Article: Gig economy will make talent acquisition complex: Kapil Sharma

Staffing Recruitment

Gig economy will make talent acquisition complex: Kapil Sharma

In an exclusive interview with People Matters, Collabera’s Global Head of Sales shares key trends that are changing the staffing industry.
Gig economy will make talent acquisition complex: Kapil Sharma

Kapil Sharma is the Global Head – Sales and Client Management, Collabera. As a Chief Sales Officer, he holds a strategic role in building & expanding Collabera’s International operations across various geographies and has been instrumental in setting up operations in countries like Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, & Australia in APAC region. In his role, he has had the experience of working with innovative staffing models, strategic planning, cross-border talent acquisition and innovations in hiring and sourcing techniques. 

How is the role of the staffing industry changing in the age of the fourth industrial revolution? 

The combination of technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things are the main components of the fourth industrial revolution.  Deploying these technologies optimally and strategically creates a potent mix of resources and infrastructure that can yield better quality and more sustainable growth. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) will take away low skilled jobs and create more niche skills across the industry. In the next decade, around 20% of the jobs will be affected by robotization but will also create new demand for non-routinized knowledge work.

Many studies point to the fact that the number of gig workers will continue to rise. How is the staffing industry preparing for this change?

The number of on-demand workers is expected to double in the next four years. Gig workers tend to have a wider range of experiences to draw from. 75% of talent managers agree that gig work affords individuals the opportunity to build their skills through diverse project work across multiple industries and organizations. It’s fundamentally an economy of freelancers, individuals, and contractors. It has made businesses take up a 'light and fast' approach to talent acquisition, an increase in workforce and training largely to stay abreast and keep up with the growing technical demands. It is a time when no one wants to be tied down, to keep moving, growing, learning and performing at their best. 

The rapid changes in the IT industry in the past few years have had a ripple effect, directly or indirectly to the economy, workforce, solutions, products, services in the market. Companies are required to be alert to the emerging technologies and consequently need to have investments, skills, knowledge, and resources to navigate the speed and dodge most of the changes impacting their businesses. Gig economy will make staffing complicated, not redundant. Staffing Companies are looking to increase flexibility in their staffing plans as revenue cycles are subject to higher volatility. As a result, the demand for temporary staffing is on the rise. Companies are building flexible plans to acquire talent by employing contract workers, freelancers and contingent workers and so on. 

As a staffing company, how has your approach to hiring talent changed? There’s a far more focus on diversity in businesses today. How are service providers such as yours working to bring in greater diversity? 

Being one of the largest Global IT Staffing and Services Firm, we offer a wide range of services like Staff Augmentation, Permanent Recruitment, HTD (Hire, Train & Deploy) and IT Managed Services. From banking and financial services, manufacturing and retail, energy and utilities, communication and media, technology and telecom services and beyond, our goal is to maintain a high quality, customer-focused engagement model. We have a dedicated team of specialist recruiters who specialize in the sourcing and deploying of Technology and niche skilled professionals across a wide array of industries. We have a large pool of talent whom we train continuously on various technologies through our various skill development initiatives, this way we are always ready with the future workforce. Apart from this, we have a highly recognized re-deployment strategy like cross border deployment solutions to fulfill any possible requirement of our clients.

Our proven methodology has helped startups to the world’s largest organizations find their ideal employees. We are driven by three core principles in changing Staff Augmentation for the better: cost, quality, and responsiveness.

Continuous re-skilling is an emerging challenge area for HR professionals. While there’s a lot of focus on delivering learning at the point of need and personalizing learning, the challenge will be with limited time. How can companies get future ready? 

Emerging technologies are paving the way for HR leaders to impact the lives of their workforce. In the HR department, it might be the AI-powered chatbots that take over the task of answering employees’ frequently asked questions, allowing the HR professionals to spend less time fielding very similar calls and more time engaging with employees, candidates and senior leadership face to face. It has significantly reduced the time spent in feedback loops between employees and company leadership. Upskilling is the only way forward for professionals to counter skills disruption. Recruiters are giving more preference to hybrid digital skills in AI, Big Data, and Cloud Computing and agility to adapt to new technology while assessing high-potential talent.

You’ve recently announced expansion plans in India. What are Collabera’s plans for the wider APAC region?

We have been a pioneer in building Indian / International operations to APAC, Europe and Australia which has made Collabera a truly global company. Our primary focus is on medium to high-level recruitment in the IT staffing space with a current headcount of over 6000 resources. 

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Topics: Staffing Recruitment, #Trends

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