f1 recruitment has announced the launch of its new Contracts Division. This team works with marketing, digital, pr and sponsorship agencies and in house marketing and communications teams that use interim, freelance or contract help for short-term projects or ad-hoc support. In the current economic environment businesses may choose to bring more of their marketing work in house or hire agencies on a more project-specific basis than ever before. The value of a contingent workforce has never been so evident in meeting agile working patterns and in enabling employers to flex up and down to meet business needs. Here Maeve Hosea, author and journalist, takes a look at this growing phenomenon as contingency and contract working becomes an integral part of team balance:
There are many reasons for business leaders to feel uncertain today, ranging from economic wobbles in China to the shadows of Brexit and a new world order of terrorist attacks. VUCA, a lens through which the US military viewed the end of the Cold War, is now business shorthand for the increasingly challenging context: a world of volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity.
Aside from the impact big political and economic changes will have on patterns of consumer behaviour, business needs to navigate shifting sands that impact both operational costs and the available talent pool. For example, business rents in central London’s Soho increased from £45.00 a square foot to over £75.00 a square foot over a period of 5 years from 2001 to 2016 which is a staggering 60%. In the past few years, rocketing prices in the residential sector means graduates are struggling to afford to live in the London. There is also the gender pay gap to consider with talented women facing barriers back to work after children, to promotion, and training.
The only way for the business landscape to respond to this context is by building a flexible brand and culture, not least in the area of resourcing. Leading professional services firm Deloitte heralds the potential of a ‘Contingent Workforce’: people who are not on the company payroll but provide services to an organisation, such as contractors, consultants, temps and advisers. This flexible workforce is designed to respond to rising labour costs and fast-moving market conditions.
According to Deloitte, managing that contingent workforce effectively is crucial to the success of this approach: “As more companies understand the issues associated with contractors and manage them well, they can benefit from improved operational performance, lower labor costs, informed staffing decisions, more organisational flexibility, and stronger HR alignment with business objectives.”
Insurance firm Direct Line Group believes that enabling its marketing team to work in a flexible way is a hugely important part of how it operates. “We understand that people want a rewarding career, but can’t necessarily always work conventional hours in an office or simply want to strike the right work/life balance,” comments Mark Evans, marketing director at Direct Line Group. ”We are passionate about getting the right people to work with us, so we have a mixture of people who job share, work part-time, include some element of home working in their role, as well as some working variable hours.”
Within the context of our VUCA world, addressing the validity of a more responsive approach to resourcing talent. One example is the ‘hub and spoke’ approach pioneered by Paratus agency in the early noughties, which built its service model on a core team of 11 full-time staffers backed by a 150-strong global freelance network.
Drinks marketing specialist White Label UK believes that having a revolving door of talent and tapping into virtual networks of experts in multiple fields is now a necessity. “The world is in permanent beta now, and there is no company that can have everybody they need under one roof,” comments Simon Parker, managing director of White Label. “It’s a given that you need to bring people in from outside.”
If it is accepted that the same individuals aren’t necessarily right for each separate job, the challenge remains on how to integrate old and new people within a culture. “The key is to get the permanent people in the business to be a small core who are focused on the added value,” says Parker. “All of whom are open minded and not defending a little corner of the world, not threatened by anyone else who is coming in, and open to what those people are bringing.”
Of course, another key aspect of managing this flexible approach is having the technology to enable its people to work in an agile way. This means efficient and creative tools to work remotely. Direct Line Group’s Evans underlines the importance of pioneering new technology within the organisation so it can remain ahead of the curve for its staff in this respect.
In tandem with a savvy approach to hiring and managing, this flexible workforce is a source of on-demand high-quality talent, aligned to specific business needs. Those embracing a contingent concept to marketing and communications capability need to be mindful of its potential pitfalls though. If workers are employed on a more flexible basis – whether freelance or part time – the key objective is to hire and keep talent that is engaged and interested in your brand’s values and goals. Getting your core permanent workforce right will be crucial.
f1 recruitment has just announced the launch of its new Contracts Division to be ready for the volatile world we are living in. This team responds to a status quo where agencies and in house marketing and communications teams are using interim, freelance or contract help, whether that is for short-term projects or ad-hoc support. Changes in brandland mean businesses may choose to bring more of their marketing work in house or hire agencies on a more project-specific basis than ever before.
Communications and Marketing teams both in house and within agencies will also need to adapt and flex around the talent available and not default to always hiring full time. If the Commons Select Committee recommendations chaired by MP Maria Miller in early March ever come into force, employers could find themselves in breach of equal opportunities legislation if they cannot come up with a robust business reason for a role not being looked at on a flexible or agile working basis.
There are plenty of highly qualified and experienced marketers only too happy to work on less than 5 days a week! For the ever changing world we are living in maybe now is the time that resourcing models will adapt to embrace a more progressive structure.