. Generative AI, which promises better analytics and reporting, is now amplifying longstanding demands for real-time personalization and business efficiency.
That said, a legacy VMS that can’t guarantee top-tier security measures and data integrity will not be used to its full potential. Suppose the VMS is perceived as vulnerable to data leaks or breaches. In that case, teams might avoid using it altogether to protect sensitive information, choosing longer times and increasing costs over potential security concerns.
7. Insufficient training and support
Even with the most intuitive solutions, teams need some support and training. Training materials that are too long, complicated, or inaccessible can be one of the biggest hurdles for teams to overcome. Hiring managers who do not feel supported may feel overwhelmed or frustrated, leading to low usage. Regular training sessions, easy-to-understand support documents and resources, and a responsive support team will make a difference in building comfort and confidence when using the technology.
Embrace a Next-Generation VMS to maximize the power of the contingent workforce
A future-proof VMS solves your team’s adoption worries with simple, powerful, secure solutions that anyone can use. That simplicity, supported by powerful technology, makes the difference for teams looking to get the most out of the talent they source, hire, and use.
With Flextrack’s PaaS technology, your team will not only be able to quickly adopt the extended workforce processes and technology but also improve their decision-making, sourcing, contingent workforce management, forecasting, and planning on a single platform that connects and works as an ecosystem, bringing teams, departments, and talent together.
Don’t let outdated VMS hold your team back. Embrace Flextrack’s next-gen VMS today to unlock potential and stay ahead in the evolving workforce landscape.
