How Businesses Can use Blended Workforce to Scale Quickly and Reduce Costs

With the explosion of SaaS and cloud-based services targeting every operating function from recruitment to accounting, no company is immune to the need for ramping up engineering talent to help with API integrations, new coding languages, and a rapidly-evolving future of work. According to Gartner, analysts predict that one of the biggest leadership challenges CIOs will face in 2020 is:

“Finding and upskilling talent to support new technologies such as low code-tools, API-centric SaaS, and APIs for integration that will drive the future of applications.”

Further, CGS polled executives on how they are planning to navigate workforce change in 2020. They found that addressing the learning or skills gap is the top concern, scoring higher than corporate innovation or digital transformation. And more than half of respondents say they will be or are considering investing in upskilling workers in light of artificial intelligence, automation, and robotics.

One way CIOs and IT leaders are addressing these “future of work” challenges in 2020 is through platforms such as FieldEngineer to find the right Network, Software, IT, Systems, Telecom, or Field engineer for their particular needs. As an alternative to hiring new employees skilled in these emerging technologies, or upskilling current employees to take on tasks they may or may not have any interest in, these companies are turning to on-demand talent to create a blended workforce, i.e., a mix of full-time and freelance staff that can quickly scale up or down to meet a company’s changing needs.

Let’s look at two examples of how companies are already using a mix of on-site and on-demand workers to fuel their growth.

No Time to Hire? When Rapid Deployment is Key

Here are a few examples of how a blended workforce can help when rapid deployment is key:

• Expedite go-to-market strategy because of a competitive entry
• Manage an unexpectedly large order
• Organize a national rollout of a product, one market at a time (Pilot test one or two markets with local, on-demand talent before rolling out nationally)
• Ramp up for busy buying periods like Black Friday, the winter holidays and weekend holiday celebrations throughout the year (Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day)
• Handle a particular problem or catastrophic situation quickly (Sometimes even a few hours’ travels can cause a problem to go from bad to catastrophic - calling in the right talent, for example, a cybersecurity expert, can help keep business flowing as usual)

No Money to Hire? When Budgetary Constraints are Key

Here are a few examples of how a blended workforce can help when budgets are tight:

• Bid for a contract in a new region (Pick up a new business without expanding or burdening your current staff)
• Reduce or eliminate travel expenses for an existing job (No need to send existing personnel when you can hire qualified workers in another region)
• Cover for existing employees on leave or even on vacation (Why lose valuable production hours or overtax your existing workforce - which leads to lost productivity and bad morale?)
• Manage unpredictable demand (Predictions of a recession are just that, predictions, but still you can’t afford to take a chance by having more staff than you need should clients reduce their workload or pull out altogether.
• Save on recruiting expenses (Free your HR staff up to manage and help retain current employees rather than finding new ones)
• Pay for the time that is actually used and when the job is actually done well (How many hours logged by full- time employees is actually wasted or performed inadequately?)

How to Easily Implement a Blended Workforce

With FieldEngineer’s global freelance marketplace, businesses can easily ramp up specialized engineering talent anywhere, any time, as needed. So whether it’s an SD-WAN deployment, router replacement or cable installation, or implementing a new cloud-based API or machine learning application, finding the right Network, Software, IT, Systems, Telecom or Field engineer is as easy as posting a job or reviewing our database of more than 50,000 engineers in 190+ countries. And FieldEngineer makes it easy to track and manage workloads and pay your outsourced staff -- all through one secure, cloud-based platform.

2020 will bring many challenges to business operations. Make sure your business is prepared with a blended workforce that will ensure the right talent for the job on demand.