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Building contracting processes that can weather the Great Resignation
Whether your company is experiencing high attrition rates or not, these current events should lead every contracting team to think very seriously about its management processes, writes Nathan Kale.
Nathan Kale
It’s a post-pandemic change that no one saw coming. Dubbed the “Great Resignation”, according to recent research by Microsoft, more than 40 per cent of the global workforce is ready to resign at some point this year.
For contracting teams, resignations like these can be especially challenging at both a macro and micro level. At a macro level, contract management has historically been treated as complicated, specialised work where institutional knowledge and established relationships power the process. Many companies still handle their workflows using homegrown, non-automated procedures (or, worse yet, with lots of documents saved in Outlook and desktops).
In these contexts, contracting practices can be opaque to newcomers and take more time and guidance for new talent to become conversant with them. If contracting professionals aren’t around to support newcomers, it gets that much harder to attract, onboard and retain new talent.
At the micro level, when new talent is brought in and enters a deal mid-flight, they lack visibility over all that’s taken place in the negotiation process up to that point. Deals might stall as the new contract manager takes over, or negotiations may end up reversing the work of the previous team.
Whether your company is experiencing high attrition rates or not, these current events should lead every contracting team to think very seriously about whether their contract management processes are documented and repeatable, or if their contract management expertise could walk out the door at any moment.
Contract management software can go a long way to ensuring it’s the former, not the latter. A unified contract life cycle management (CLM) platform consolidates all of a company’s contracts and templates out of Outlook and into a single location for easy search and access; approval hierarchies can be built so there’s no question as to who needs to see what contract when; and contract risk scores can help highlight contract attributes that matter most to the company.
CLM can provide a running start for new employees, with access to templates, clause libraries, contract playbooks, and other contract knowledge surfaced through CLM.
Finally, CLM – along with other automation technology – has the potential to help contracting teams attract and keep talent. The next generation of workers has come to expect technology to be in place to enhance their productivity and eliminate inefficiencies. These workers expect business software to operate like the direct-to-consumer software they’re so familiar with in their daily lives.
Companies that deploy technology that empowers employees – by helping them work the way they’re accustomed to working – will be more prepared to compete and retain top talent in the days to come. Arguably, this is even more important in contracting, since it’s an area that has traditionally lagged behind other areas from a technology standpoint.
Contracts are the core of every business relationship, and businesses can only move as fast and efficiently as their contracts. When companies are staring down a sharp loss of contract expertise, contract management technology can be a lifesaver.
Nathan Kale is the country manager at Icertis, a contract intelligence company.
