By the year 2025, a majority of the workforce will be employed in an agile capacity — i.e. contractor, consultant, temporary or freelance, according to a study released today by Randstad US.

The Workplace 2025 report found 70% of workers and 68% of employers agree a majority of the workforce will be employed in an agile capacity by 2025. And as much as 50% of the workforce will be comprised of agile workers by 2019, as nearly four in 10 workers, 39%, said they are likely to consider shifting to an agile arrangement over the next two-to-three years.

The report also found 64% of companies agree they struggle to find ways to engage their agile workforce due to compliance and regulatory requirements, while another 60% agree they have difficulty staying up-to-date on legal and operational best practices associated with managing that workforce. These challenges have triggered a need to engage staffing partners as they build a more agile model. The survey found:

• 81% of employers agree that in order to build an agile workforce, they will need to rely on staffing/recruitment partners to provide direction and guidance.
• 82% of employers agree that by 2025, their reliance on staffing/recruiting partners will increase.

“The ability to anticipate talent needs, and optimize and leverage skilled workers wherever they may be, will be key to a company’s sustainable competitive advantage going forward,” said Jim Link, chief human resources officer at Randstad North America. “For most organizations, moving to a more agile model will call for greater collaboration and alignment between HR executives and the C-suite in order to drive this shared objective. In addition, building today’s best-in-class workforce has moved beyond the halls of HR, requiring new stakeholders such as IT, finance and operations to help implement talent-related initiatives.”

The research findings were based on two separate projects programmed and fielded by Research Now: Employee Study and Employer Study. The surveys were fielded from July to August, 2016. The employee study included 4,463 respondents and the employer study included 1,504 hiring decision makers or influencers that worked in companies with more than 10 employees.