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The era of digital disruption for chief human resource officers (CHROs) is often referred to as the "gig economy" (also known as contingent work, sharing economy, agile talent, non-traditional work relationships, or alternate forms of employment), with Uber and Airbnb receiving most of the attention from the press. Other gig economy "digital disruptors" include Lyft (ride sharing), UpCounsel (legal experts), Instacart (shopping and delivery), and TaskRabbit (odd jobs). The rapidly accelerating growth of the gig economy represents one of the most significant and all-encompassing challenges faced by human resources professionals. The fundamental question is whether human resources can demonstrate the agility to lead the change in culture, programs, processes, and policies originally designed for work completed by full-time employees to a new era when more of the work is being completed by a talent portfolio increasingly represented by contingent workers (also referred to as gigsters, free agents, temporary help, agency workers, on-call workers, contract workers, independent contractors, or freelancers).
Technology-enabled talent platforms are accelerating the disruption of the status quo for CHROs and creating a new era of business turbulence often referred to as VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). Illustrations of these talent platforms include Tongal, Topcoder, and Mechanical Turk, which better enable people to have more control over how they work-whether that's better balance between work and home, choosing passion-driven projects, or being their own boss-the gig economy makes all those things possible on a scale like never before. As a CHRO, you will have to determine whether you will leverage these and other talent platforms to successfully manage your entire talent portfolio, or leave that responsibility to the hiring departments or procurement.
Companies transforming to the new challenges of the gig economy realize that they must act in new ways about accessing and leveraging key talent and filling critical gaps in core capabilities. Although most executives want to get the most value possible from external talent, their organizations are not set up for it. They know that they must act, but it is not clear to them what needs to be done. So how can CHROs navigate this turbulent VUCA environment and help their management colleagues and HR team anticipate and act on the changes being driven by the gig economy on...