Just two years ago, many of us were predicting the worst. We wondered if we might relive scenes unseen since the ‘30s, when long queues for food and poor-paying odd jobs were commonplace. Some of us, who had given our professional lives to one company, were contemplating a grim retirement. Would our ‘golden years’ be nothing of the sort? Had our efforts to secure our retirement faded away? For others, the flow-on effects of the financial crisis were more immediate. They were struggling to make ends meet and keep their homes—all while watching the equity in their biggest asset evaporate. While most of us were circumspect about having a job at all, others were focusing their predictions on something else entirely.

Amid the morass, Littler Mendelson and MIT made two sets of predictions, which are not only proving correct, they’re providing serious food-for-thought for businesses globally.

Sounding the Alarm

The Littler report was published in 2009. It was aimed at counseling firms to achieve compliance when governmental regulation was picking up dramatic speed. It sounded the alarm bell to employers to be proactive in preparing for the post-recession evolution of the workforce, and they contended that failure to plan for drastic changes in the workforce would result in a loss of competitive advantage.

In the report, they predicted that contingent workers would constitute, on average, a full 50% of the new source of workers to whom employers would turn as the recession ended. The result of this trend would be that contingent workers would make up approximately 25% of the total workforce, and this percentage would continue to increase. What few of us realize is that the proportion of contingent workers in our workforce today is probably already over and above this 25% prediction.

Littler had consulted with Professor Robert J. Laubacher from MIT, who had co-chaired a groundbreaking study at the MIT Sloan School of Management titled Inventing the Organizations of the 21st Century. The focus of this study was not to predict the future workforce, but to clarify alternative ways of organizing work and structuring enterprises. This three-year exercise depicted what organizations would be like in 2015—and we are already seeing these depictions emerging in the business world.

Five Forces

MIT predicted that there would be five critical variables that would drive business in the future. In no specific order of importance these were; demographics, complexity, human aspirations, technology and global economic, political and physical environment.

And these forces are most certainly shaping the way organizations are structuring their workforces. In fact, the loss of over 6 million jobs and the protracted recession has actually accelerated the move towards using skilled workers on a temporary, project-by-project basis, which was key to the MIT predictions and alternative organizational models.

MIT suggested that during the pre-industrial revolution most of us were self-employed and relied heavily on professional associations to gain employment. It wasn’t until the 19th century that we all became more closely aligned as employees and dependents due to our need for benefits, professional development and a social network. MIT went on to suggest that the next phase of workforce and organizational change would involve the emergence of a contingent, flexible model, or “fluid networks for organizing tasks”.

The Fluid Network

The emergence of this ‘fluid network’ model is now virtually everywhere you look—think about huge music tours, film studios, construction companies and the mining industry. For the most part, these are large networks of contingent laborers that come together for a period of time to complete a project. Once completed, these skilled laborers transition to the next project.

Today, MIT’s and Littler’s predictions are proving correct. And, I would say that these studies have set the table for a very serious discussion that has not yet taken place in the hallowed halls of corporate America, nor throughout the global corporate community. We are in the midst of a new reality that has made many rather uncomfortable. Yet, it’s happening whether we like and accept it, or not. If you follow the actuarial and historical perspective offered by Staffing Industry Analysts, overall spending on temporary labor has more than doubled since 1995—and it’s not likely to revert back.

Back to the Future

We all know that working for one organization for your entire career is now an anomaly. Those of us in the talent acquisition profession also know that there is a paradigm shift from seeking ‘permanent’ employment to ‘contract’ employment. And in many ways, we have gone back to the way things were prior to the industrial revolution when most people worked for themselves.

The new norm is the independent worker, and now at least, they have a host of professional and social networks to support them.