Contingent Labor (MSP)
Governs the workforce that isn't on your payroll.
One program for every contractor, vendor, and temp on your books.
Vendor-neutral management of your non-employee workforce, with the visibility your finance team keeps asking for.
Why contingent programs sprawl
Every department has its own vendor. Nobody has the whole picture.
Contractors get added department by department, staffing vendor by staffing vendor, until nobody can say what your true contingent spend is, who's still active, or which rate cards are even in play. Maybe you've already tried spreadsheets, and they fell over the moment a second business unit started hiring temps too. So let's address the elephant in the room: an ungoverned contingent workforce is a cost and compliance risk hiding in plain sight. A managed service provider program, done right, isn't another vendor added to the pile. It's one process and one set of vendor-neutral metrics across every supplier you already use. Here's how that actually plays out against running it yourself or leaving it to your suppliers.
How we run the program
Six stages. One system of record for every vendor.
We sit above your existing staffing suppliers, not in place of them, so you get one process, one set of rate cards, and one dashboard, no matter how many vendors are actually filling seats.
01
Program Design & Governance
We set the rules of the road: rate cards, tiering, and who can request what, before a single vendor is touched.
02
Vendor Consolidation
Your existing staffing suppliers stay in the mix, routed and scored according to one vendor-neutral standard.
03
Requisition & Rate Management
Every request for contingent labor flows through one intake using pre-negotiated rate cards.
04
Worker Onboarding & Compliance
Background checks, credentialing, and classification are handled consistently, no matter which vendor sourced the worker.
05
Time, Invoicing & Spend Tracking
One system reconciles hours, invoices, and spend across every supplier, so finance stops chasing vendors for numbers.
06
Reporting & Program Review
Regular business reviews show what's working, what's costing too much, and where to consolidate further.
Three ways to solve this
An MSP program isn't what you're used to
Manage it internally, leave it to your staffing vendors, or bring in NXTThing. Here's how the three actually compare once you're a few months in.
| Comparison criteria | Internal team | Staffing vendors |  |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who's accountable when it slips | You, on top of everything else on your plate | Each vendor, only for their own workers | We are, across every vendor in the program |
| Visibility into spend | Scattered across invoices from a dozen vendors | Only what that one vendor chooses to report | One dashboard, all vendors, real time |
| Rate consistency | Whatever each manager negotiated on their own | Set by the vendor, in their own favor | Standardized rate cards across all suppliers |
| Compliance risk | Inconsistent classification and credentialing | Only as strong as that one vendor's process | One compliance standard, audited across the board |
| Vendor relationships | You manage each one separately | That vendor, protecting their own margin | We manage all of them, working for you |
The NXTThing difference
Visibility across every supplier, not just your favorite one
25+ years running vendor-neutral programs, proprietary VMS technology, and a team that sits above the suppliers, not inside one of them.
Vendor-Neutral
We route work on performance and rate, not on who owns the relationship
One System
A single VMS gives you one view of every contractor, across every business unit
Compliance-First
Consistent classification, credentialing, and audit trail across all suppliers
Cost Control
Standardized rate cards typically cut contingent spend by double digits
Global Reach
Worldwide coverage, delivered across multiple locations
What it costs
18%
Typical reduction in contingent spend once rate cards are standardized
100%
Vendor-neutral, no supplier gets preferential routing
1
Dashboard for every contractor, across every business unit
A truly configurable solution
Blend the hiring solutionsthat fit your situation
Start with one service—or a few—depending on what today’s problem calls for. As you go, add, drop, or shift the mix as your needs change. Same team, same reporting, no new contract.
Managed Recruiting
A dedicated team runs your requisitions day to day.
Executive Search
For senior seats: confidential research and direct approach.
Recruitment Marketing
Runs upstream, building the pipeline the other four draw from.
Consulting
Keep running hiring yourself, process rebuilt first.
Frequently asked questions
The questions buyers actually ask, answered straight
What is a managed service provider (MSP) program?
One program that governs how you source, manage, and pay contingent workers across every staffing vendor you use—instead of a dozen separate vendor relationships that are difficult to track.
Do we have to drop our current staffing vendors?
No. An MSP sits above your existing suppliers. Same vendors; one set of rates, rules, and reporting.
How much can an MSP program actually save?
Most of the savings comes from three places: standardized rate cards, eliminating duplicate vendor markups, and catching spend that had fallen through the cracks. We’ll model the number against your actual contingent spend before you commit to anything so you can see the savings.
What is a VMS and how is it different from an MSP?
A vendor management system (VMS) is technology. It tracks requisitions, time, and invoicing. A managed service provider (MSP) is the program and people that run on top of it.
What does MSP mean in recruitment?
MSP stands for managed service provider. In recruitment it means one partner governs how you source, manage and pay contingent workers across every staffing vendor you use, instead of running a separate relationship with each agency.
What is a managed service provider for staffing?
It is a single program sitting above your staffing suppliers. The provider sets the rate cards, manages vendor performance, consolidates the billing and reports on the whole contingent population. Your suppliers keep working, but under one set of rules rather than a dozen different arrangements.
What is contingent staffing?
Contingent staffing covers workers who are not on your payroll. That includes temporary staff, contractors and statement-of-work labor. They are hired, paid and governed differently from employees, which is why most organizations end up managing them as a separate program.
What is a contingent workforce?
Your contingent workforce is everyone doing work for you who is not your employee. In many organizations, it is a significant share of total headcount and the least visible part, because each staffing vendor holds its own slice of the data and nobody sees the whole picture.
Why do companies hire contingent workers?
Contingent workers let an organization match capacity to demand. They cover seasonal peaks, specialist skills needed for one project, and roles where the work has a defined end. The trade-off is administrative, because managing them well needs governance that permanent hiring does not.
What are the risks of hiring contingent workers?
The main risks are worker misclassification, uncontrolled rate creep across vendors, and spend that never appears in a single report. Each is manageable, and each becomes harder the more staffing suppliers you use without a common set of rules.
What are contingent workforce solutions?
They are the programs and systems used to govern non-employee labor. In practice, that means standardized rates, one process for requesting and approving workers, consolidated reporting, and a compliance framework that holds across every vendor you use.
