As we kick off a new year of planning, resource allocation, and headcount discussions, consider this new tactic to add to your 2021 CEO toolkit: On-demand executive talent.
Over the past year, we’ve seen a meteoric rise in interest for on-demand talent across nearly all sectors. More people than ever before are working from home and picking up “gig” jobs (even as senior as the CEO level). Studies show that one-third of Americans work as freelancers today, and all indications point to this number continuing to rise.
We saw this reflected in our own launch of our on-demand talent marketplace at Bolster. In just three months, nearly 2,000 seasoned executives have joined our network looking for interim, advisory, fractional, or project-based work. One-third consider themselves to be “career consultants” and the other two-thirds are full-time workers looking to diversify their career portfolio with side projects.
These individuals, all at the executive level, are looking for work in a new way – choosing multiple short-term, on-demand projects rather than a single long-term, open-ended commitment. This has benefits for CEOs, too: The opportunity to “try out” new profiles for different roles, a shorter turnaround time to onboarding talent, and a more affordable way to work with best-in-class executives. As we’re learning, bringing on the right on-demand executive can be like jump-starting your company with a high-performance athlete. Some Bolster members say they start adding value at a new company within just one week.
As a business leader at the start of a new year, we encourage you to ask yourself: Are you leaning into these new trends and workforce modalities to “staff your bench” of top performers, or are you relying too heavily on past precedent?
We launched Bolster to help CEOs scale faster and more effectively than ever before and to help executives find the best, on-demand opportunities. A big part of speed is having the right people around the table. And when that “table” doesn’t quite look the same in an all-remote era, it’s important to pivot to capitalize on the opportunity to look at your business in a different way. Our on-demand member network does just that – offers CEOs the flexibility they need to run their businesses in this new era.
In 2020, the modern-day workforce normalized the agile, work-from-home culture. Highly skilled workers are looking for more flexibility, businesses can operate from anywhere, and seasoned leaders are staffing their bench with a mix of full-time and fractional talent. We believe 2021 will signal a surge in on-demand staffing like never before. So when you’re ready to start staffing your bench to “Bolster Up” your team this year, you know where to find us.
- Bethany Crystal, January 14, 2021
