CWF2026 Agenda

Arrive between 9:00am – 9.30am, enjoy a coffee and connect with industry peers.

This session unveils the results of the State of Contingent Survey, a cross-functional snapshot drawn from HR, Talent, and Procurement leaders inside 70 major organisations operating at very different levels of maturity. We’ll look at data across six dimensions: visibility, risk and compliance, supplier and cost management, supply and delivery, employee experience, and the emerging challenges and opportunities shaping 2026.

Some of Australia’s biggest and best-known brands have landed themselves in serious Contingent Workforce trouble. We’ll start with a peer to peer roundtable discussion, sharing industry specific risks and plotting them onto our Risk/Opportunity matrix. Then Chris and Nick will share the Top 10 costly common scenarios that could find you on the wrong side of the law, and how to avoid them. 

The first maturity curve is all about gaining visibility and control of your fragmented contingent workforce.

In this session, our Speakers will share their practical case study of how they succeeded and why they chose to go down a partner MSP route versus managing inhouse.

The last few years have been a whirlwind of legal reforms reshaping contingent labour engagement. New regulations tightening compliance, redefining worker classifications, and increasing risks for businesses relying on contractors and gig workers, has meant that it’s been increasingly difficult to stay ahead of changes and ensure you are operating within the law. This session will break down the latest legal updates and you’ll be able to ask questions direct to a national workplace relations legal expert.

Once you have gained valuable insights into your contingent workforce by establishing a solid base maturity, this lays the foundation for even greater opportunities. These include enhanced user experience, increased efficiency, more effective spend management, and a more comprehensive, strategic approach to contingent workforce segmentation, optimisation and planning. We will take a deep dive into the various contingent workforce models – both in-house and outsourced – while highlighting the significant benefits companies can expect to reap as they enhance program quality and drive continuous improvement.

Adam Buxton, deeply experienced Talent and Contingent Workforce expert will join Sue Howse to explore the various different contingent models, their benefits and how to ensure ongoing continuous improvement to optimise your contingent program.

Statement of Work, when executed effectively, becomes a true strategic differentiator. It enables organisations to access specialist capability, shift delivery toward defined outcomes, strengthen commercial governance, and reduce compliance exposure. Yet for many businesses, SOW remains an under-managed space – characterised by limited visibility, inconsistent routing of work, unclear ownership, escalating costs, and unseen risk.

In this session, we explore the common organisational challenges surrounding SOW and how leading companies have tackled them by building strong partnerships between Talent Acquisition, Procurement, and CXC. Drawing on Vadim’s extensive experience across multiple enterprise environments – including work with major organisations such as Transurban, NBN, and others – he will share real-world insights into how structured governance and transparent operating models can transform a typically grey and fragmented category.

You’ll hear how organisations have uncovered hidden spend, reduced leakage, clarified accountability, and brought time-and-materials SOWs into the light – particularly where workers operate like contractors but carry very different obligations and risks.

We will break down what truly differentiates SOW from other engagement routes, what misclassification looks like in practice, and why SOW so often sits “unowned” inside organisations. You’ll walk away understanding:

• What sets SOW apart from traditional contracting and why TA must play a key role.
• How to identify and prevent misclassification and avoid compliance pitfalls.
• Why most organisations struggle to quantify their SOW workforce (and how leading companies have closed that gap).
• Practical steps for establishing enterprise-wide SOW governance.
• How TA and Procurement can partner to increase visibility and reduce leakage.
• The essential questions every TA leader should ask before supporting or expanding SOW usage.
• Trends reshaping SOW in Australia and how to build a resilient strategy.

You’ll leave with a clear roadmap to shift SOW from a hidden cost centre into a lever for agility, capability, and strategic workforce planning, plus a practical quick-start checklist to diagnose your current SOW environment and identify immediate opportunities.

This session tackles one of the most persistent and under-resolved questions in workforce strategy: who really owns the contingent workforce?

If you look at a Venn diagram of the needs and drivers of Talent Leaders and Procurement Leaders, they rarely overlap, yet the alignment of these two partners is critical to managing a successful contingent workforce. The discussion will then broaden to examine how Talent Acquisition, Procurement, and governance functions can move beyond functional silos to build a high-impact partnership that balances compliance, cost, speed, and workforce agility.

This is a peer-led conversation focused on real operating models, not theory, designed to surface what is actually working inside complex organisations today.

So, you need to construct a business case to build a contingent workforce program? In this practical session we will highlight the must-have elements of a robust business case – cost, spend, risk profile, technology. We will also showcase the critical need for stakeholder mapping and engagement, how to leverage contingent workers as a competitive advantage and help take an external market lens on innovative ways to access contingent talent.

Sean Garbett will be joined for this segment by Jane Hawkins, who knows the contingent workforce world from every angle. She has designed, implemented, and operated both insourced and outsourced contingent workforce models, giving her rare, hands-on insight into the real benefits, risks, cost drivers, and operational realities behind each approach.