Phil Biddle is galvanized by the fast-changing pace and innovation within contingent workforce management. As the global commodity manager for Siemens’ temporary worker program since 2016, he supports the core strategic framework for the optimal engagement and management of 25,000 temporary workers globally.

“We see lots of innovation; it’s about having the right program base to allow you to react and respond to the changing market, which is key,” he says.

Biddle has driven the digitalization approach (managed services/VMS program) across 11 key regions within Siemens, supporting approximately 80% of global demand and ensuring end-to-end process control, flexibility and transparency/analytics within key regional programs to facilitate ongoing informed stakeholder engagement.

Over the last year, he has helped to develop a global dashboard, which provides Siemens with a holistic view of the temporary worker population.

The digitalization approach ensures the company can continue to react to market challenges — for example, addressing the current talent shortage with flexible routes to market, talent pools, etc. and through a systematic approach to temp-to-perm conversions.

As Biddle contemplates the ever-increasing trend toward technology in this space, he is keen to ensure Siemens “maintains the principle of a single point of entry for external resources with the VMS/managed services program flexibly connected to other technologies, talent pools or routes to market.”