A tidal wave of change is coming that will make the way we work almost unrecognizable. There will be new ways to organize, recruit and manage. Imagine having a seamless blend of high quality workers who work, on demand, to fill the talent needs of your company as it grows and changes. In this new future, which has already arrived for many, you have mastered this worker challenge and have a strategy to manage it proactively so that trusted relationships are built with the best individual and team players. Getting really good at this is no longer an option, it’s a necessity.
Those leading business today must figure out how to deliver value with new solutions. Research states that already 40% percent of our workers are “non-employee” and are flexible on-demand skilled resources. Work will be delivered via platforms, projects, gigs, freelancers and technology has empowered us to be creative and solution driven.
Brandon Moreno, former HR & Talent Acquisition executive, now president of EverHive, is clearly ahead of the curve and helping organizations build strategy, processes and technologies to manage this growing blended worker cohort like no other services firm. His bottom line results are impressive. I was intrigued to learn more about Brandon’s perspective on the future.
Sherry Benjamins: Brandon, What led you to this business?
Brandon Moreno: I have been involved in HR since 1993 and learned a lot from the leading companies that I was able to work with. Working with these business leaders and executives, we saw early on that if we did not add value to the business, we would be relegated to a merely transactional function.
The playbook for Talent Acquisition had to change. I am passionate about educating clients and elevating the conversation and actions to be taken around flexible, on demand highly skilled talent. The growing space of contingent workers captivated my attention and I decided to build a capability and solutions model to help companies manage these non-employee resources with a line of sight to improving the bottom line.
Sherry: How can managing the contingent workers impact productivity?
Brandon: First, the growth in this segment is taking companies by surprise. There are many organizations that seem to be running this ad hoc or with little priority on the program. We are seeing more CFO’s and CTO’s involved in the discussion along with Procurement, HR and heads of Talent Acquisition. We start with a client by understanding their current state, analyze spending and then partner with them to map out their future state of their entire end-to-end contingent worker program. The goal is to architect and design a program that is customized but also efficient, effective and flexible. There are many factors that impact productivity and creating base line metrics to manage this program sets the stage for meeting worker demand. My goal is to help the client establish strategy, elevate and optimize their contingent worker function, achieve significant cost reductions, enhance compliance and streamline process.
Sherry: Why should the CEO pay attention to this change?
Brandon: If a company’s non-employee workforce spending is growing (and many are in the $10 – 400 Million range), this has significant impact on the bottom line. Surprisingly, there are many companies that do not have a handle on this aggregated cost. Talent is the number one issue that keeps most leaders up at night and it’s their limiting factor for growth. I understand how hard it is to predict what will be needed as the business changes, however, without a forward looking plan or integrated forecast, the CEO is reacting to changing demands and ad hoc solutions. The ultimate goal is for organizations to have access to on-demand and flexible workers to complement their overall talent acquisition strategy. Not only will this have cost benefits to the bottom line, but it frees up current employees to be more strategic and elevate overall business operations.
Sherry: When launching this business, what have you learned that you didn’t expect you would?
Brandon: I am most surprised in seeing the difficulty and fear that HR departments have in moving this conversation into a managed solution for action. I understand this is a challenging problem for business leaders. Their positive intention is to get the work done with resources available. I can see they have significantly less patience now compared to one year ago. The fight for resources and the right talent is more intense now and addressing this requires a new mindset. I am surprised that many say this is urgent, yet they are slow to act.
I have also learned that building trust, educating our clients and introducing tools that will help them start this work makes sense for many. Others feel the criticality of an enterprise-wide solution. Sometimes we take small steps to get them onboard. Even smaller firms who see this tidal wave coming are better to build the platform now and think about contingent workers and unique skills required rather than wait until it is an imperative.
Sherry: What advice would you give business leaders today as they prepare for 2025?
Brandon: Step outside of the comfort zone. Look at the talent challenges holistically and as though you are already in 2019 or 2020. I know contingent workers have been around a long time but the growth in demand is taking many by surprise. Ask your executives including HR to look ahead and be focused on running the business in pursuit of better outcomes and a strategic talent plan that eliminates ad hoc problem solving. Five years from now, contingent workers will expect to be integrated into the workforce – an extension of your culture with a unique set of rewards that includes interesting and fulfilling work.
Concluding Comments
Leading the work in the future will profoundly change the world of HR. Work will be deconstructed and dispersed with rewards being more short term and individualized. The organization will have an internal and external, permeable structure. Kate Kjeell, SBC’s Managing Director facilitates a group of TA leaders in OC from premier companies. She noted that managing a contingent workforce has been the top issue TA leaders have struggled with for the past three years. Awareness of the size, cost, liabilities and opportunities of this workforce is a significant catalyst for change.
To learn more about this worker and workplace change check out Brandon’s site and feel free to speak with him. (800) 945-6340, brandon@everhive.com.
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