One of the more fascinating trends of recent years has been the rise of freelancer workers.  It’s estimated that roughly 1 in 3 American workers now operate on this basis, and I’ve written an increasing amount about research that aims to understand this cohort of people, whether in terms of who they are, what motivates them, or the societal challenges they face.

The latest of these is Toptal’s State of the Workforce report, which explores the rate at which organizations are turning to contingent labor to compliment their full-time workforce.

The researchers spoke to over 1,500 hiring decision makers at multinational companies from around the world, and found that 91% of organizations are already using outside talent to some degree. Many respondents revealed that they tap into external talent primarily because of the flexibiltiy this affords them in responding quickly to market needs.

The rate of adoption varied considerably by industry however, with the likes of advertising, business services and automotive surging ahead, whilst education and the hon-profit sector lagged behind.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, smaller organizations (defined as being less than 1,000 employees strong) have been most supportive of tapping into this flexible labor source, although the differences between them and much larger organizations is not huge.

A source of talent

Organizations recruit this talent from a wide range of sources, with no one source appearing to dominate. Instead, labor is recruited from the likes of talent platforms, consulting firms, local contractors and staffing firms. What is clear however that many organizations see their reliance on this source of talent increasing, with the research suggesting 76% of companies fit this category.

It’s a trend that has seen growth in demand increase by 20% year-on-year, and the authors expect this to increase in the coming years. This should come as no surprise, as 78% of respondents said that finding the right talent was a key risk for their organization, with this talent shortage consistent across departments.

The report outlines four key obstacles to attracting such talent:

• Finding the best talent in terms of quality
• There remain process-based difficulties in integrating contingent talent into traditional workflows
• What’s more, the process of recruiting talent can often be much slower than organizations would like
• Whilst integrating external talent into the culture of the organization can be difficult

Despite these challenges however, virtual teams are a growing part of what the authors refer to as a blended workforce, with most respondents expecting remote workers to increase in number over the coming years.

With contingent talent increasingly important for organizations, being able to successfully locate and integrate it into the traditional workforce could offer a real competitive advantage to companies.  It has been fascinating to see this trend emerge, and it will be interesting to see how it evolves in the coming years.