If you manage contingent labor, have influence on recruiting or hiring in your company, or have any type of non-employee population, you must be at the 2015 CWS in October. Why? Because the workforce is changing, even as you read this, and will continue to change.

CWS is Staffing Industry Analyst’s annual Contingent Workforce Strategies (CWS) Summit, and is taking place in Dallas this year. The CWS Summit (and the CW Solutions Forum which immediately follows it) offers valuable insight, networking and practical know-how to those working with various non-employee populations.

There are simply not enough hours in the day to find out all you need to know about the dozens or hundreds (in some cases, thousands) of non-employee workers, who are working at your company every day. Employment laws change, wage laws and benefits change, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is in place and all of these issues that impact your full-time direct employees, also impact your temporary and non-employee groups.

The CWS Summit and CW Solutions Forum can be great resources as you plan for 2016 and beyond. Here are a few great reasons why you must be there:

• All of the information in one place. From service providers to technology, you will leave with at least a few ideas or information you can put into use immediately. You could have your assistant surf the internet for months to collect all this, but who still has an assistant now anyway? It’s much easier to find it all in two (or four) short days.

• The ability to ask questions from experts – There are companies of all sizes, analysts and the incomparable SIA staff. None of them bite. Really. And we don’t care if you buy something from us or not – the answers are free. And speaking of free, you might even get some free stuff from us while you are here. Lots of raffles and giveaways for stuff you don’t really need, but that everyone wants anyway.

• Fun stuff along with the learning – There are various events along with the sessions to allow you to get to know the staffing industry and talk with peers about products and services. You could even see a real armadillo up close at one event we know about (click here).

The 2015 CWS Summit is October 19-20, and the 2015 CW Solutions Forum follows on October 21-22 in Dallas, TX. If you ask nicely (and are a HR/procurement practitioner) you could even be our guest and attend for free. And we do have a real live Texas YohDown event to kick things off. Y’all come on down and see us now, ya hear!

P.S. We’re serious about the armadillo. We may even have a real longhorn steer for you to take a picture with. Now that’s one great selfie to post on Facebook.

P.S.S. If you are reading this, you no doubt have some interest in one of more of the areas above. This blog might have been passed on to you from a colleague – and you should thank them, or it was sent to you from an astute salesperson. However it got to you, we hope to see you at CWS.

This blog was written by Matt Rivera. Matt serves as Vice President, Marketing and Communications and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of Yoh’s marketing and brand communications. Matt holds a degree in Journalism/Public Relations and has been working in the staffing industry for more than 25 years. Prior to this role, Matt held many different roles from branch recruiting and proposal writing to technology management and online marketing.