Independent Professional Talent Mobility is Key to Building and Retaining the Talent Pools of the Future

Today’s issue was guest-authored by MBO Partners’ Chief Growth Officer, Neil Bryson

The Shift from Full-time Staffing to Project-Based Staffing

For most of the last century, organizational staffing strategies revolved almost exclusively around building a team of skilled full time employees.

Institutional knowledge, corporate culture, career progression, and professional development were seen as the bedrock of individual success within an organization and viewed as the exclusive domain of full time employees.

If and when firms turned toward independents to get work done, it was as a last resort, a “necessary evil” to be corrected as soon as feasible.

Not so anymore.

Over the last several years, work, even in the staunchest corporate environments, has become more and more project-based.

Companies assemble teams of specialists with a defined mission and outcome goals and set them loose on a problem or initiative.

In this environment, the role of the independent professional has solidified. Leveraging skilled independents to push projects forward has proven wise from a strategic standpoint because it is independent professionals who possess the specialized skills needed to get new projects done.

Try as organizations might, corporate training programs driven by bureaucracy will never compete with an individual intent on learning a new tool, technology, or coding language.

And COVID only accelerated the trend. We’ve seen a dramatic increase in the number of independent professionals in the US over the past four years, even as the overall labor pool has become harder and harder for organizations to mine.

Fast forward to the present and it becomes clear why smart organizations are working to grow their independent professional talent pools.

Challenges

Though intentions are often good, I regularly see organizations struggling to build truly successful independent professional engagement programs for a few reasons, all grounded in a failure to reach beyond the ethos of full time employment.

One of the most common problems I’ve seen has to do with compliance.

Unfortunately, some businesses opt to flip real independent professionals to W2s simply because it’s more convenient for the way they want to pay them.

Doing this opens up organizations to legal exposure, especially when clear guidelines have been established regarding the classification of independent contractors (ICs).

Aside from misclassification, I think the most important challenge enterprises are facing right now has to do with talent retention.

For several years, we’ve done surveys asking the ICs who work with us what we can do for them. The number one thing that stands out is reliable cash flow and project pipeline.

Simply said, independent professionals just want an easy way to re-engage, either with the businesses they’ve already worked for or with new clients. Most of them don’t want to have to go out there and continue to personally find that next opportunity.

A great software engineer or data analyst doesn’t want to spend their time being a salesperson.

My belief: Enterprises should create an ecosystem or working environment where talent is nurtured and constantly redeployed to projects they can contribute to.

Once the pressure of finding a job is alleviated, ICs will be able to stay much more focused in the work they are doing and as a result, bring more value to the table.

By having the ability to redeploy skilled independent professionals to new projects, businesses will be able to maintain a strong talent pool in a highly competitive talent market.

Redeployment is Good for Business

A revolving door of independent professionals can often cost even more than high full time turnover.

Why?

Whenever a team member leaves, the business needs to put extra time and effort into training the next person for the role, everything from familiarizing them with business operations to setting up a laptop. This is bad enough for a full time employee who may stay around for a few years. For independent professionals who might only work on a project for a few months, the hidden costs can skyrocket. (Not to mention, you’re paying by the hour).

Yet most of the time, the type of skills needed by an organization tend to remain the same, even across different projects.

Thus, working to redeploy independent professionals who already work with you to different projects within your organization not only alleviates the burden of finding a new role from the professional in question, it saves your organization time and money.

We’re about to see a labor market hobbled by skills gaps and demographic shifts. The labor supply will continue to be a source of consternation for organizations for decades to come.

By not just leveraging, but truly understanding the independent professional market, organizations can position themselves a step ahead of their peers and tap into the only growing talent market amidst a demographic sea change.

Trending Topics

• According to the recent findings of Cigna, feelings of disconnection among U.S. workers are driving turnover and worker absences. Data from the health-insurance firm’s poll of 10,000 Americans indicates that 58% of workers feel lonely .
• A growing number of Gen Z and millennial workers are opting to prioritize better work-life balance over career advancement due to micromanagement and feelings of disconnectedness about their jobs.
• AI's impact on the workforce is producing "new collar jobs" that emphasize technical skills over traditional degrees. Companies like IBM and Amazon are at the forefront of this transformation by prioritizing vocational training and on-the-job learning.
• Despite an increase in overall job satisfaction , U.S. workers are dissatisfied with specific aspects of their jobs like quality of leadership, interest in work, workload, and wages, to name a few.
• The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), a brokerage industry watchdog, is bringing back its pre-pandemic requirements for monitoring workplaces, prompting major banks like Citi, Barclays, and HSBC to bring employees back to the office five days a week.