Eight Things to Know About Open Talent

Today, we live in a world where talent is not limited by time zone or travel. Businesses are beginning to curate highly specialist teams, who can deliver robust outcomes without affecting headcount. This is known as Open Talent.

Open Talent offers companies agile expertise as and when required. This control-oriented mindset helps innovative CMOs to acquire rare skills rapidly and temporarily, and to do more in uncertain times.

But is this new resourcing approach a major new trend or a passing COVID-19 fad? Earlier this year, we explored Open Talent in a session with our APAC members. Here are a few things that we learned: 

1. Open Talent complements permanent resources with experienced talent on-demand to deliver quality thinking, ideas or execution at pace.  

2. Marketing organisations are turning to Open Talent to accelerate and innovate with speed and agility whilst keeping lean, and to access a greater breadth of skills, experiences and diverse perspectives.  

3. The growth in collectives and communities of Open Talent enables collaboration and the bringing together of ideas, broader thinking and combinations of skills, driving value for both clients and talent. Established channels to work with validated individuals or teams distinguishes open talent from classic freelancing.

4. Open Talent in marketing spans traditional agency, consultancy and in-house roles. The key premise is deploying  the right people, in the right roles at the right time. Thinking about the skills needed, rather than a vacancy to be filled or a process to be followed. 3 out of 4 organizations have skill gaps that are limiting their service levels and/or business growth. (Association for Talent Development)

5. Some companies have explicitly addressed this in their talent strategies, such the third leg of Procter & Gamble “Build, Buy, Borrow”. 40% of companies are looking for more information on the availability of additional sources of talent  (2020 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends Report)

6. The pool of independent talent is growing rapidly. This is no longer the domain of your stereotypical “gig” workers, or  executives transitioning to retirement. Marketing talent at different ages and stages are working independently as a developmental stage in their career path. Experience can be accessed on demand. This is a fast growing trend across all industries. Some analysts estimate that 80% of the global workforce will be 'freelance’ by 2030 (Medium, 2019 Reshaping Work Conference).

7. Open Talent is independent and remote. So you’re not restricted by location, nor are you paying for physical spaces or overheads. It’s investing in heads, not paying for overheads.

8. Open talent aren’t only deploying their skills and expertise, they are building and growing them as well. “(Independent talents) think more proactively about market trends and refresh their skills more often than traditional employees, helping advance our economy.” Stephane Kasriel, Co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Council on the Future of Gender, Education and Work

You can find out more about our previous webinar on this topic here.