Facing the challenge of not knowing when to hire on demand talent or independent consultants and whether this is the right thing for your business, is a common issue that several organisations face.

Are you one of these organizations? If you are, then here are some tips for you to consider.

Blended teams are the future

The alternative workforce has today gone mainstream.

The view that contractors, freelancers, and independent consultants are an “alternative workforce,” supplementary to full-time jobs, is all but dead. This is according to studies including Deloitte’s 2019 Human Capital Trends report.

Today, this segment of the workforce has grown and gone mainstream.

With business efficiency high on everyone’s agenda, leading organizations are now looking strategically at all types of work arrangements for a blended workforce in their plans for growth.

Best practices to access and deploy alternative professional workers are just now being invented.

Organizations are becoming more flexible in adapting to new work arrangements, and plan to use them in a strategic way.

Complicated? Not really!.

5 signs you should be using independent consultants

Your business growth is non-linear.

It is no secret that most organization do not have a steady business cycle or predictable growth curve. If you are like most companies, then your people requirements fluctuate from month to month based on circumstances outside your control.

Hiring and then laying off employees is a process filled with emotional stress for everyone involved, and it can easily damage your employer brand.

In contrast, you can reach out to independent consultants to work specifically on your projects as they become business critical.

Independent consultants understand the project engagement and all they need from you are clear expectations about the length of the project, a budget, and the deliverables required.

You must innovate and move quickly to capture an opportunity

If you’re losing opportunities to build brand awareness because you’re too busy to respond to outreach, it’s definitely time to outsource some work.

Consider the cost of falling behind.

In this modern business landscape, those who snooze lose. If countless meetings and collaboration sessions aren’t producing the innovative ideas you need to take your business to the next level or solve a problem you face, then independent consultants may be able to help.

Engaging independent consultants, with depth of expertise in a specific area, gives you the edge to innovate, while your core team can remain focused on maintaining normal business functions.

Injecting niche expertise into your business can be the fuel that drives exciting innovation.

Your local candidate pool isn’t cutting it or your current team has a critical skill gap

Sometimes you need a specialist to get a project done. On-demand talent bring you the right expertise at the right time, so you can drive results.

Freelancers and independent consultants tend to focus on one or two things they master and continue to obtain training for over the years. Which allows you to reap the benefit of a true expert without the expense of hiring a full-time employee or paying for new or ongoing training.

You need a flexible solution. You cannot afford, need or want a full-time resource but need the talent.

Freelance, contract and independent workers provide a flexible solution to these talent management challenges and have given rise to the newly coined Platform Economy.

Advances in technology have led to an increase in the number of these platforms, making it easier to organise projects in flexible ways.

If you adopt a more sophisticated approach to resourcing – one that integrates core internal teams with external talent brought in at specific points, on-demand, you’ll get a massive skill infusion.

How to address this: Infusing talent into already capable and established teams, when needed, plays a vital role in ensuring sound competitive strategy.

Your workload is unmanageable to take on an additional project

There’s a place for reasonable increased demands on your team. But if they’re feeling like they were hired with one set of expectations and you keep adding to their plate, you’re going to have very unhappy employees.

As you already know by now, stretched employees will not be able to dedicate their own expertise and attention to the projects they already have.

If it’s feeling like they’re being asked to do the job of 2 employees, engaging on-demand talent can as well assist in knowledge transfer and upskilling of your own core team.

Keep your employees happy and productive and get an expert to do the additional work.

If your company is going through any of the above, One Circle is here to help keep you moving in the right direction. Find the talent you need on demand, right now, right here.