The future of work is wide open

Twenty years from now, there will be no “proper” jobs. The concept of working 9-5, with a steady salary and fixed holiday allowance that takes us from graduation to retirement, is set to become obsolete. And for me, it can’t happen quickly enough. 

I believe the future of work is boundless. And I’ve seen first-hand how disruptive forces are coming together to not only optimize business performance, but also elevate the human experience.

Monumental change

Around the world, employees are taking stock of their skills, their passions and their family needs, and opting for a flexible or freelance career path that works for them. For these people, the future of work isn’t about signing on for the rat race. It’s about matching their skills to the right employer at the right time – and then moving on to the next project.

Meanwhile, the outsourcing industry is going through a monumental change. There's a massive demand for digital transformation from businesses of all stripes. Big consultancies are stepping up to the challenge, with noble talk of cloud computing and open ecosystems. But they’re being held back by a serious scarcity of talent. 

It’s not that there aren’t plenty of smart people out there – far from it. The problem is that there simply aren't enough skilled people willing to commit to a full-throttle career at a big enterprise, with the limits on work-life balance and the costs of living close to major urban centers that come with it. 

Open talent economy

People with the expertise to enable digital transformation are in high demand from all sides. They’re able to pick and choose their employment terms, and see no reason to commit to one loyal employer. High attrition rates are limiting otherwise mighty enterprises’ abilities to deliver the services their customers need.

Many of these businesses are coming around to the idea that they need to take the same approach to talent as they do to technology, and embrace the open talent economy. That means setting themselves up to access skills from millions of experts – be they data scientists, designers or marketing specialists – anywhere in the world, on demand, in a compliant and quality-focused way.

Throughout my career in outsourcing, I’ve seen how, with a mindset shift, organizations can sidestep long and cumbersome recruitment processes by moving to external and remote managed services. Open talent models now enable businesses to access the skills they need quickly, at any time, from anywhere in the world. By tapping into this vast global talent pool, they can cast off constraints for the benefit of their clients and the satisfaction of their teams. 

One thing we know from the recent and sudden shift to remote working among large swathes of the population is that talent is universal. Skilled engineers live everywhere, from rural India to Milton Keynes. While opportunity was once geographically biased towards hubs like London or San Francisco, digital platforms can now link anyone with a laptop to a company anywhere in the world. 

Skills on demand

Of course, the freelance economy isn’t new; there are hundreds of digital marketplaces out there offering up specialist talent. But navigating them can be a minefield for large organizations with complex procurement processes. 

At Open Assembly, we are moving the dial in two ways. We are putting standards and processes into the way big companies access skills on demand. And we are bringing together platforms and marketplaces into one talent cloud that offers up credible, security-checked candidates to fill specific roles within days instead of months. We accredit these platforms so that freelancers know which companies will treat them well, and the organizations know which freelancers will jump right in to add real value. 

The same technology can provide a digital marketplace for internal talent, too. If a member of a company’s graphic design team has some capacity and wants to gain experience in the technology department or wishes to put in extra time over a weekend, department leads can “borrow” them to meet peaks in demand.

All this gives organizations the freedom to scale their teams up or down to ride the twists and turns of digital transformation.

A mindset shift

It may be uncomfortable for some organizations to throw off ingrained processes and assumptions. They may see freelance talent as a higher risk, or as a second-best option. At Open Assembly we apply evidence and learnings from Harvard to convince these businesses to think differently about the open talent cloud. 

We show them how this ready access to flexible but dedicated talent pays for itself in terms of business growth, satisfied customers and a more diverse, innovative culture.

As for the freelancers, the flexibility is a real draw, as well as the freedom to pick projects and design their own career path alongside their families and personal passions. But the “gig economy” doesn’t always get good press, particularly in industries where the power is skewed more toward the employer. 

Certainly, in the technology space, the pendulum has swung in favor of empowered, mobile talent. As the talent marketplace evolves and while other industries catch up, Open Assembly has established a charity, Center for the Transformation of Work, which advocates on behalf of freelancers and develops standards for fair, flexible work.  

Reshaping work

Many of the strategic partnerships I’ve been involved in have demonstrated beyond doubt the benefits of the open talent cloud for outsourcing businesses, and UST is right at the forefront of that change. UST’s clients are able to meet the demands of the future in large part because they have access to some of the world’s finest technology talent, on demand. This merging of old and new worlds through disruptive forces is very exciting to me.

The open talent economy is coming; businesses and employees alike need to be prepared, and I hope I can instill both sides with the optimism I have. When it's done well, it improves productivity, it reduces costs and, best of all, gives you access to some incredible people.

Future-proof your workforce with UST’s talent-sourcing solutions.