Sevenstep Blog

Can Technology Reignite Your Overworked Workforce Strategy?

By Tim Pröhm, Vice President, Digital Strategy & AI

Workforce management operates as an always-on function. It depends on constant delivery and continuous evolution to empower HR, talent acquisition, procurement, and the business leaders it serves. It is about filling jobs, but it is also about reshaping strategy, applying technology, and competing for every type of worker. No wonder leaders are overwhelmed. 

At the recent Staffing Industry Analysts’ CWS Summit in London, I heard this concern firsthand. The pace of change, complexity and rising expectations leaves leaders with the same questions: are we doing enough, and are we doing it the right way? 

As one senior category manager put it, “We are good at doing everything, but it’s a struggle to achieve anything.” Still, there is a bright side. These challenges force us to innovate, transforming talent management from a weakness based on fragmented processes into a connected, agile function that creates a business advantage. 

Here are three persistent challenges that surfaced at the Summit and how technology innovations are resolving them. 

"It's Too Complicated"

The first barrier is complexity. Hiring a full-time employee or sourcing a contractor involves navigating countless systems, tools, and processes. A vendor management system (VMS) shows contingent worker data, while an applicant tracking system (ATS) covers permanent hires, each capturing only a piece of what’s needed for workforce planning. 

These siloed tools leave managers guessing. Which channel should they use? What type of worker fits the role? How do they avoid early missteps such as unrealistic compensation, location targeting or job requirements that limit talent attraction? 

Organizations need an ecosystem that connects all sources of data and digital interaction, creating a single point of entry for hiring managers to engage talent.  This challenge drove the development of our Kelly Helix platform to drive contingent workforce management and our Sevayo® Insights platform to drive permanent hire and total talent solutions. Sevayo Insights, developed by Sevenstep, brings data integration and predictive analytics to the platform. By creating a unified environment that applies AI and automation to interpret and align data, we can deliver meaningful insights and get the right talent in place quickly. 

That means managers aren’t navigating alone. With automated decision support and access to all worker types, whether full-time, contingent, or independent contractor, they’re guided to the best-fit option. The result is one platform, one login, and one aligned path to the right workforce solution.  

This type of integration works in surprisingly complex situations. For example, a global manufacturing client in the agriculture space underwent an internal restructuring, disrupting the many different processes hiring managers used to secure contingent workers.  

As the MSP covering more than 3,000 workers globally, we worked with the client to create a one-stop contingent workforce hub using our Helix technology.  

This single-entry portal transformed how stakeholders across the business access contingent workforce information, tools, and resources. Instead of wondering what steps to take to secure the contingent workers they need, hiring managers go to one place to get their questions answered. We saw more than a 50% increase in queries soon after launch, 75% of which were resolved in one day using an advanced UX design and intelligent chatbot support. No leaving messages, no moving from department to department for answers. That’s a powerful advantage. 

"We Need More Data and Better Answers"

Guesswork derails even the best workforce strategies. Compensation based on last year’s data? Likely outdated. Hiring into a new skill area? Hard to know if you're overpaying or underdelivering. 

Many organizations feel starved for intelligence, even with more data than ever. That’s because raw data isn’t enough; what’s needed is interpretation, context, and scale. 

Today, we can finally bring enough data volume and quality to produce real-time, predictive guidance. With access to an enormous volume of transactional talent data, we can show how pay rates, location, or skill changes affect time-to-fill and workforce costs. That’s a huge upgrade from small-scale benchmarks or rough assumptions. 

We also enrich client strategies with labor market cost and availability data from external sources, like Brightfield’s TDX for the extended workforce and Lightcast for permanent hiring. These inputs allow employers to evaluate decisions like: 

• Should we lower job requirements and train up talent? 

• What’s the likely impact if a major employer enters our market? 

• Will we adjust pay to stay competitive? 

• Do we have the right resources to recruit the talent? 

Build predictive models with extensive and diverse data, and you get answers that reflect the real world rather than speculation. For example, part of our KellyOCG + Sevenstep technology ecosystem is Sevayo® Insights. This integration platform complements our Helix technology for data and intelligence delivery in contingent workforce and total talent management, and it fully drives our permanent hire solutions by integrating multiple data sources and applying predictive analytics to drive reliable outcomes.  

One way we apply that technology involves determining how difficult a requisition will be to fill. By predicting difficult reqs, we can bring in specialty resources to tackle those talent needs while leaving the other “standard” reqs to the original process. In its initial use, the strategy enabled an aggressively scheduled opening of an employee assistance center for a major global healthcare provider, with a 50% increase in hiring manager satisfaction over industry benchmarks, a 40% reduction in time-to-fill for difficult roles and 100% offer acceptance. This approach is now in use in select engagements across our client base and is quickly expanding.  

Creative Total Talent Strategy Fuels Rapid Program Launch in New Location A unique use of technology led to a solution that solved a difficult workforce challenge.

"We're Not Keeping Up With AI"

Many leaders agree that AI is essential but aren’t sure how to use it effectively. The good news is that we’re moving beyond disconnected AI tools toward something more unified and impactful. 

In an advanced ecosystem, AI plays three roles: automating tasks, analyzing data, and simulating human-level intelligence. The last part is where true transformation begins. 

Agentic AI, still emerging, represents a leap forward. For example, it enables the user, a hiring manager, to ask for an outcome (“I need to hire 20 sales representatives for a particular location and budget”) and have the system determine and execute the strategy to achieve the goal. The system orchestrates the activity among hiring managers, recruiters, and talent. It provides relevant data and other information to those involved and facilitates the decision-making to move the process forward through to the delivery of talent. It’s not just automation; it’s guided execution with intelligence built in. 

That means organizations don’t need to master every tool or dig into technical details. AI does the heavy lifting, presenting options and helping managers make better, faster decisions. 

The goal is not to chase every niche innovation but to ensure all components of your workforce technology work together. Done right, AI becomes a fabric that empowers the user and amplifies strategic capability. 

Putting It All Together

Even with the best data and automation, talent management will remain complex without thoughtful design. What’s needed is: 

• Integration that bridges silos and eliminates confusion 

• Predictive analytics that turn data into foresight 

• A technology ecosystem that applies advances in AI as they emerge  

It sounds ambitious, but it’s happening now. With innovations like Kelly Helix and  Sevayo® Insights, we’re seeing how the right technology can make workforce planning smarter, faster, and more human. 

For organizations navigating today’s volatility, the lesson is clear: don’t settle for disconnected tools or patchwork fixes. Demand solutions that unify, simplify, and amplify your ability to compete for talent across every worker type and every hiring need, because in the end, technology should empower your organization.