Wachovia Corp. says the online service it is using to manage all its temporary staffing has virtually eliminated its use of unauthorized agencies and given it better control over vendor quality and costs.
After a formal review, Wachovia signed on in mid-2002 with White Amber Inc., a Lake Success, N.Y., online work force manager, to help it replace a decentralized employment decision-making process with standardized practices.
The Charlotte banking company, which has 80,000 full-time employees, also uses many temporary workers, from information technology contractors to clerks.
Denny O. Clark, a Wachovia senior vice president and the director of recruitment, said that without a centralized system for handling staffing needs, it could not tell whether its managers were using unauthorized agencies, nor could it compare vendors' costs or control the quality of service they provided.
One manager might have been paying a contractor $48 an hour, while another was paying $98 for the same skills, Mr. Clark said in an interview Sept. 4. "Our biggest challenges were in the IT field."
There was also no standard process for requisitioning temporary help, he said. "Essentially, you could do business with anyone and do it in any way."
By using the new service, which managers access through a link in the human resources portion of its intranet, Wachovia has reduced the use of unapproved contractors, Mr. Clark said. "We have just about eliminated that list." The number of agencies that managers previously had been using was "more than I would like to tell you."
Wachovia completed the rollout of the new system on June 9, culminating a process that had taken several years, he said.
It had first looked into a standardized staffing system two and a half years ago, when it was known as First Union Corp. But that effort was put on hold after it acquired the old Wachovia and took its name in September 2001, according to Mr. Clark.
At that time the old Wachovia was working on a similar project, he said. "Essentially, we were both working on the same thing at the same time."
After the acquisition, executives took a fresh look at the issue and ultimately awarded the contract to White Amber. Michael Cruz, the vendor's executive vice president of client services, said Wachovia had a three-phase rollout, with one region going live with the service last September, a second in March, and a third in June.
Before the system was installed, some Wachovia managers were able to make hires without seeking multiple bids, Mr. Cruz said.
Vendors pay White Amber a transaction fee to list their workers in its online staffing marketplace, which Wachovia managers use without charge.
Price is not the only consideration when looking for temporary help, Mr. Clark said. "We do take quality of service into account. It is integral to our approach. We can target a company [for more business] because we know it gives us better service," while dropping others for poor performance.
Some managers prefer the independence of the old system, but others like the new, standardized way, he said. The same has been true of the agencies and vendors. "Having to adhere to a consistent rate card is a challenge for some of them," but others benefit by getting more business from Wachovia. "Those are the vendors that are happy."
