Contractors will be the backbone of workforce

Senior HR professionals should begin putting measures in place to source and engage freelancing and contracting professionals without delay, leading talent acquisition and management solution company Alexander Mann Solutions has urged.

Insights from the company suggest that highly skilled Umbrella Company Employees and other professionals who choose non-permanent contracting in preference to salaried employment are poised to fulfil an intrinsically fundamental role in the emerging modern workplace.

The ranks of non-permanent contracting professionals are expanding rapidly thanks to the rising number of millennials entering the workplace, and most of them value flexibility above traditional considerations such as stability and salaried remuneration. Yet, few businesses are currently equipped to attract and manage such a flexible talent pool despite its fast-growing importance, the company warns.

Alexander Mann Solutions’ market insights show an appreciable and accelerating rise in non-permanent professional hiring over the last ten years. According to the company’s most recent survey, a significant majority (63 per cent) of senior HR professionals believe that the appointment of non-permanent contracting professionals will climb further over the coming two years.

The company predicts that the need to utilise skilled contingent talent efficiently will become increasingly indispensable for all businesses seeking to tap the knowledge and abilities of industry-leading professional contractors.

Alexander Mann Solutions’ Director of Technology and Operations Consulting, Laurie Padua, explained the company’s findings, starting with the observation that millennials are on course to account for a breath-taking 75 per cent of the global workforce by 2030.

For that reason alone, she said, HR managers are widely expecting substantial increases in non-permanent hiring in the coming few years. This is because the generation currently entering the workforce is renowned for its strong preference for flexibility. These preferences, the HR community firmly believes, will powerfully influence the nature of the emerging workplace.

However, Ms Padua sounded a note of caution: few companies have yet to put sufficient measures in place to effectively tap the talent on offer in this expanding share of the workforce.

She added: “In order to benefit from access to industry leading talent, senior HR professionals need to ensure that there are HR processes in place to efficiently source and manage the engagement of non-permanent professionals. HR managers will also need to ensure that they conduct thorough reviews of their attraction and retention strategies and implement measures to proactively engage with highly skilled contingent professionals or risk losing not only the ability to access vital skills, but also any advantage over competitors.”