“Don’t leave it to the last minute “
Largest global survey of independent consultants offers advice to business
We’ve published the first outputs of a Talmix survey among the 60,000 independent consultants across the globe, with over 1,000 respondents. The aim is to use this knowledgeable audience to gauge current independent talent trends.
Here are some of the highlights:
Growing demand for the independent workforce
60% of respondents say that use of independent talent had increased in the last 12 months. This trend is expected to continue, and over half expect more businesses to use online staffing platforms to access this talent, taking over from the personal network as the primary method. While no one at Talmix is surprised to see this growth and trend, it’s interesting to hear it from the consultants themselves. And while we still see that personal networks are the primary way to source, there’s no doubt that online staffing platforms are coming into play.
Hard to find skills
Our consultants see demand in many areas for their expertise. Over the next 12 months they expect Digital Transformation to remain the biggest requirement; closely followed by Organisational Transformation, Operational Improvement, Data Science and more traditional analysis/research skills in the top 5 list. These are projects where consultants are working and not just exclusive to Talmix, but our own project list mimics this very closely.
Advice to business – don’t leave it too late
72% of consultants surveyed believe that companies would benefit from help and advice in budgeting for the independent workforce. Respondents identified the biggest impact on project budgets relates to urgency of a project and issues relating to overrunning projects, outweighing strategic and complex projects. There is some concern from consultants that they are thought of as a short-term resource only, with business turning to them at the last minute.
While using independent talent is a fast solution to filling the skills gap which all businesses are encountering, it’s important that companies see beyond the immediate problem. What our consultants tell us most clearly is that companies need to plan to embed this workforce ahead of projects hitting urgent/overrun problems to get the best returns and value.”
Helping the enterprise plan better
We want to provide practical support to businesses aiming to build independent talent into their plans. Our rate cards make use of global data across multiple functions and sectors to provide the insight needed to create a fluid workforce mixing the best full-time and independent talent and returning the best value.
We’ll be focusing on some more topics from this comprehensive survey over the next few weeks. For now I’d like to thank all of the consultants who took part, and IR-Connect who partnered with us to deliver the survey and responses.
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More Content by Sandeep Dhillon
