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If you haven’t noticed, the workforce trends are shifting dramatically and rapidly. Every employer needs to shift with these trends or suffer the results of being out of touch and out of talent.

Finding and keeping good talent is a War and it is real; and will continue to worsen as 10,000 baby boomers leave the job market each day and the demand for highly skilled workers in a new knowledge economy outpaces supply, particularly in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). These fields just about cover every market demand for talent in the United States and abroad.

The temp workforce population (Freelancers, Gig Workers, and Contingent labor) is growing at an unprecedented pace; it’s expected to be 50% of our total workforce population by 2020, which is just four years away. The majority of these workers have chosen this path willingly. There are a lot of issues driving these changes. Some of these changes include social and behavioral changes; people are no longer staying at one job forever. Workers are seeking more flexibility and are pursuing more opportunities to spend time with their loved ones, while also looking at greater work-life balance. The millennials want interesting projects and dynamic work environments.

A recent fast Company article listed today’s top 10 Freelancer Industries as:

1.      Computer and IT
2.      Administrative
3.      Accounting and finance
4.      Customer service
5.      Software development
6.      Medical and health
7.      Project management
8.      Research analyst
9.      Writing
10.      Education and training

The article goes on to mention that the top ten list continues to change every year as demand for outsourced talent changes and more and more business realize the economic advantages of using “on-demand” resources vs. full time employees. The other factor driving this market is finding “experts for rent”, not having to provide office space or equipment and the list goes on and on. Other outsourced areas rising rapidly include content creation, marketing as well as highly specialized niche skills like statistical analyst or artificial intelligence.

Onboard and Managing Talent Inside & Outside

A key differentiator for your business, to leverage this new normal and ensure a high performance workforce is Technology. Historically, Technology has incorporated constant change and innovation in its business model. That makes it ideally suited to support a changing workforce that is morphing and changing as well. The depth and breadth of technology solutions available today is dizzying and unprecedented. Over the past couple of years, over 60 new technology providers have entered the workforce management market and those numbers will most likely continue to climb.

These technology solutions are providing access, procurement and onboarding for multiple, high quality, talent pools across the globe. Technology is enabling hiring managers and workers to manage and complete work arrangements. These solutions use algorithms and Artificial Intelligence to eliminate recruiting and sourcing steps, to curate, recruit, and ensure high retention of high-quality talent. They provide smart data and analytics to help drive your business. VMS, Human Cloud, Workforce Intermediary Platforms, Big Data and Analytics, are key technology drivers towards changing how we source, vet, measure, and leverage talent.

The continued rise of “platforms and ecosystems” perpetuate technological solutions that not only change the workforce but how the workforce engages with work. Leveraging technology so your business can scale with the right talent at the right time to meet your business needs as well as your customer needs on time and more effectively and efficiently is the new normal. To not accept and adapt to it is simply not normal.