Why Companies are Turning to an On Demand Workforce
It’s no secret that today, people desire more flexibility in their careers. Some enjoy the perks their office offers, such as day care, nap pods, free food, massages, gyms, and even treadmill desks. Still others are ready to leave the traditional 9-5 behind and take a road less traveled, yet one that is growing rapidly.
Statistics say that the temporary/freelance workforce is projected to hit 40% of the total market by 2020, and not just in the U.S. Thanks, in large part to the Great Recession of 2008, companies found themselves cutting their workforce to save the business, yet still had more work than their remaining employees could maintain.
Seeking Balance
As saving money on salaries and benefits was key for the survival of companies across the country, they began to transition much of their workforce into freelance and contract positions to keep the business moving forward. To fill gaps, companies turned to temporary staffing firms, which was one of few sectors to see massive growth during the Great Recession, with reason.
For many people who moved into these new roles, they found the lifestyle and flexibility of working on a freelance basis very attractive. However, they also faced the challenge of finding work to build a successful, sustainable career. Due, mostly, to the dependency on temporary staffing firms, which negotiate down the rates of qualified, experienced professionals, most professionals, then and now, accept a mere 30-50% of their regular hourly rate just to get the work. Yet, not enough to sustain a mortgage, car payment, day care….
Technology, and the internet, came to the rescue of these career freelancers by giving them the opportunity to make themselves readily and directly available to employers, while providing employers with an on demand workforce at their fingertips. Dozens of websites popped up to address the market and capture a little bit of the staffing industry’s growth for themselves. Most prevalent are those that cater to the graphic designer, marketing or writer-types for smaller, one off projects. Few offer enterprises a solution for highly skilled candidates to fill the needs of their departments, or freelancers the kind of long-term, high paying projects that can sustain a career, family and life.
Finding Balance
With VouchedIn.com, employers are able, for the first time, to more accurately locate qualified freelancers who meet their needs, and hire them right away through its proprietary “matching” software, which gives candidates a “project suitability ranking”, making hiring candidates much more efficient and immediate for companies. Meanwhile, the startup benefits freelancers by allowing them to earn closer to their full rate (taking a mere 15% for a service fee, compared to up to 70%), and thus create a sustainable career in freelancing and a better quality of life.
“Most websites out there for freelancers focus on small, one off projects. VouchedIn strives to connect freelancers with more substantial, long-term projects, or reoccurring work, and employers with the best qualified freelancers,” said Dan Gaffney, Founder of VouchedIn. “We know companies are looking for part-time, or per-project team members and they don’t have time to dig through pages of candidates, or for turnover due to being directed to the wrong candidate. They need great, qualified, vetted candidates fast, and on demand.”
Removing The Middleman
And, while it may seem that VouchedIn is no different from other temporary work referral sites out there, one journalist, after reviewing the software, said “Vouchedin.com is seeking to do to short-term staffing placements what Monster did to newspaper classifieds and what Apple did to the recording industry: leverage the internet to cut out the middleman, re-channeling profits to both the worker and the employer….”
The reason why, is clear. Gaffney, himself, was challenged in building a career as an accounting freelance/contract employee that would allow him to take care of his family, and maintain the lifestyle of fatherhood he had come to appreciate. As a CPA, he saw firsthand the sacrifice of relying on work from temporary staffing firms and decided he could create a better option for all parties.
Today, Gaffney says that VouchedIn has high marks from both freelancers and its enterprise employers, driving the demand to grow the platform beyond just accounting and finance professionals. In January 2017, the company will officially announce its partnership with the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago to provide the VouchedIn software platform for the organization’s career placement services to help women be more successful in securing employment. With this will come the expansion of VouchedIn to offer the same enterprise-level projects for freelance professionals in IT, advertising, PR, training, legal and compliance, sales, operations, HR, engineering and more.
“The numbers around the globe make it clear, the percentage of freelance and contract workers is growing, and fast, thanks to technology. It’s not just small businesses that see the value of having accessibility to highly qualified professionals for their team, but major enterprise companies.” Gaffney adds that as the on demand worker market grows, VouchedIn plans to be at the forefront of meeting the needs of freelancers and contract employees and corporations.
Dan Gaffney
Dan Gaffney, CPA and Founder of VouchedIn.com, the first online freelance work service that uses proprietary software to create immediate matches for available projects, creating an on demand work force for enterprise companies. The company, initially for financial and accounting freelancers, will expand its platform in early 2017 to meet all enterprise freelance needs, including marketing, IT, legal, training, sales, admin and more. Gaffney has more than 20 years of business and financial experience with some of the top audit and consulting firms in the U.S., and served as a chief audit executive for a Fortune 500 company for more than five years.
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