The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Effects on the Contingent Workforce Industry (Part Two)

Posted by Christopher Dwyer on March 31st, 2020
Stored in Articles, Complex Categories, Events, Lists, People, Process, Solution Providers, Strategy, Technology

Ardent Partners takes the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic with the utmost seriousness. Please click here to read our approach in these uncertain times.

Be sure to check out Part One of this special article series here.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the globe, there are many facets of both life and business that have been fundamentally altered. Enterprises across the world are cut by the financial sting of revenue disruptions, uneasy customers, and, most critically, an uncertain future.

For the world of work, there are many shifts happening due to this global crisis. Many workers are set up in remote environments as quarantining and sheltering-in-place become the norm. Businesses are either pausing staffing efforts or ramping up talent acquisition strategies depending on the industry. The world of work is changing even more so than ever before.

I had the opportunity to connect with many contingent workforce leaders to gain additional perspectives on the short- and long-term impact of this pandemic:

Tammy Browning, Senior Vice President, KellyOCG

“It’s too soon to tell what the long-term impact will be. However, in the short term, Kelly is working closely with our clients and suppliers to understand these impacts and adapt accordingly. First and foremost, the health and safety of our employees is our highest priority. With this consideration, Kelly is creating talent pools for emerging opportunities in essential areas of Life Sciences, warehouse and distribution, packaging, forklift operation and food production, matching available talent to in-demand jobs.”

Sean Ring, Co-Founder, Fulcrum

“We will look back on these moments as the forcing mechanism that created the largest remote working experiment in history. It will take some time for the results of that experiment to fully materialize, but I would surmise that with so many organizations thrust into making massive investments into their remote working infrastructure that we’ll arrive in a new paradigm of work on the other side. That new paradigm will put far less weight on the geographical location of workers or other traditional biases and will unleash the power of a truly global talent supply chain.”

Chris Milligan, CEO, Adepto (A Degreed Company)

“The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has highlighted the fragility of many organizations’ workforce strategies. There is an urgent need for all to respond with more agility. And it’s not just in the current situation. Organizations need to better prepare for further instability by implementing new structures and processes that allow them to utilize their entire workforce, including their permanent, contingent, and alumni workers.

Pre-virus, 71% of business leaders stated that the pressure to adapt in an evolving market was the biggest catalyst to changing how they get work done. Twenty-five percent (25%) of businesses planned to turn some of their permanent roles into contingent in 2020 to become more agile. Since the start of the crisis, we’ve seen organizations struggling to mobilize skills and meet business-as-usual demand, particularly across the public, retail, and manufacturing sectors. For instance, Walmart has had to source 150,000 temp workers to fulfil rapid increases in demand in its stores and distribution centers, whilst retired healthcare workers have been asked to return to the workforce to cover for ill colleagues and meet the surge in Coronavirus patients.

As we look ahead, I expect to see a greater focus on strengthening workforces through talent pools of on-demand workers. Those leaders that are set-up to utilize their entire workforce will be able to rapidly respond by upscaling and downscaling parts of the business through mobilizing skills to where they’re needed.”

Nina Vaca, Chairman and CEO, Pinnacle Group

“The quarantines and social distancing represent the first stage of a potentially significant realignment of the global workforce. Certain sectors will grow, others will contract, and many of us will work very differently in the future. Automation and advanced data analytics will continue to grow in their importance. Advanced virtualization infrastructure and capabilities will become table stakes. IT security will become even more paramount.

Our internal approach has been to focus on our people and their individual needs, while also ensuring that our customers are taken care of. Some customers are freezing their hiring and/or considering small furloughs, while others have continued unaffected. With a historically tight labor market, most are reluctant to let go of their top talent.

For CEOs and other industry leaders, now is the time to demonstrate confidence, embrace new ways of working together, and make critical foundational investments. We don’t yet know exactly what the future will hold, or how rocky the journey, but we do know that our people and our customers need our leadership now more than ever.”

Faris Mersi, Co-Founder and CEO, Jarvis

“The rapid contraction of the global economy, due to COVID-19, has generally put a strain on the business of connecting top talent with employers. Employers, particularly in nonessential sectors of the economy, are hurting and as such, scaling back as they look to weather this crisis. Interestingly enough, however, we are seeing an upswing in demand for top freelance talent in the hard-to-find skillsets we specialize in, namely machine learning and data science. We believe the reason for this is twofold: fewer candidates are entertaining new opportunities given what has taken place over the past few weeks and employers are slowing down their hiring plans. Attracted by the flexibility that digital staffing platforms like Jarvis provide, employers are turning to them as a stopgap solution as they look to press on with mission-critical work. When you are concerned if your customers are going to be around in a few months, would you not rather engage top-tier talent on a flexible basis than take on the liability of hiring a full-time employee?

And as troubling as this pandemic has been for the world, it has put the spotlight on remote work. It will become increasingly clear over the long term that remote work is an enabler that allows you to work with incredible talent no matter where they’re located. Since platforms like Jarvis excel in sourcing, vetting, and placing remote talent, a black swan event is just what may have been needed to usher in the golden era of our industry.

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