Over the last five years, we have observed increased growth in the challenges marketers face when it comes to getting great work done. In this series of articles, we highlight three shifts in workforce management that will help marketing organizations thrive in the future of work.    

Read our first post: Buck Uncertainty by Embracing Modern Marketing Workforce Solutions

In this second post, we focus on a shift from traditional career practices that constrain progress to a new era of work defined by flexibility and a multifaceted approach to work.    

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Unleash New Opportunities by Relinquishing Traditional Career Thinking

Picture these scenarios, all of which happened in real life amidst a continued battle for top talent and a quickly evolving work landscape:  

• A company set a blanket policy that all employees must be in the office on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. At the same time, the internal product team was hiring a designer for a six-month contract assignment. Their top candidate lived an hour away and could only commute two days. The company policy was rigid though, with  no exceptions, not even for extended team members.      
• After six months of contracting with a highly experienced technical project manager who did a bang-up job, the team decided to convert the contractor to full-time. Too bad said the powers that be - the team was unable to hire her because she doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree. Did we mention the contractor also had deep experience in the category and was a great cultural fit? Oh well...
• A marketing organization was looking high and low for a seasoned copywriter to join their team on a six-month project to help redefine the brand’s identity. After meeting the perfectly-skilled professional with the right mindset for the challenge, the answer was a resounding no. Why? He was too experienced for the defined organizational level and would be managed by someone younger. The candidate just wanted to do great work and couldn’t have cared less about climbing the corporate ladder or the age of his boss.
• It was time to make some website updates. The changes required niche expertise for a few hours a week. The freelance opportunity was posted and within a few hours, the needle in a haystack responded to the post. The interview confirmed that the candidate had the exact capabilities and time needed to knock out the job. In full transparency, the candidate shared they have a full-time job and would be side hustling. No-go, said the hiring manager. Even though the work could be done off-hours with limited collaboration, they said a side hustle “didn’t feel right.”  

If there is one thing all of these scenarios demonstrate, it is that outdated, old-world thinking about how work gets done and who does it kills progress. While people are becoming accepting of a more flexible, multifaceted approach to work, this acceptance is most pronounced when it comes to full-time employees. However, given the growing importance of on-demand talent as part of a company’s workforce, expanding a more modern work mindset related to contractors and freelancers will help teams thrive.  

Specifically, we see three imperatives for successfully engaging on-demand talent in the future of work:

1. Extend work flexibility, which is highly valued by all workers, to freelancers and contractors
2. Be deliberate about capability-first hiring decisions    
3. Tap into the side hustle economy for surgical on-demand solutions  

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1. Extend work flexibility to contractors and freelancers:    

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Don’t lose out on amazing talent by ignoring the modern workforce’s expectations for flexibility. As referenced in Wripple’s Team Up Report, whether FTE or freelancer, flexibility reigns supreme. According to a study by LiveCareer, 76% of Millennials, 69% of Gen Z, and 64% of Gen X expect workplace flexibility. It’s safe to say the traditional 9-to-5 grind, butts-in-(office)seats era is no longer valid.  

This shift is not without its challenges. Teams need to set clear and consistent guidelines for what level of flexibility works for the business:  

• If your ways of working support a fully-remote environment, establish authentic and helpful ways to instill engagement across the team.  
• If hybrid, determine what works best for your organization, i.e., set days to be in the office or leave it up to individual teams to decide in-office days.
• If the business determines fully onsite is required, at least consider flexible scheduling to provide workers with options to achieve better balance.  
• Don’t be too rigid; where warranted, remain open to individual needs for flexibility outside of set guidelines.  
• Be sure to make good use of available tech to keep teams connected and on track to achieve goals.  

By offering flexibility to all members of your workforce, you will create a culture that values achieving mutual trust, driving positive outcomes, and maintaining talent wellness.

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2. Be deliberate about capability-first hiring decisions  

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It’s no surprise that required skills drive the hiring process; however, at times teams can let certain traditional career conventions get in the way of selecting the right person for the job. Whenever possible, avoid the following traditional career thinking traps that take the focus off hiring talent with the right capabilities:  

• Giving outweighed importance to educational requirements vs. capabilities needed.
  According to an Intelligent.com survey from November 2023, nearly half of companies plan to eliminate bachelor’s degree requirements in 2024. Companies such as Google and IBM have been vocal about this move and highlight the importance of valuing a candidate’s experience and skills over an educational profile. ‍
• Using age as a driving factor for who should be selected for a given position.  
  Companies often have defined career paths that reinforce certain expectations for how old someone should be in a role. These artificial date stamps need to go. They limit a team’s chances of hiring the right talent for the role and in many cases foster ageism in the workplace. An AARP survey reported more than 40% of workers over the age of 40 say they've experienced age discrimination at work in the last three years. This translates into substantial missed opportunities to hire seasoned pros who can get to the right answers faster and bring diverse experience to teams. Just because someone is younger or older than what is deemed ‘appropriate’ for a given role, that should not rule them out of consideration.   ‍
• ‍Permitting unconscious bias to go unchecked in the hiring process.  
  Often the hiring process is driven by peoples’ biases for the type of person they think should be in certain roles, e.g. a data scientist or a creative director should look or behave a certain way or have a certain background. By addressing and managing unconscious bias as part of the hiring process, teams can foster a diverse and inclusive workplace where it’s less likely that someone who is a perfect fit is overlooked due to race or background. Organizations can take measures to help address unconscious bias by:
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  • Implementing structured interviews with standardized questions and diverse hiring panels.
  • Providing training programs that educate employees about the existence and impact of unconscious biases.
  • Focusing the candidate evaluation process heavily on skills and experience. These measures can contribute to more equitable hiring practices and a more diverse workforce.

3.  Tap into the side hustle economy for surgical on-demand solutions

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Changing workplace attitudes and norms have fueled an increase of activity in the side hustle economy. According to Bankrate, in 2024 more than a third of U.S. adults (36%) say they have a side hustle (defined as extra money earned beyond one's main source of income). While side hustlers have been around for a long time, due to company policies and perceptions, they have been less prevalent in the white-collar world.  

Marketing teams need to consider the potential benefits of hiring a side hustler to complete project work:

• Access to in-demand professionals who have diverse and valued skill sets.  
• Fresh outside perspectives that foster innovative solutions and better ways to solve old problems.
• Cost-effectiveness of an on-demand freelancer, which allows companies to scale their workforce according to project demands without the overhead.  

Not every project is right for a side hustle, but for short-term needs requiring niche expertise, companies should be open to working with a freelancer even though they have a full or part-time job. By setting clear expectations for delivery, both the client and professional can benefit from the partnership.  

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The Bottom Line

With marketing leadership increasingly looking for innovative workforce solutions that include on-demand talent, it’s essential to consider how our changing corporate norms should also apply to freelancers and contractors. Offering all workers greater flexibility, practicing more modern hiring practices, and avoiding potential biases will foster an inclusive and adaptable workplace that sets up on-demand talent for success.

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