Top 6 Contingent Workforce Solutions Of 2024

Did you know the global gig economy currently takes up 12% of the labour market? This indicates the increasing demand for an on-demand workforce. In fact, this has led countries with low domestic work opportunities to experience a surge of talented freelancing professionals. However, hiring a contingent workforce in a country like India can come with its own challenges—the biggest of which is setting up a physical entity in the country where you want to hire your next contingent worker.

What’s the solution? You can partner with an employer of record (EOR) service provider like Rapid with extensive local knowledge. With Rapid, you can begin onboarding and disbursing HR benefits to staff members swiftly and affordably in a few minutes without worrying about local compliance laws. However, Rapid is not the only contingent workforce solution on the market, and we want you to make an informed choice.

‍In this blog post, we will highlight six of the top contingent workforce solution providers of 2024. But first, let’s check out what you should keep in mind before choosing a contingent workforce solution.

What Should You Keep in Mind Before Choosing a Contingent Workforce Solution?

Before you choose the right contingent workforce management software for your business needs, make sure you check out whether it has these properties:

• Customisability: Traditional contingent workforce management solutions are generally devised for large enterprises looking to supplement their short-term needs. However, if you are a small business with less than 100 employees, you should look for software that offers scalable services with a small contingent spend. 
• Onboarding: Your chosen contingent workforce solution must make onboarding (and offboarding) freelancers easy. It should also come with a well-vetted talent pool so that you can access top-tier professionals who can fulfil your project requirements. The technology of the software must also be efficient so that you do not have to worry about any legal exposure. 
• Size and Industry of MSPs: A managed service provider (MSP) is a third-party service that helps to manage a company’s contingent workforce program. Your selected contingent staffing solution should support you across multiple industries and time zones. The software should consider your sector's industrial challenges and nuances, providing a database of contingent workers categorised by skill sets.
• Reporting and Analytics: Your contingent workforce solution of choice should provide reporting and analytics that support KPIs like improved workforce efficiency or reduced labour expenditure. Besides standard KPIs, it should also report on custom KPIs tailored to indicate success for your organisation.

Now, let’s take a look at which contingent workforce management companies made our list!

Top 6 Contingent Workforce Solutions of 2023

1. Rapid

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Rapid is a trusted EOR services provider, enabling tech founders based in India with their startup HQ abroad to onboard top-notch talent from the Indian talent pool in minutes. With this contingent workforce management software, customers do not need to worry about establishing a legal entity in India. Rapid can facilitate everything for a business, from payroll to managing HR, compliance, benefits and tax liabilities.

Companies can even generate custom contracts based on local labour and tax regulations, including customised benefits such as three levels of health insurance. Moreover, they can also enforce their organisational rules, including PTO policies and salary structures.

Key Features:

• Digital Onboarding: Provides an easy-to-use platform that facilitates the gathering and processing of documents online. As a result, it helps create appropriate contracts for Indian employees.
• Background Verification: Offers three levels of background checking services so businesses can select the appropriate amount of investigation they need to conduct on prospective hires. 
• 24/7 Customer Support: Provides email support around the clock, collaborates directly with businesses to identify obstacles and help resolve complex problems. Moreover, they assign a specialised team to assist with staff onboarding.
• Service Marketplace: Offers businesses the opportunity to interact with various partners for a comprehensive hiring experience, including recruiters, visa processors, personal tax filers, immigration specialists, and employee benefits service providers.

Pricing:

• Employee: Starting from $299 per month per employee
• Contractor: Starting from $49 per month per employee

*Pricing for Startups:

• Employee: Starting from $199 per employee per month
• Contractor: Starting from $39 per employee per month

Pros:

• Deep local expertise with 25+ years of experience
• 100% transparent pricing with no hidden fees
• Offers scalability in compliance with global standards like GDPR, CCPA, etc.

Cons:

• Offers EOR services only in India

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2. Multiplier

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Multiplier is a SaaS global EOR services provider that expedites talent recruitment expansion for companies looking to set up international teams across several countries. 

Multiplier offers a wide range of services, from contract creation to multi-currency payments, fit to cater to every employment need. Moreover, you only have to pay once your chosen talent gets employed at your company.

Key Features:

• Multi-Currency Payroll: Ensures that your staff, both FTEs and freelancers, are paid on time and in their native currencies.
• Localised Benefits Administration: Offers regional and homogenous benefits, such as competitive insurance coverage, to your global teams worldwide.
• Helps in Onboarding: Allows you to hire the best talent globally in minutes with instant locally-compliant employment contracts in multiple languages.
• Expense and Leave Management: Provides a single platform for managing costs, reimbursements, and leaves, complete with a holiday calendar for overseas workers.

Pricing:

• Employees: Starts at $300 per month
• Freelancers: Starts at $40 per month 

Pros: 

• Easy, detailed, and informative onboarding process
• 24/5 customer support from local HR and legal experts
• Transparent pricing with no hidden fees

Cons: 

• Time sheets have to be filled manually, which is time-consuming

3. Deel

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Deel is a global EOR services provider enabling companies to hire, pay and provide benefits to contractors anywhere in the world. 

Deel consolidates global hiring, payroll and HRIS into a single platform. This allows businesses to onboard employees and contractors under their own entities, all in one place, in less than two days. Deel partners with 100+ subsidiary entities across the globe to enable global recruitment in 150+ countries, helping organisations expand with flexibility and compliance.

