Make your program so good it is unreasonable not to use it

"The goal is not to force people to use the program. It is to make it so good that not using it would be irrational."

Program adoption is one of the things a contingent workforce leader is measured on. Conceptually, it is straightforward. You understand what the actual users of your program, the hiring managers and functional leaders, care about, and then you give them exactly that.

So what do they care about? Three things. They want the right people, fast. They want them at a cost that meets their budget. And they do not want to get in trouble because a compliance problem does not rest solely with the program; it is shared with the business unit that runs the operation. Everything else is detailed. Solve those three, and you have their attention.

Access, options, and no trouble

First, access. If a hiring manager knows they can come to the program and reach a lot of talent, in many countries, engageable in any way, they will love it, because every time they need somebody, they just come in and get it, fast.

Second, options. Give them choices that show the cost trade-offs: this resource in this country or that one, engaged this way or that way. Now they are making informed decisions instead of taking whatever the one supplier had.

Third, take the compliance worry off their plate. They should never have to become experts in labor law that changes by country and by city. That is not their job, and it never should be. They should simply know that if they go through the program, it is handled.

And it has to feel like the rest of their life

Here is the piece companies keep missing. All of this has to feel seamless, as relatable as their private life. In their private life, everyone expects fast, convenient, slick. Then they log into the company laptop, and the experience is brutally bad. We are all consumers, in the workplace or not, and people will not tolerate the gap.

Do all of that, and adoption is not something you have to chase. It becomes the default. It becomes unreasonable for a hiring manager not to use the program, because using it is genuinely the easiest path. And you cannot get there by limiting yourself to staff aug through old-fashioned providers that do not use technology. That path is slow and narrow, and people route around slow and narrow every time.

So ask the people who are supposed to use your program one honest question. Is using it easier than going around it? If the answer is no, that is your adoption problem, and no mandate is going to fix it.

If this is the kind of thinking you want more of, subscribe. I write about contingent workforce strategy and what actually drives program adoption.