November–December 2020
Article
Harvard Business Review

Rethinking the On-Demand Workforce

By: Joseph B. Fuller, Manjari Raman, Allison Bailey and Nithya Vaduganathan

Format:Print

Abstract

As companies struggle with chronic skills shortages and changing labor demographics, a new generation of talent platforms, offering on-demand access to highly trained workers, has begun to help. These platforms include marketplaces for premium expertise (such as Toptal and Catalant), for freelance workers (Upwork and 99designs), and for crowdsourcing innovation (Kaggle and InnoCentive). Almost all Fortune 500 firms use such platforms. But most do so in an ad hoc, inefficient way, according to a Harvard Business School/BCG study. Companies need to get much more strategic about their engagement with talent platforms and fully embrace their ability to increase labor force flexibility, speed time to market, and facilitate business model innovation. That will require rewiring policies and processes and redefining working norms. Most important, leaders must inspire the cultural shift needed to realize the platforms’ transformative potential.

Keywords

Talent Acquisition; Platforms; Skilled Labor Recruitment; Gig Economy; Talent and Talent Management; Selection and Staffing; Online Technology; Strategy

Citation

Fuller, Joseph B., Manjari Raman, Allison Bailey, and Nithya Vaduganathan. "Rethinking the On-Demand Workforce." Harvard Business Review 98, no. 6 (November–December 2020): 96–103.