Key Features:

• Digital Onboarding: The platform collects all tax, permit, and compliance documents from remote hires online to ensure they can work compliantly.
• Locally-Compliant Contract Creation: The platform facilitates creating, sending, and signing locally-compliant contracts in seconds, protecting your business from unnecessary risk.
• Automated Invoicing: Offers instant generation of digital invoices for every payment made to contractors, syncs all your data with your favourite accounting tools, enables payments in bulk through a single click, and provides 15 payment options, including crypto.
• Benefits Management: Provides healthcare insurance coverage options and offers discounts from other brands.

Pricing:

• EOR Employees: Starts at $599 per month
• Contractors: Starts at $49 per month

Pros: 

• Offers free HR services for companies with less than 200 employees
• Seamless payroll with 10+ funding methods for clients and 8+ withdrawal methods for contractors
• Intuitive and easy-to-navigate user interface

Cons: 

• Limited customisation for invoice systems and integration issues with third-party accounting software. 

4. Upwork

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Upwork is a contingent workforce management solution worldwide. With this software, you can find talent, create contracts, collaborate remotely, share files, review work and securely pay for the job done.

Upwork can help you find the right people, filling any skill gaps in your workforce with vetted talent from across 180+ countries.

Key Features:

• Dedicated Support: Makes talent sourcing services available 24/7 to help you select appropriate freelancers and agencies based on project requirements, along with a dedicated account executive for ongoing support.
• Contractor Verification: Offers freelancer ID verification to automate background checks and maintain security and professionalism for the services marketplace.
• Custom Solutions: Enables creating a company-specific pool of freelancers and agencies, aligning hiring policies with your organisation’s internal policies with configurable contracting features and classifying every freelancer agreement that indemnifies you from compliance misclassification risks.
• Convenient Payment Options: Offers prepaid card payments, ACH transfers for clients using Direct Contracts and an improved checkout flow.  

Pricing:

• Client Marketplace Fee: 5% of payments made to contractors
• Freelancer Service Fee: 10% of money earned through Upwork

Pros: 

• Payments are secured and easy to disburse
• Vast selection of talent across the globe
• Keeps billing, tracking, and messaging information all in one place

Cons: 

• Longer hiring time (per Upwork, it may take up to three days to hire a contractor)

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5. Beeline

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Beeline offers a cloud-based extended workforce platform for hiring, managing and optimising the performance of contingent workers. 

It addresses all stages of the extended workforce lifecycle—from sourcing and onboarding to offboarding and reassignment—and connects companies, talent providers and individuals in a safe and centralised ecosystem that boosts productivity.

Key Features:

• Global Solutions: Provides contract creation in country-specific terminology and language, management and enforcement of tenure policies and equal pay compliance, and automated bill rate calculation comprising complex markups and rate components in line with local tax and labour regulations.
• Seamless Integration: Offers integrated access to worldwide talent networks, talent pools and talent suppliers, thereby optimising sourcing, requisition, invoicing processes and analysis of spend data
• Reporting: Enables you to find the right talent at the right place by extracting actionable insights from past hiring decisions and performing data-driven root cause analysis that drives better rates, faster cycle time, improved sourcing strategy and overall talent experience.

Pricing:

Pricing upon request.

Pros: 

• Real-time email notifications to convey any changes or updates
• Easy requisition submission and candidate sourcing
• Allows creation of automated processes to hire contractors

Cons: 

• Overall UI and layout can be improved for its dashboards

6. Papaya Global

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Papaya Global is a comprehensive workforce management solution with combined payroll and EOR services functionalities. 

This contingent workforce management software ensures full compliance and seamless onboarding, supported by strict SLA and compliance requirements. Papaya Global also provides professional support for legal, benefits, equity expertise and more across 160+ countries worldwide.

Key Features:

• Payroll Management: Streamlines intricate payroll processes, particularly multi-country payroll, by automating computations and following regional compliance requirements.
• Compliance Management: Enables you to control everything from a safe, easy-to-use platform with built-in compliance for payments and GDPR. 
• Reporting: Provides comprehensive workforce data and global contractor spending insights and stands out from the competition with its extensive and adaptable reporting features for improved strategic decision-making.

Pricing:

• EOR Employees: Starting from $650 per month per employee
• Contractors: Starting from $2 per month per contractor
• Global Expertise Services: Starting from $190 per month per employee

Pros: 

• Local compliance guaranteed, i.e., Papaya is responsible for liability
• Dedicated CSMs and access to self-help portals and WhatsApp support
• The BI platform helps uncover trends and insights based on our payroll 

Cons: 

• The learning curve may be a little steep for new users

Final Thoughts

You may be wondering which one you should choose with so many alternatives. We recommend Rapid.

‍Rapid is the only EOR platform that enables the establishment of a physical office in India. Additionally, you can hire gig workers for both your short-term and long-term needs without worrying about the tax rate for independent contractors in India. Rapid offers a comprehensive platform where you can engage freelancers through a streamlined process from contracts to payments, all available in one place. 

Moreover, our team has 25+ years of experience navigating the complexities of global recruitment and is supported by the centralised system built into our integrated HR platform, capable of handling all facets of human resource management. From providing contractor onboarding and training modules to performance tracking and exit processes, we provide tailored solutions to all your contingent hiring needs. If you want to make your next hire from the Indian talent pool, check out Rapid!

Contact us today!