What Does the Future of Staffing Look Like in 2021?

Technology and crisis have forced change quicker than ever

In the old days of the staffing industry, trends took 5-10 years before they took hold. There was time for agencies to investigate the trend, learn, and build a plan.

The new world changes quicker than ever. We’re all connected with supercomputers in our pockets, on video calls across the world, and able to work synchronously with all our teams, no matter how distributed.

Staffing is in flux now more than ever.

It’s important to react to these changing conditions because the companies that thrive are the ones that are resilient.

But time and budgets are limited. Not everything can change at once. So it’s also more important than ever to stay focused on what matters most.

What should you be focused on in 2021?

Signup culture means your candidates expect instant results

Consumer companies have conditioned the world to expect instant results—whether that’s a video on your phone in one click, a rideshare at your door in five minutes, or a red dress delivered to your mailbox in two days.

This is the rise of signup culture, and we’re already seeing a shift in how people are taking this same approach to their work. How?

Applying for a job will become more and more like signing up for a job.

Weeks-long or days-long processes will get compressed further and further. The goal for staffing agencies will be to—whenever possible—make the job hunt as easy as signing up for an Instagram profile.

That means that forward-thinking agencies are implementing daily pay and next-day hiring. They’re also launching online staffing marketplaces so that they’re placing candidates at all hours of the day.

The crisis didn’t change staffing buyers’ expectations—it accelerated them

“We’ve been talking about candidate expectations since before my kids were born,” a staffing executive told us recently. What doesn’t get talked about enough are your buyer’s expectations.

After all, without orders there are no candidates to set expectations for. This truth became more evident than ever when the pandemic hit, and many staffing agencies’ calls weren’t getting returned.

But the crisis didn’t cause buyers to radically change their expectations. Instead, it accelerated buyer trends that had been in motion for years. Yes, they want to hire more people more quickly. They also want insights to make better-informed labor decisions than ever before. Plus they want help building strong employer brands.

To meet buyer expectations, staffing agencies are increasingly leaning on two key strategies: integrated tech stacks and fully-digital supply chains as well as deepening their investment in their mission and candidate care.

Operations teams are creating fully-agile workforces

It’s always been important to meet your clients’ needs on a moment’s notice. What’s changed, however, is that a flexible workforce can make or break your client’s business.

The world is increasingly embracing larger and larger contingent workforces. These workers are working on the highest-impact projects alongside full-time employees (FTEs). Contingent workforces have a greater-than-ever impact on revenue and stock prices.

Some agencies can brute force their way to meeting buyer’s needs in a moment. But forward-thinking staffing agencies are building fully- agile workforces, able to scale up or down in a moment’s notice.

New trends and processes like talent redeployment, co-opetition, and real-time seasonality are giving agencies more options than ever. They’re lowering candidate acquisition costs and winning more business.

How? By redefining and reinventing staffing agility. The new definition of staffing agility includes talent redeployment, co-opetition, and real-time seasonality.

To see how staffing agencies are changing in 2021 (and how you can too), download our free eBook

The State of Staffing 2021 shows you how the staffing industry is evolving in 2021 and beyond. We cover the top candidate trend (the rise of signup culture), buyer trend (the overnight acceleration in expectations), and operations trend (the need for fully-agile workforces).

You’ll learn about these changes from some of the staffing industry’s leading innovators. Inside the eBook are insights from:

• Patrick Beharelle (CEO at TrueBlue)
• Penny Queller (EVP @ Randstad USA)
• Nick Seger (COO at Elwood Staffing)
• Michael Whitmer (Global CIO at Recruit Global Staffing)
• Taryn Owen (President at PeopleReady)
• Brad Talwar (CEO at TalentBurst)
• Steve Kass (Chief Administrative Officer at Robert Half)
• Allison Robinson (CEO at The Mom Project)
• Jessica Johnson (Director of National Accounts at PDS Tech)
• Lars Asbjornsen (SVP Marketing at Upwork)
• And other staffing leaders who are transforming the staffing industry.

Download the eBook today to learn the trends, statistics, anecdotes, technologies, and people who are embracing signup culture and changing the future of the staffing industry