The delicate balance of supply and demand in the employment market is shifting – and not in a way that favours employers. A recent international survey of more than 1,000 business leaders and HR chiefs by Randstad Enterprise has revealed that 72% believe that skills shortages will become increasingly problematic for their firms.
At the same time, many workers are seeking greater freedom and flexibility in their careers. For them, the appeal of full-time employment, especially in a role that requires their presence in a central office five days a week, is waning.
So how can employers close the gap between their growing need for talent and the decreasing supply of skilled people seeking permanent jobs? So-called branded talent pools – containing contingent workers who have already been vetted and can be hired on demand – could just be the answer.
Younger workers desire greater flexibility
Employers’ attitudes towards contingent workers – highly skilled freelance contractors, rather than traditional temps – are changing. While companies in other parts of the world have tended to remain wary of embracing contingent workers, firms in the UK and the US especially are coming to recognise them as a valuable extension to their permanent workforces.
One obvious reason for their increased keenness on contingent workers has been the economic downturn, which has stifled business growth and, hence, the creation of permanent full-time roles.
Another contributing factor, which may be even more influential, has been a widespread change of attitude among workers of all ages, who are increasingly seeking flexibility from their work. That’s the view of Fiona Halkyard, global head of talent marketing delivery at Randstad Enterprise.
“Talent owns the market more than ever. We’ve seen this revolution of employees taking more ownership about where they work,” she says, adding that young people just starting their working lives are seeking careers that are “less fixed and static” than those that previous generations have pursued.
Many members of generations Z and alpha in particular don’t view contingent working as the next best option to full-time employment. Indeed, it’s become their primary choice. Companies that want to attract them must therefore adjust their approach.
Could full-time employees be replaced by contingent workers?
This shift in how people want to work, along with a growing demand among recruiters for skills-based hiring, has made branded talent pools far more appealing to businesses.
Barry Matthews is the president of Bench Talent Cloud, a US-based firm that creates pools of skilled contingent workers for corporate IT teams and tech companies to access. He reports that businesses are increasingly turning to open-market pools to reduce their expenditure on traditional agencies.
This trend, which is strongest in the US and India, is being driven mainly by the technology and creative services sectors, Matthews says. He adds that, if a role can be broken down into tasks, it can be outsourced.
“Companies that want a very specialised consultant, but may not need a full-time member of staff or be able to find one, can find this freelance-based model useful,” he says.
When firms start trying to use contingent workers instead of full-time employees, problems can arise. Matthews stresses that there’s room for both, but employers must change how they think about their workforce as a whole.
“One mistake that companies make is to use this model as a replacement for full-time roles,” he says. “Contingent work is obviously useful for purposes such as backfilling, but the best use cases are found in companies that say: ‘Let’s redesign how we think about work and break some of our roles down into skills. Then we can use this type of model to get the skill we need much more quickly and cost-effectively than we could do otherwise.’”
How to manage the deployment of a contingent workforce
Sourcing talent via different channels can create unnecessary fragmentation and silos in a business. Bench Talent Cloud aims to eliminate this risk by pulling contingent workers from various sources into a single online platform that its clients can search based on various criteria.
Rich Wilson, co-founder and CEO of talent-sourcing platform Gigged.ai, reports that there’s still some reluctance among corporate HR teams to treat open talent pools as a viable way to source temporary workers. The IR35 rules governing off-payroll working have a lot to do with this in the UK, but the concern that contingent workers might end up replacing full-time staff is also a factor.
Gigged.ai has been successful in convincing potential clients to try its services by pitching to a high-level internal sponsor and then offering its technology for use in a pilot scheme.
“You need an executive sponsor to get started. In our case, that’s usually the CIO,” Wilson says. “We always start with a pilot solution before offering anything white-labelled. Procurement then positions this as a separate expense from a managed-service provider, either as a service or a SaaS expenditure, to drive adoption.”
For an employer seeking a partner to deliver and manage contingent workers, it’s important to choose a firm that can handle all the associated admin. Gigged.ai conducts several rounds of vetting, using calls and reference checks to ensure that candidates have the qualifications and skills they claim to possess. Bench Talent Cloud, meanwhile, regularly performs so-called QIA (qualified, interested, available) checks to ensure that the contingent workers on its books are ready for deployment.
Is there still room for company culture?
Corporate culture plays a huge role in building a brand that employees and customers alike want to associate with. Some companies fear that having a large contingent workforce could have a negative cultural impact. But others believe that contingent workers can be culturally refreshing, bringing new and innovative ideas with them, possibly gleaned from other companies they have worked for.
The need for a strong, cohesive culture “is becoming more important, which is perhaps slightly counterintuitive to the idea that people are becoming less tied to the organisations they work for”, Halkyard says. “But they still want to feel like they’re fitting in, even if they’re present only for a short period. And that’s where having a community as part of the talent pools comes in.”
A firm can use these talent communities to build its employer brand and highlight all the benefits that people would enjoy by becoming part of its contingent workforce, she adds, arguing that it would be “wrong to assume that, just because someone’s working with you on a temporary basis, they aren’t contributing to your culture. A person can make just as much of an impact in a short time as someone who’s been with your firm for 20 years.”
While businesses are becoming more receptive to the idea of using contingent workers, they could do more to attract that talent, according to Halkyard. For instance, most firms still don’t have a careers page on their websites highlighting the benefits on offer to contingent workers, she says.
Matthews points out that companies have some work to do to give contingent workers the same level of respect they afford their full-time employees.
Full-time employment isn’t going anywhere, but contingent roles are just as important for creating an agile and dynamic workforce. The adjustment period can be hard, but it could be the key to attracting skilled people with more choice than ever over where they apply those skills.
