Hiring for skill: Gig workers bring the talent without the full-time expense

Call them short-term employees, contingent workers, or digital nomads; these skilled staffers may be the key for businesses trying to stay on track.

For employers looking to fill critical staffing gaps, engaging with contingent workers can put the right talent in the right place much more quickly than traditional hiring practices. (Photo: Andrey Popov/stock.adobe.com)

Your favorite shop is inexplicably closed when you arrive, as no one was available to work the register that day. Your order at the print shop isn’t quite ready yet, as the owner is running all jobs herself this week. The host at your neighborhood diner preemptively apologizes as he seats you, explaining that they are short-staffed that evening.

Blame the Great Resignation, continued Covid concerns, or whatever the next headline reads; any way you slice it, employers from the high-rise to the corner store are struggling to keep talent on their payroll. Without enough workers to satiate the demand, many businesses are taking unprecedented steps; offering sign-on bonuses, promising tuition reimbursement, and bumping salaries above the normal range have become the norm.

Related: The pandemic’s impact on customer service

At the same time, those perks equal additional costs to businesses that may be carefully watching their bottom line after two years stretch of uncertainty. Add in the financial impact of onboarding and off-boarding a string of employees empowered by options, and it’s not an easy time to be an employer of any size.

Return of the gig workers

The first time we heard about the rise of the gig worker was in 2008, and the financial crisis had triggered the Great Recession. Unemployment was rampant, and median family incomes declined as quickly as the job market. As a result, many turned to task-based labor, hustling from assignment to assignment to navigate the massive disruption. Survival instinct certainly, but something more emerged from the turmoil. Workers realized the ability to shift away from the traditional grind, finding new freedom and even new business ideas.

Spurred by a different type of workplace disruption, the gig mentality has returned full force since 2020. Call them short-term employees, contingent workers, or digital nomads; these skilled yet flexible staffers emerged again during the pandemic and may just be the key for businesses trying to stay on track post-Covid.

Transactional work is the new norm

There was a time when a resume showing even one job lasting less than a year would be a one-way ticket out of the applicant pool. With an estimated 10 million jobs now open in the U.S., and gig workers taking advantage of today’s workplace mobility, moving quickly from one position to the next has become common.

For both employers and short-term employees, the benefits of this new trend are clear:

Specialization: Workers are hired based on skills, not degrees, which means those skills are consistently utilized throughout a project. The short-term employee can focus on what they do best without being forced into ill-matched assignments and the business can benefit from laser-targeted talent directed toward a specific goal.

Flexibility: Of the many challenges the pandemic laid bare was the precarious position of working parents. More often, it was women who were forced to choose between job and family, with many having no alternative but to sacrifice the former for the latter. In fact, research has shown that between February 2020 and February 2021, a net 2.4 million women left the labor force, making up a majority of the overall decrease; this despite the fact that women make up less than half of the total U.S. workforce. With so much talent walking out the door, the opportunity is ripe for businesses to hire highly skilled, niche professionals for short-term projects. Likewise, valuable employees have options to find meaningful work that leaves plenty of room for family obligations.

Speed to hire: For employers looking to fill critical staffing gaps, engaging with contingent workers can put the right talent in the right place much more quickly than traditional hiring practices. Skilled professionals need little to no ramp-up time to be effective, nor do they require a lengthy corporate onboarding protocol. The hiring process itself is expedited as well, as candidates can be screened almost entirely on skill sets and availability rather than past titles and degrees.

Net value: While short-term employees are responsible for arranging many of the traditional benefits that come with full-time work, namely health insurance, the perks of flexible work far outweigh any necessary logistical or financial effort to cover those bases. Meanwhile, employers are spared hefty expenses that would typically fall within their obligation, such as health, life and disability insurance, paid vacation days, or travel and training costs.

Businesses looking for talent within the short-term worker realm have no shortage of candidates if they use the right recruiting strategies. By first targeting the positions with the highest turnover or those hardest to hire, employers must rework job descriptions to focus more on skills needed and project elements. In addition to landing the ideal talent, this approach will introduce numerous candidates who have valuable skills; savvy recruiters will forge relationships with these prospects regardless of whether or not they are hired.

In a landscape wide open to talented professionals, employer branding is critical. Businesses must stand out to catch the attention of workers who have plenty of options from which to pick and choose. By doing so, both employers and their short-term workers can make positive, impactful changes at the speed of today’s marketplace.

Sandy Kaminski is vice president of client development for Vensure Employer Services.

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