Full-time and temp employees have to work together -- now what?

Welcome back to Working Together, a weekly series on the changing face of U.S. business. This week I tackle Google’s temp worker drama and share a no-nonsense sit-down with Lisa Skeete Tatum, the founder of career planning platform Landit. Let’s dive right in.

Within the next decade, half of all workers in the U.S. are predicted to be in temp positions. So how are companies supposed to adapt to support an increasingly flexible workforce?

That’s the question that Google brought front and center last week. The tech giant now employs more independent contractors than full-time employees, and critics say the company still hasn’t figured out how to effectively manage these two classes of employees. Even though temp employees work right alongside full-time workers on the same teams, they are often paid less and have very few benefits, according to a recent New York Times investigation.

At its worst, companies employing both types of workers create “caste systems” within their offices, with temp workers feeling like second-class citizens. But consider this: A majority of high-skilled temp workers choose to be contractors because of the flexibility the status affords them as well as, in many cases, higher pay, according to data out of McKinsey and LinkedIn, respectively. So how does the workplace need to adapt to make room for all employees? I asked two experts on independent workers and workers’ rights to weigh in on best practices.

Set the right standards

The laws that regulate how companies treat freelance talent vary widely by state as well as by the temp agencies that source the workers. While some agencies recommend that independent contractors be excluded from after-work events, others discourage managers from having career conversations with temp workers. This makes it challenging for law-abiding companies to manage external workforces effectively while complying with the law.

But not everything is outside of a specific company’s control, said Michelle Miller, the co-founder of workplace petition site co-worker.org. When determining which temp staffing agencies to work with, companies can mandate how those workers will be treated that will make them feel more on-par with their full-time colleagues. Companies can also include a minimum hourly wage they are comfortable paying temp workers that matches the wages of full-time employees when the difference in taxation is considered. That said, without broader public policy protections for independent workers, injustices will continue to exist, explained Miller.

“We can’t rationally expect that capitalistic companies are going to do anything other than try to make money,” she said. “You need to have countervailing powers that push from the outside and protect people.”

‘Culture fit’ is even more important

The notion that because a contractor will only be with the company for a short period of time leads some managers to spend less time assessing if they are a fit for the organization. That’s a big mistake, said Co-Founder and CEO of Business Talent Group Jody Greenstone Miller. Because the worker is coming in from the outside on a project basis, assuring that they can assimilate well into the organization quickly and easily is essential. Arming contractors with key information once they start — like how the team uses email vs. in-person meetings or where people hang out for coffee — are also small things that even the most well-intentioned managers can forget.

Employees can speak up

Increasingly, particularly at tech companies, Coworker.org’s Miller says that workers are banding together to right perceived inequality. Full-time workers at several tech companies recently petitioned their employers to create fairer contracts for contracted security guards, for example. With the increasing exposure of social media companies should be prepared to see more of this moving forward.

Independents have the power

In an economy where independent workers become the exception as opposed to the rule, Greenstone Miller points out that the best companies will have to figure this problem out. How that will happen will likely be a combination of changes to public policy and notable private companies taking a stance on protections for independent workers. But for now, the American workforce remains in a state of transition where this won’t be the last time that we hear about this issue coming out of places like Google, she added.

“The war for talent is over and talent has won,” Greenstone Miller put simply.

See what LinkedIn members like you are saying about this news here.

Who’s Pushing Us Forward

Experienced professional women represent one of the largest untapped resources for companies and small businesses. Lisa Skeete Tatum, the founder and CEO of career transition platform Landit, launched a startup and received $13 million in venture funding to solve that problem.

I sat down with her recently for a refreshingly frank conversation on how she came up with the idea for her startup and the challenges she faced raising venture capital. Listen in here:

What’s Working

Walking the walk on paternity leave. While many companies have extended the same paternity benefits to fathers as they have to birth mothers, men still feel discouraged to take the full time off. The male co-founders of Olark, a 30-employee startup providing live-chat software, tried to buck this trend by taking three months off -- at the same time. Guess what? The company did just fine without them. [WSJ]

“Anti-Dad” Bias. Speaking of paternity leave, JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay a $5 million settlement to a group of fathers who alleged they were discriminated against via the bank’s paternity policies. The father who led the case said the company told him the policy assumed the mother would be the primary caregiver of the child. [Bloomberg]

• ICYMI: AllBright Co-Founder Debbie Wosskow gave simple advice to men offered ample paternity leave at work: “Take it!”

Talking to — not Slacking — your co-workers. With so much time in the office now spent consumed in our devices, some companies are getting creative in the ways co-workers can get to know each other off the internet. Pinterest, for example, just hosted its’ fifth-annual “Knit Con:” a two-day computer free event where employees teach each other skills like watercolor painting, jiu-jitsu and yes, knitting. [LinkedIn]

What Needs Work

Are women not allowed to fail? With so few women directing major motion pictures, critics are saying that there was too much focused on the poor box office performance of Olivia Wilde’s debut film “Booksmart.” “Until that number is higher, I think individual women are judged more harshly,” said Kirsten Schaffer, executive director of the advocacy group Women in Film. [NYTimes]

What training? A study of 3,000 employees at a global professional services firm discovered that diversity training does very little to change the behavior of those who didn’t think much about the issue before the training. Only workers who were most likely to support underrepresented groups prior to the training changed their behavior after it. [PNAS]

‘Let’s make our own establishment’ On the Recode Decode podcast this week, Girls Who Code CEO Reshma Saujani made the point that building diverse workplaces in retrospect is nearly impossible. Instead, we need to give underrepresented groups opportunities to start their own companies. [Vox]

What do you want to see in next week’s edition? Let me know in the comments below or message me here.