The fluid workforce revolution

The fluid workforce is bringing a sea change to the future of work

With organizations seeking the agility, adaptability, and expertise to compete in a dynamic environment on the one hand and increasing numbers or workers preferring the flexibility and variety of work on the other, it’s not really surprising that the nature of work is changing – and becoming more fluid. In fact, nearly 80% of organizations used independent workers, freelancers, gig, or crowdsourced workers in the past year, and this number is only set to grow. But what does this mean for the workplace and for the future of work?

Mind the gap

To find out, for the latest report from the Capgemini Research Institute – The fluid workforce revolution, How a blended workforce strategy is key to success in the age of AI and automation – we talked to executives from organizations using a fluid workforce, to 4,000 members of the fluid workforce, and to nearly 1,000 permanent employees. We found that:

• The fluid workforce is becoming a core part of the organizational workforce – almost three-quarters of executives expect to increase their fluid workforce over the next 12 months.
• COVID-19 is further accelerating the usage of fluid workforce among organizations – 70% agreed that the current COVID crisis will lead them to hire more fluid workforce in the future
• Organizations are filling critical expertise gaps with fluid workers in high-skilled roles – such as AI/ML experts, agile coaches, or blockchain experts in IT and financial analysts and data scientists in finance.
• Organizations fail to provide an experience endearing to the fluid workforce – close to 60% of the fluid workforce finds it difficult to fit in.

A fluid workforce can help organizations thrive

In this day and age, organizations need to be agile to thrive and a fluid workforce can help them to do so. However, this will require that they make dramatic changes to their talent management strategy including fluid assets into main stream capabilities, shift the recruitment and retention operating model towards make-or-buy principles and short-term/mid-term balance, and build a culture where permanent and fluid workers feel equally valued and can work as a blended team, leveraging their respective capabilities and skillsets effectively.