HR Planning for a Blended Workforce

Developing a thorough knowledge of corporate culture, plans and policies are fundamental duties of HR managers. HR managers act as an internal change agent and consultant (Kotter, 2010). The growth of the gig economy is inevitable, a change in approach to this disruptive trend is needed. It is time for HR managers to initiate change and act as an expert and facilitator to accommodate contingent workers in the organization and utilize maximum benefit from it. In order to avoid playing catch-up in the coming years. HR professionals have seen a general shift from a transactional focus to a focus on strategic activities. HR also has an increased presence at the executive table and truly can influence an organization. HR does operate in two different roles in an organization, transactional and transformational functions (Nieves and Osorio, 2017). With the increasing use of automation, artificial intelligence (AI) in performing its functional operations there's a current debate that the functional part of HR will be replaced by machines and HR will only operate in transformation. In fact, HR may be more critical now than ever indeed, not having an effective HR system in place may be the demise of an organization.

Contingent workers, agile talents, on-demand workers, freelancers, contract workers, consultants or any alternative form of temporary employment and full-time employees together creates a blended workforce (Mulcahy, 2018). Work preference, resource issues, practical constraints and technology enabled the blended workforce, and HR managers are required to address this in their strategic planning process. Most contingent workers are highly skilled workers, to compete in the market organizations has to adapt to acquiring these talents according to their preference.  Accommodating a blended workforce brings due challenges to HR. Contract workers and full-time workers cannot be considered as same, legally as well. HR needs to be ready to act on all possible positives and negatives of such a workforce. These contingent workers are experts in their field with lots of experiences, this can bring a fresh set of eyes and a unique viewpoint to the perception of the organization. On the other hand contract workers spent less time on work than the full-time workers and achieving higher satisfaction both monetary and non-monetary. This can influence existing key full-time workers to choose their path in the contingent workforce, hence organizations need to be ready for such consequences as well. Some gig workers are in it for building a career while searching for permanent employment. Offering the possibility of repeat engagement to contractors might be a wise investment for the future.

Outdated policies need to be addressed and reviewed. HR should consult with its internal client functions to determine what work is best accomplished by full-time employees (eg. Work tasks involving sensitive intellectual property) and that work which can be accomplished by contingent workers. Process mapping is often used to identify the tasks and flow of work which should be allocated to in-house staff or contingent workers. Limited strategic business competencies as well as focus on transactional functions of HRM by HR managers can be identified as key HR experience barrier to adopt the hybrid workforce (Kotter, 2014).  New policies and procedure are needed internally on how to govern access to information for both sets of employees, data security, sharing confidential information and trade secrets, attorney-client privilege etc. Having a through background assessment before acquiring high skilled talents on contracts must be done. The disruptive work environment involves huge risks as well as benefits.

Having a talent pool and awareness of the skills lack can help the organization to get the right fit on temporary hire. The most important aspect that HR must keep in mind for this change is to educate existing employees about the transformation, by coaching them and making them more accepting of this new staffing ideology. Only when freelancers and full-time professionals work together seamlessly, can this new staffing model succeed.

References:

Kotter, J. (2010). Leading change. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business Press.

Kotter, J. (2014). Accelerate: Building Strategic Agility for a Faster-Moving World. Boston, M.A.: Harvard Business Review Press.

Mulcahy, D. (2018). The Gig Economy: Skillsoft.

Nieves, J. and Osorio, J. (2017). Commitment-based HR systems and organizational outcomes in services. International Journal of Manpower, 38(3), pp.432-448.