On-Demand Workforce Is Here To Stay - Who They Are And What They Do
It is a fact now that we will not return to how we used to. After the pandemic, many people will probably find out that they are not in the same working environment that they used to be.
Many business leaders now realize the advantage of having a remote decentralized workforce, and there is a high chance that they won’t return to the office to a full-time in-office workplace. Many of the UK’s largest companies stated that they have no plans to bring workers back to the offices in the near future due to distancing regulations still in place.
During the pandemic, some well-known international businesses (e.g. Spotify) that switched to remote working have decided to adopt this policy permanently, while others have considered hybrid models.
What is the on-demand workforce model?
The term on-demand workforce refers to composed of staff members that can be hired on-demand. These staff members can be individual contractors or freelancers, or dedicated offshore developers in case of offshore software outsourcing. They are flexible and allow all industries to offer flexible work to qualified workers to enhance productivity and efficiency.
Although the on-demand workforce trend has grown steadily for years, the pandemic undoubtedly has accelerated it even more.
In the past decade, digital transformation has transformed all sectors, and innovation has become everyone’s agenda. As a result, the workforce that businesses need today will be different and will continue to change. This causes everybody to talk about the on-demand workforce model.
How does COVID19 accelerate the WFH trend?
According to McKinsey, COVID19 has transformed businesses permanently as it pushes companies over the technology tipping point. Therefore, innovation and digital transformation will not go anywhere soon; they will indeed resume dramatically after the pandemic.
This means that employees need to upskilling nonstop. In the same report, McKinsey stated that 9 out of 10 executives have experienced or expected a skill gap, which means closing the skill gap is a challenge.
It is reported that half of the GenZ has been working as freelancers over the past year, with more than a third starting during the lockdown. Like most of us, Gen Zers are looking at the bright side of working as freelancers - more flexible.
In a survey conducted by LinkedIn on the UK workers, 86 percent of the respondents stated that they worked as efficiently from home as they were at the office, 78 percent stated that they felt much healthier, 86 percent confirmed that WFH made them less stressed. A PwC survey also reported that many US companies saw increased productivity.
So, it is no surprise that people want to stick to it. 
The downside of the remote working
Of course, when many people start to consider freelance as a way-to-go career choice, the talent pool evaporates, which out professional services at risk.
This is a real problem for professional services since they will experience difficulty in finding the right talent for the projects, leading to exceeding costs and give speedier competitors an opportunity to be the pioneer.
Many companies have caught up with this fact and they have come up with a new strategy: blending their full-time staff with professional on-demand. This is the only way to both meet the needs of customers and remain competitive in the marketplace.
Full-time talent depletion is a challenge for all businesses; the bigger your company is, the worse it gets. For example, when working on a project, suddenly your project’s requirement changes, and it needs a front-end developer; plus, the due date is in a few weeks.
How should you deal with this? Can you be fast enough to source, sign, onboard, and manage the qualified developer? And what if you stumble upon this problem for many different projects?
In a better scenario, your problem takes place earlier. You’re dealing with the pipeline, but unfortunately, you don’t have the right skill set to deliver. While you’re struggling, your more agile competitors will overtake you.
Why will an on-demand workforce be the solution?
To solve the problem mentioned above, companies should apply the on-demand talent strategy, which includes hiring a dedicated team of developers to work alongside their in-house team during the project duration.
Large companies have several advantages: prosperous human resources and lots of processes. Unfortunately, when it comes to the agile method adoption, their advantages seem to backfire: there are too many involved internal stakeholders, the end-to-end process was too slow, etc.
Start-ups and SMEs may be short on talent, but agility and flexibility make up for it. They can easily fill up the gap.
60 percent of business leaders are now fine with “hiring”, “borrowing”, or “sharing” talent with other companies (specifically in the IT industry, also known as software development outsourcing companies).
Conclusion
Failure to find the right talent with the right skillset will put your project at risk. The on-demand workforce, which can be found at offshore development centers, is the solution. Business leaders should consider outsourcing software development or hybrid models to ensure their digital transformation success.
