Client Success Stories

Sara Lee and Staff Management | SMX's Global MSP Program Featured in HRO Today Magazine

How Sara Lee outsourced its way to a stronger, thriftier, contingent labor force
By Caroline Storey-Sabetti for HRO Today Magazine

For many years Sara Lee, a global provider of brand-name food and household products, managed their contingent workforce via a master supplier model. Sara Lee's master supplier was contracted to staff all of its contingent needs for approximately 200 domestic facilities. Light industrial positions represented the bulk of their contingent labor usage, with information technology, professional, and administrative positions making up the rest.

Over time, dissatisfaction with contingent worker quality and unfilled requisitions had caused end users to source their contingent workers outside of the program and rely on overtime hours. In 2006, Sara Lee estimated that in excess of 30 percent of their total contingent usage was outside the program. To address end-user dissatisfaction as well as the risk and lack of visibility created by rogue spend, Sara Lee procurement assigned a team to assess the master supplier program. The team was responsible for conducting a thorough current state analysis and for making recommendations on how to better manage the contingent workforce going forward.

The team was lead by Patti LaValle-Jones, a senior category manager for HR services. LaValle-Jones and team worked closely with a steering committee consisting of stakeholders from human resources, operations, and procurement to validate their findings and identify future program specifications. "Getting cross-functional involvement also ensured that key stakeholders validated our findings and supported our recommendations," said LaValle-Jones. "Cross-functional involvement also ensured that the new program was engineered to meet the needs of all stakeholders." The committee concluded that the one-size-fits-all master supplier approach was not the best fit. A new contingent workforce model was needed to drive improved service levels, end-user satisfaction, access to data, and greater controls.