With the prospect of continuing economic uncertainty posing a serious threat to traditional talent management models, new evidence shows employers are increasingly turning to the long-term deployment of flexible contingent labour to help manage this change.
 
This emerging model is highlighted in, 'Talent Acquisition in Turbulent Times', the latest Working Paper from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation (REC). The Paper traces the new model back to the supply chain insights of 'Talent on Demand' and examines how it works by placing a flexible 'cloud' of contingent talent around the core workforce. This enables employers to better align their talent needs with increasingly dynamic business objectives, and shift from a fixed resource base to a variable one.
 
Under this new paradigm, external recruitment firms equipped with a potent set of dynamic recruitment tools provide unique access to an open and flexible eco-system of rare skills geared to deliver customised, holistic support to every level of the business.
 
Commenting on the new Working Paper, its author Roger Tweedy, the REC's Director of Research, said "the emerging 'open' model combines permanent workforce flexibility with the next generation recruitment skills of leading staffing agencies to challenge existing internal recruitment solutions that have become gridlocked by time and cost pressures."
 
The Paper draws on research by the Human Capital Institute in the US and on UK data from the REC's own monthly Jobs Outlook survey of employers.
 
Both reveal significant changes to traditional approaches to talent acquisition and highlight some of the serious issues facing HR communities across the globe as talent shortages continue to intensify.
 
"In the next few years, employers will have to overcome major challenges to gain competitive advantage in the race to secure the best candidates. They will have to address rapidly changing technology, lack of internal resource, continued pressures on costs, new ways of working and a new breed of candidate, against the backdrop of continuing economic uncertainty and fluid business priorities,"  the Working Paper states."
 
"Because of these factors, there is a growing need to identify new models which are robust enough to withstand the challenges both now and in the future. This post-recession period has highlighted some previously hidden issues associated with direct sourcing and the use of professional networking in HR."
 
"At the same time, leading recruitment firms are developing exciting new ways to match passive and active candidates with employers. These 'next generation tools' such as modelling candidate intent, are enabling recruitment firms to provide their clients with a new level of value that is helping to build truly strategic relationships."
 
"We hope this Working Paper will be an integral part of future discussions between recruiters on how this more flexible approach to managing talent can benefit HR professionals and their businesses as they strive for profitability in these turbulent times."
 
Working Papers are designed to stimulate and lead discussion about the future of recruitment as a direct result of the publication of Recruitment 2020 and the issues it raised.