What is a Statement of Work?

A Statement of Work (SoW) is a collaborative outcome-based project solution agreed by all parties, describing the project tasks, objectives, scope of work, costs, acceptance criteria, performance schedules and milestone deliverables/payments.

For clients looking to secure specialist skills, not readily available within the contingent workforce marketplace, a Statement of Work (SoW) can be a great way to move away from traditional recruitment models towards service provider delivery.

We take a look at Statement of Works in more detail.

Defining a Statement of Work

SoW solutions are completely different to traditional options such as contingent and permanent employment. It is very much about engaging a service provider to deliver an outcome-based solution and not an individual person.

Taking a performance based approach

SoW agreements are outcome-based projects, and therefore all milestone payments are to an agreed milestone delivery payment structure. These performance based measures allow the client to engage a single or multiple service providers under a defined package of work.

Whatever the package may be, the work that is required from the service provider is broken down into clearly defined task deliverables and pre-agreed milestones. Service providers are then reimbursed based upon successful completion of these delivery outputs, in line with the payment terms. With the client having minimal involvement in any level of detail other than scoping out, service provider selection, and agreeing the requirements and acceptance criteria for the package of work.

A Statement of Work in practice

Statement of Work solutions work particularly well where specialist skills are required, or where an element of a project can be delivered as a package of work. As it will be a B2B relationship, there will not be any daily direction or control over the individual requirements for the tasks, so clients will need to be comfortable to leave the service provider to deliver their work autonomously – engaging whatever team they feel is required, whist ensuring that all the client’s compliance processes are followed.

Appointing a service provider

Clients will need to scope out each potential Statement of Work, defining what the milestones and project deliverables will be to complete the work. Including any timescales and quality expectations.  Linx takes a collaborative approach, working with clients to fully understand and scope the project requirements. Creating defined tasks with clear acceptance criteria, which the service provider will need to meet in order to receive the related milestone payment.

Organisations will then need to undertake a tender request process, inviting qualified service providers to bid for the work and submit their proposals. Following an internal review of the tender submissions, a service provider can be appointed to commence the work.

The challenge for organisations is to ensure the package of work is fully scoped and the right service provider is appointed at the tender stage – something which HR and Talent Acquisition teams are often not familiar with.

Developing compliant Statement of Works

By working with a Workforce Solutions Provider, such as Linx, an organisation can ensure the right checks and processes are in place to effectively manage Statement of Work solutions. Our team will work with stakeholders throughout the SoW development process, taking the time to check that all project requirements have been documented in the Statement of Work with no ambiguity or misconceptions. Before supporting our clients to devise a thorough and transparent tender process that allows them to independently review potential service providers and verify their credentials and experience. Once the project commence, we’ll then work with the project delivery team to effectively monitor and review the performance of service providers against the pre-agreed milestones, project deliverables, service levels and  quality expectations.

Linx support global organisations to deliver projects by devising Statement of Work solutions that allow them to access specialist service providers whilst maintaining complete transparency and effective performance management. At times of high demand for resources, a Linx Statement of Work solution provides access to specialist service providers to undertake short to medium term work packages to responsively deliver project objectives.