Creating Flexi Jobs

Create Flexi jobs - An alternate approach to our staffing needs

Unlike the earlier days, today the major challenge for an entrepreneur or manager is to identify the right talent at the right time. No wonder, Talent Acquisition has evolved as a corporate function in the last few years. If you talk to an HR researcher or any practitioner from the industry, they will bring out talent sourcing as ‘the’ challenge they face. If the situation continues, most of us will agree that we will not have the advantage of being the preferred destination with access to a large educated talent pool. In this context we need to view temporary staffing or part time jobs as an alternate approach to many of our immediate staffing needs. Various HR forums have already identified part time jobs as a future trend. Quite common in the developed world, we are likely to see the part time job phenomenon gaining acceptance in India too.

It is a fact that currently this is viewed as a less recognized, less organized process of hiring. Most often in the past, corporates approached temp staffing only to meet certain short-term non critical assignments or to replace some temporary leave vacancies The social stigma to a non permanent job has also largely contributed to it. It is a proven fact that “job security” is no longer a differentiator for any employer. “pink slips” have happened in the most permanent and lucrative jobs also. These days security or insecurity relates more to the “employability” or “marketability” of the person. If you are marketable, you will permanently earn and continue to maintain the required social status. So what really differentiates between a permanent and temporary job?

In developed nations; temp staffing is resorted to meet various specialized requirements. Indian IT industry itself matured and grew based on the temp staffing opportunities across the globe, where specialists were hired as “consultants”. They executed the most complex projects in a scenario where hiring such specialists to permanent positions were next to impossible. Not to mention that these “contractors” were most often paid more than the permanent employees! So it is all a question of our mindset.

Let us look at it from a few other angles as well. While even being in active profession most of us would have at times thought of developing an “alternate career”. Many of us might have some “skill” which could be of advantage to others. There could be an urge to pursue some active areas of interest. Most of us who had long years of education wanted to always “earn while we learn”. All such activities have also helped us gain a lot of exposure which even came handy when we lead teams. For many of us these were a need, and for a few others an opportunity to earn those extra bucks or to keep themselves engaged. If we can reach out to educated home makers, retired professionals and students, we will be definitely opening a flood gate of talent pool available across even the smaller cities and towns. Employers will benefit in getting ‘quality’ work done, especially with less spent in managing employee engagement and talent retention.

Very often we see people taking to careers due to parental guidance. These days, career counseling has also become a must for any young job aspirant. Instead, should we not advise them to take the route of part time jobs? Practically, there is no better way to expose a future employee to the nuances of a job and for the employer to do a proper check on his capabilities. Employers, I am sure would be only willing to hire those part timers permanently once they prove their mettle during the assignment. So can we not look at it as an accepted mode of entry? In earlier days, all such opportunities came either by accident or through personal references. Identifying such opportunities in today’s world is much trickier. Our modern economy accepts this as need for better social networking. Any forum that can formalize such social networking will be the right step towards formalizing the temporary jobs phenomenon. These forums can act as a medium between job seekers and employers, and soon we will relate to this potential source of talent pool and recognize it as the one-stop solution to our staffing nightmares.

Moving forward I am sure we will also more often see specialists in management and technology, preferring to take up jobs which offer them better earning potential packed with a lot of flexibility in working. Organizations will be only happy to work with such specialists who have accepted this as their strategy to strike a balance between work and life.

Is it the name that is creating an impression on us? If so call it a “Flexi Job” instead of temporary job or part time job; if that can help us move forward fast.

sunils@nousinfo.com

Sunil Sankar
Vice President- Operations & HR

Web : www.nousinfosystems.com