Build a robust talent pipeline for these competitive reqs with takeaways from LinkedIn’s 2018 report.

Every professional should enter 2019 with a comprehensive knowledge of their industry landscape. For recruiters, this means understanding the labor trends that will affect their talent pipeline.

Though a technical skills gap is evident, with the demand for check jobs increasing 14x from 2012 to 2016. What the recruiting industry has seen is no simple trend of everyone exclusively needing digital skills. In fact, the biggest skills gap lies in oral communication — ahead of social media, design, and web development — according to LinkedIn’s 2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs Report.

Skill sets, specialized by industry, are no longer prominent; rather, businesses seek to round out their team’s capabilities with a mix of hard and soft skills. For example, two-thirds of the most recruited jobs in tech are sales-based, while the same number of most recruited jobs in non-profit organizations are tech-based.

To better understand the nuances of the ever-evolving talent economy, and prepare recruiters for 2019, we bring you the highlights of The 33 Most Recruited Roles of 2018. Learn which roles are most competitive, and the specific methods for beating out the competition for top talent.

Take a look at the most recruited jobs overall.

1) DevOps Engineer

DevOps Engineer is the most recruited position of 2018. When sourcing candidates, it’s good to keep in mind that this newly popular role is a blanket term for a wide range of responsibilities that may vary between companies. LinkedIn suggests searching “adjacent terms” like “Site Reliability Engineer”.

2) Enterprise Account Executive

Also, know as AEs, these are the folks who will ensure your top customers are happy. Hot cities for these candidates include San Francisco, New York, and Boston. Recruiters should also check out Austin, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C., where — according to the LinkedIn Talent Insights — supply is high and demand is much lower.

3) Front-End Engineer

The demand for top coders who can make a company’s website interactive and visually appealing reflects the overall shift from brick-and-mortar to virtual storefronts. What business doesn’t have an online presence in this day and age?

LinkedIn advises recruiters to look towards Beijing for applicants, a city with a similar supply of qualified candidates as San Francisco, but far less demand.

Now let’s view the most recruited roles by industry…

Technology

• Enterprise Account Executive
• DevOps Engineer
• Sales Development Rep

Note two of three “tech” jobs are actual sales roles, proving soft skills are still relevant.

Finance

• Data Scientist
• Senior Software Engineer
• Senior Tax Associate

Work-life balance is the primary concern for data scientists. Recruiters who highlight this as a tenant of their company culture are more likely to snag the top candidates.

Retail

• Software Engineer
• Senior Financial Analyst
• Senior Brand Manager

Software engineer is not only the most recruited role for retail, it’s now the third most common role in the industry (up five positions since 2013).

Professional Services

• Senior Software Engineer
• Data Scientist
• Front-End Developer

Many data scientists come from a research background, so consider searching for related terms to source candidates who could transition to data scientist roles.

Education/government/nonprofits

• Software Engineer
• Business Analyst
• System Administrator

System administrators prioritize work-life balance, salary, and security in their job search, so be sure recruiters and hiring managers highlight these benefits when talking to candidates.

…And across functions.

Engineering

• DevOps Engineer
• Front-End Engineer
• Cloud Architect

Software engineers as a whole apply to jobs at a rate 13 percent lower than the general population, proactively recruiting these candidates is the most effective strategy to hire them before you need them—or a competitor does.

Sales

• Enterprise Account Executive
• Sales Development Representative
• Senior Sales Engineer

Company culture and mission are matter most to AEs, so emphasize the company’s story and work-dynamic when talking to these candidates.

Operations

• Senior Quantity Surveyor
• Delivery Manager
• Supply Director

The Bengaluru and Chennai areas of India, as well as London, tend to have the highest supply of delivery managers — be sure to scour these locations for qualified applicants.

Marketing

• Digital Marketing Manager
• Product Marketing Manager
• Senior Brand Manager

Product marketing managers are in high demand in San Francisco’s tech economy. However, supply is also high in Paris, Shangai, and Singapore, so consider extending your sourcing and recruiting efforts in these untapped geographies as well.

