Last year, Ardent Partners predicted that the global business landscape would experience a sharp uptick in the utilization of non-employee labor as a direct result of the pandemic’s sweeping impact on business and human interaction. Going into 2020, 43.5% of the average organization’s total workforce was considered “contingent.” In 2021, that number sits at nearly 47%, and there are strong indications that this percentage will grow as the transformation of talent and work continues forward.
Additionally, upcoming Future of Work Exchange research finds that 82% of all businesses state that the challenging times of 2020 created a bigger need for extended and non-employee talent. The past 12 months have clearly revealed that workforce scalability is an essential link to economic survival in the now-chaotic, hyper-competitive world of global business. Operationalizing that scalability is the very root of workforce agility, from which businesses can tap into talent pools, marketplaces, clouds, and communities to enhance the work done by the trusted FTE workers, and a range of services and other recruitment streams to build, in real time, a dynamic response to a crucial enterprise initiative. The contingent workforce has become the foundation of workforce scalability, and rightfully so: businesses that survived 2020 and look forward to thriving in the second half of 2021 are actively harnessing the dynamic power of the agile workforce to get work done.
I recently had the pleasure of joining LiveHire and their Executive Vice President, Karen Gonzalez, for a webinar focused on the transformation of the agile workforce and why direct sourcing and talent pools represent a revolutionary means for businesses to transform the way they engage with and leverage top-tier, unique, and in-demand talent and skillsets.
