What Is The Future of the Liquid Workforce in Professional Services?
John Ragsdale, Distinguished Researcher and Vice-President of Technology at TSIA, recently joined host Matt Finch on The Professional Services Pursuit podcast from Kantata. This episode sheds light on John’s unique insights regarding the state of the liquid workforce and how contract work will continue to shape the future of the professional services industry.
John shared insights into this new reality where freelance workers become increasingly essential to success in professional services. “It’s sort of a new concept, especially when we’re looking at professional services and consultants. Traditionally, work has either been owned by employees or subcontracted through companies that you had a great relationship with. But whether you call it liquid workforce, freelancers, on-demand workforce, gig workers, whatever you want to call it, I think the reality is this is becoming a much more common paradigm and definitely will be in the future.”
But the liquid workforce isn’t just the future, it’s already here, as John highlights, pointing to a recent study on US firms and their use of the on-demand workforce. “Forty percent of the executives they interviewed have already used digital talent platforms to find highly skilled workers. Ninety percent of the executives said they saw these talent platforms as either somewhat or very important to their future competitive advantage. Sixty percent of the executives said it was highly likely or somewhat likely that they would reduce their own employees and increase their on-demand talent moving forward.”
More companies embracing contract work means more competition for contract workers. What can you do to be a competitive employer in a tough job market? “If you’ve got a request sitting open, if you’re only recruiting from a very particular region, and there’s an expectation that they’re going to spend some or all of their time in the office, you’re going to have to throw that out the window. I think companies that are clinging to some of those old paradigms about owned on-premise employees are going to have to change their ideas. Because there’s some amazing talent out there, but they’re not within an hour of your office and they’re not going to drive into work every day.”
Like everything in life, flexibility in contract work and remote work for full-time employees take balance, with John advising, “even if you can do 90% of an implementation remotely, having some in-person contact with your strategic accounts is really critical because it builds that stickiness from the beginning. Having some face-to-face contact really increases the stickiness of that relationship. That ultimately is going to impact long-term ability to expand selling, renewals, and more rapid adoption. It just builds so much credibility.”
Using freelancers can have its own unique risks and rewards for a professional services company. But embracing the benefits of the liquid workforce means overcoming the barriers to adoption. According to John, “frontline managers are just not open to the idea. We’ve always done it this way and they’re very resistant to change. The executives have this vision, the younger workers are anxious to do anything new and different and try new approaches, but middle management drags their feet on giving way.”
But there is a way forward that makes the most of the liquid workforce. “Managers need to understand that these new approaches to staffing are absolutely required if they’re going to scale. With the constant increase in product complexity, you need new and greater skills all the time. If you present them with not only the business case for doing it, but also helping them understand new approaches to finding, recruiting, and training that talent, managers will get over some of those concerns.”
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