Hiring has become a full-time job, less like a traditional 9-5 position and more like an on-call 24/7 emergency response role. It’s no secret that the way we approach work in America is changing. An increase in gig economy workers and freelance positions has changed the game for both companies and employees. With the decline of the traditional work model rises the opportunity to create new standards, and it’s good news. Hiring like a pro does not have to be complicated. Let's begin.

Reimagine Your Workforce

Reimagining your workforce means using both a contingent & traditional workforce to support each other. Think of balanced scales, too much project weight being placed on your full-time team? Hiring like a pro can simple mean supplementing the workload with contracted staff tasked with specific roles for a project timeline.

It Doesn’t Need to Be Temporary

Let’s get one myth busted right away, there’s a widespread idea that contingent (or contracted) workers are a one-night-only breed - meaning once they’re done with their tasks, they’re gone. That’s not the only way. Maybe you bring in talent for a company-wide rebrand, or maybe you contract with someone on an ongoing basis to provide tech support. Reimagining your workforce means creating it (or recreating it) to fit your specific model and needs at any given time.

What are the Challenges?

Incorporating contingent teams can feel like a leap - mostly because of the insecurity floating around remote workers and team management not only covering a diverse geography, but employees outside of your company infrastructure. When adding workers as supplementary team, you can hire independently or you can go through a third-party provider. Both are viable but if you need more than one human to complete one small task or role, there are huge advantages to collaborating with a company that has built in team-management protocols. Work smarter, not harder.Once you’ve identified your project scope and the number of people you need it’s time to dive in and get to work. But wait, what if your project parameters or timeline changes? The other great benefit to going through a company for your contingent teams is that the company will often have contingencies in place should you need to extend your contract vs. an individual freelancer who may already be booked on another job.

Fill Skills Gaps

Hiring like a pro must include filling skills gaps. Two main paths emerge when thinking about hiring staff: filling time on the schedule and generating coverage for certain tasks and departments, and filling skills gaps to create a strong and versatile overall team.When hiring for skill you need to get comfortable with getting specific. Need a flutter developer for a mobile app? Need someone with AWS certifications? Defining the scope of your project is going to really help you determine the type of niche skills you need to push your project past that finish line.Team culture is another important point to hit when talking about filling gaps (or just for hiring in general). The key question here is who will this hire be interacting with? Are you looking for someone extroverted and ready to jump on calls team-wide who will be heading up a major initiative, or are you looking to fill out your dev team with someone who is comfortable with asynchronous communication? Work style plays a big part in work contribution when your hires are supplementing an existing full-time team.

Strengthen Your Team

Let’s take this section “offline” when not under the spotlight of a team call or a client meeting, what types of traits make up a strong team? We talked a bit about this with filling skills gaps; communication style, work approach etc. are important but so are other human traits:

• Empathy
• Agility
• Accountability
• Open Communication
• Transparency/honesty
• Creativity

It can be easy to get stuck in technical solutions for technical problems - including hiring staff - especially with the myriad of freelance sites that are out there. It can be risky to partner with someone who is not an invested full-time member of your team, so how do you determine who has the human qualities necessary to support the work ethic you need? The answer is surprisingly simple: partner with a company whose purpose is to care about your company.It’s a unique model because it’s a team-based model, simply define your project parameters or needs and determine what size team you need, (even if it’s a team of one). Our approach is building teams to support teams. In this way we can integrate cohesion, agility, communication, and efficiency into the scope of your project right out of the gate for a seamless integration and productive work flow.

Getting Started

Communication is our key component, and building strong teams is our bread and butter - with a diverse pool of talented experts, we have the resources and knowledge to meet your needs. To fill your skills gaps today, contact us.