2018 was filled with many progressive business movements: digital transformation and the “digital enterprise,” the continued impact of the Gig Economy, the consumerization of global business operations, and, most critically, the modern desire for true business agility. The contemporary enterprise yearns for a true model that allows it to operate in an on-demand manner, especially in the face of evolutionary business challenges. And, while agility dominates today’s discussions, the truth is that behind the push for this dynamic state is a business attribute that is often considered the foundation for competitive differentiation: talent.
The very notion of agile talent is not just a mere reflection of the continued growth of the non-employee workforce, but rather the natural progression of how enterprises tap into new and shifting talent and skillsets that align with the overall pace of business and innovation. Talent, then, is considered more of a competitive differentiator than it ever has before: the agility of a company’s total workforce is what will determine how it thrives in the years ahead.
“As we enter 2019, the most important thing for business leaders is to make sure their workforce is truly agile in order to meet the evolving needs of their business, driven by their customers,” said Chris Milligan, founder and CEO of Adepto. “To achieve this agility, companies need to be able to get sight of their total talent: all types of workers engaged with them, internal and external, permanent and contingent. By having this total view, companies can better navigate the changes in demand and shifting economic landscapes coming at us with Brexit and other trade challenges. If you understand the total skills available to the business, then you can better plan, and better design the workforce to meet whatever comes at it.”
The agile workforce, built on a foundation of flexibility (flexible cost models, real-time engagement, dynamic acquisition based on enterprise needs and requirements, etc.), represents the truest path to the Future of Work. As such, business agility should no longer be a mere pipe dream for the typical enterprise in 2019, as the momentous advancements made in work-based technology (from digital and on-demand staffing to AI and machine learning, the continued evolution in Vendor Management Systems and other forms of workforce management technology, as well as augmented reality, blockchain, and the continued dominance of cloud-based software) have allowed businesses to tap into a real-time network of talent and automation to ultimately address how work is done.
“One of the goals of agile software development is to speed up feedback loops in order to obtain direction more quickly and reduce waste. This technique has recently been adapted to business, in general, resulting in leaner enterprises and a more competitive posture. Fully adopting these practices requires an equally flexible workforce that is capable of pivoting from technology A to B or quickly developing a design experiment using a wireframe solution,” said Dean Bosche, Head of Partnerships at TopTal. “Your choices are to keep a full team of experts on staff to undertake these challenges or depend on a trusted source of outside talent. The prior will require you to predict what you need in advance thereby counteracting your ability to be truly agile and responsive to changing customer needs. The latter requires you to identify a trusted pool of curated talent that you can depend on. Those firms that can fully adopt this lean approach to business from a talent-out perspective will be the quickest to gain insight from feedback, leverage new technologies, pivot, and delight the customer.”
The general pace of business, the speed of innovation, and the overall progression of the modern organization will play pivotal roles in the year ahead. For a company to succeed in the (short-term) future, it needs to lean on the advantages of not only its total talent pool, but the advanced technology and tools that can be leveraged to enable business agility and dynamic talent-to-project alignment. The agile workforce is the culmination of these factors, allowing businesses to enhance enterprise outcomes and truly thrive in 2019.
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