What happens when a project requires a particular skill or talent which you don’t have? Or want on your current payroll? What are your options as a Project Manager then?
TaaS is the answer to such situations.
After Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS), Talent as a Service is the latest disruption in the human resources sector that will soon replace the workplace as we know it. TaaS has brought a whole new dimension to crowdsourcing, bringing about an uberisation of the workforce. TaaS sources labour from the crowds by opening the workplace for grabs people best suited for a particular project. In other words, this gig economy will help propel talent across projects and organisations based on the former’s interest areas and the latter’s demands. It heralds a new generation of workers with highly specialized and directly relevant skills towards a better allocation of peripheral work.
How TaaS can Transform your Business
Liran Kotzer writing for The Huffington Post candidly states, “…with the economy in an uncertain state the pressure on these [small and micro] businesses to keep other costs in check is high.” That would explain why companies are now rushing to embrace the TaaS model. It not only enables them to enjoy flexible access to the right talent at the right time for the right price but also lowers the cost of retaining skills by a considerable margin. The scalability offered by TaaS, to roll out projects based solely on demand, is creating ripples in the world of recruitment as we speak.
Given the steady invasion of the demand hiring culture into the modern workplace, blending the traditional Full-Time Employee (FTE) business model with a regular rotation of contractual workers don’t need to be as daunting as it sounds. TaaS is here to simplify the workspace, to deliver your timely needs and it inarguably costs less than hiring a new employee. According to The Economic Times, a lot of Indian IT companies including Infosys and Wipro are exploring the idea of an uberised workforce, with their own flexi-staffing models. The article speculates the possible reason that is catalysing this trend today :
“What is driving this trend is the changing preference of the young workforce more than the market uncertainty and political situation in their largest market, the US.”
Here are the three tenets of TaaS explained with hypothetical use cases :
Flexibility and Expertise
A fashion logistical company wants to rebuild their business plan and pitch an attractive deck to their prospective investors. None of the existing employees have ever drawn up a business plan before. At the same time, they will have better insights into what needs change and what stays, more than any consultant or new employees. At this point, the firm can recruit a designer with a background in fashion, retail, logistics, and design, to curate the deck for the company.
Minimising the cost of FTE
A firm has an AI and IT engineer on board but he has very little knowledge of UX design. It makes little sense to recruit a developer at this time for a short-term project. So the firm can hire a UX designer at this point to develop their website design.
Increased Efficiency with Time Consumption
A company is redesigning its brochures but their in-house team has very little knowledge of graphic design. An intern from the marketing team is willing to give it a try but it will take her a couple of days at least to learn the basics of Photoshop and even then it won’t be the same quality of an expert. There is no justification for hiring a full-time designer at this juncture; instead, it would be best in the company’s interests if they reach out to the designer designed their visiting cards once before.
Things to keep in mind while adopting a TaaS model
Incorporating Talent as a Service will sound as good in your company’s portfolio as it does on paper. To adopt it in your daily operations and for a seamless merger between the traditional and modern workplace, here are a few key points you must bear in mind.
It trends set to improve Taas
According to a report by Intuit, the number of on-demand workers in the US is expected to double in the next four years to almost 9.2 million. It won’t be long before the brick and mortar office is a thing of the past as where and how people work will change due to emerging Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud phenomenon and mobile technologies. Working in the cloud will increasingly shift work lives away from corporate office altogether and toward an in-my-own-place, on-my-own-time work regimen.
“Gen Y will continue focusing less on physically spending time at a job site and more on getting the job done. Connecting through the cloud will allow Gen Y to success on the move and approach the work/life balance they desire.”
As cloud computing keeps extending to every job sector, businesses are increasingly recognising that Cloud technology can be taken further to tap a virtual, global labour pool. This will in turn increase productivity, maximise the elasticity of their existing workforce and reduce labour costs.
To effectively minimise fixed labour costs and maximise productivity, enterprises of the future must be ready to work with talent and technology in the new era of the contingent workforce. Flexi Hiring is one such model developed by Indus Net Technologies that takes pride in transforming Talent as a Service from a Vision to the Present Reality, by making talent readily and timely available to project managers across the IT sector. It is the most suitable bridge between companies looking to recruit talent and talented professionals who are increasingly and constantly on the lookout for contractual employment based on their flexibilities.
Jump aboard and cash in on the TaaS bandwagon using Flexi Hiring – your competitors are certainly thinking about it.
