Are you the newest commodity to hit the market? With the rise of talent marketplaces, that just might be the case.
Talent marketplaces – tools that allow business leaders to ‘shop’ for talent to fill internal roles or staff projects – are helping business leaders manage the workforce challenges brought on by COVID-19. Hiring freezes and worker furloughs have come at a time when organizations have even more responsibility, so leveraging the existing workforce has become paramount.
The time is now for talent marketplaces
Talent marketplaces are launched on a software platform, giving business leaders a clearer picture of the people resources they have available, along with their skills and expertise. These platforms can help manage fully internal full-time talent, contingent workers or both. Some examples of vendors in the space include Gloat and Talmix for general talent, while Catalant focuses on consultants and Wripple on marketing talent.
With an ever-changing global workforce, the time is right for talent marketplaces to take hold. Across industries, contract workers have slowly gained momentum as a viable staffing option, spearheaded in part by their success in the tech industry. On top of that, contingent work took hold initially thanks to the increasingly volatile talent markets in areas like San Francisco and New York.
Talent marketplaces are attractive in both the short term and long term
The average tenure that workers spend within an organization is dropping; according to US Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2020, the median tenure of employees aged 25 to 34 years old was only 2.8 years. Combine that with an average of six months’ experience before a new employee is providing value in their role, and the appeal of talent marketplaces is apparent: leaders can draft in staff who are up and running immediately to complete projects in the short term.
Talent marketplaces can also help develop workers across the long term. Thanks to the visibility that marketplaces foster, leaders can promote employees into more senior roles by matching their work experience noted in the marketplace to the needs of that position. And as work shifts during the pandemic, leaders can shift employees to new teams where they’re more needed at the time.
As with most things in 2020, the future for talent marketplaces isn’t completely certain. While there’s no guarantee they’ll find their way into the toolkits of HR teams around the world, the many work challenges as a result of COVID-19 have provided the perfect platform for these tools to prove their worth in solving real-world business problems.