HR

• Technical Recruiter
• Recruiting Coordinator
• HR Business Partner

Sourcing technical recruiters straight out of university has become popular, and there’s a wide range of majors that can be relevant. LinkedIn found that technical recruiters come from a number of disciplines, including HR management, business administration, computer science, marketing, and psychology.

The top 3 recruiting strategy pointers.

1)

Source nontraditional candidates.

Consider partnering with coding boot camps, technical colleges, and vocational schools to fill those open reqs.

Companies should also consider expanding their workforce to include non-traditional options like remote workers or freelancers. Remote workers widen your talent pool and are proven to be just as productive as their in-office counterparts. Freelancers are valuable for project-based work and typically cost less than a full-time employee. It’s predicted that by 2027 50 percent of all workers in the U.S. will be freelnace, so building a network of contractors now could set a company up for future success

2)

Assess skills, not pedigree.

Make sure the skills called out in your job advertisement are relevant. Stick to essentials and avoid cliches. If your job description has 40 skills and includes the phrase ‘fast-paced environment’, start again.

Once the requisite job skills are defined, decide how to evaluate. The market for tech-based assessment is booming, and businesses that incorporate tech-based assessment tools into their hiring process tend to reduce bias.

3)

Upskill existing employees.

Upskilling employees, rather than relying exclusively on outside hires, is an increasingly popular solution to the talent shortage facing many employers today. Investing in learning and development (L&D) programs keep a company’s employees relevant while boosting employer brand. In fact, “career growth” is one of the top three reasons candidates accept an offer.

Telecommunications giant AT&T recently invested $1 billion into reskilling their 250,000 employees with great success – the workers who participate in the program are now twice as likely to get a new role within the company, and 4 times more likely to receive a promotion.

Their program includes an online portal that showcases all 3,000 roles at the company, complete with growth projection, salary expectations, skill requirements, a library of relevant classes and training demos, and contacts within the company to learn more. AT&T creates many of their courses in-house, but also partners with educational platforms and institutions to provide additional educational resources for employees.

Advice from AT&T regarding L&D programs is threefold: frame upskilling as a practical expenditure that will save time and money in the long run, transparency is key, and constantly get feedback.

Closing thoughts.

The key to acquiring top talent is playing the long game and looking to the future. Snap solutions can hold a business over while implementing the following programs, but they aren’t permanent fixes.

In today’s candidate-driven market recruiters all too often experience the pressure to make great hires without adequate support and resources. Thankfully, there are ways that recruiters can lighten the load. TA teams who learn to automate effectively, make the most of their data, and double down on employer brand will find themselves in the best position to attract quality talent to drive business.

Challenges are also opportunities, according to LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue, who reminds us that, “Whenever companies are faced with that changing pressure, they look for solutions. That’s a great driving force,” he says, “it’s the energy behind HR innovation.”

Read the full report here!

Workers are quitting their jobs en masse to pursue the spoils of freelancing, but managing this fluid workforce is proving difficult for companies rooted in traditional employee relationship management.

It had been a disheartening failure to capture Jerusalem, and on the way home from the calamitous Third Crusade, King Richard I was captured and imprisoned by Austrian forces in December, 1192. Thousands of knights and men-at-arms loyal to the Norman king returned to England leaderless, or put another way, jobless.

In the peaceful years that followed, Europe was overrun with thousands of trained soldiers who lacked practical skills outside of combat. In order to earn a living wage, many soldiers of fortune pledged their allegiance to any wealthy patrons willing to hire them for battle. As a result, mercenaries became common war fodder for nobles and feudal lords during the Middle Ages, essential to the Crusades and other military campaigns up to the 14th century. In the early 19th century, in his novel, Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott collectively defined them as “free lances”.

Step into any coffee shop or coworking space today and see modern “freelancers” in their natural habitat. Today, the term includes all self-employed, patron-seeking workers, and while they wield wifi and laptops instead of swords and shields, they represent a steadily growing section of the American workforce in our post-manufacturing economy.

In 2015, Elance-oDesk relaunched under the name Upwork and rolled out a freelance talent platform that grew to become the world’s largest online marketplace for contract workers. The company estimates that 57.3 million Americans currently freelance—that’s 36 percent of the US workforce—and projects this growth to reach over 50 percent by 2027. Today’s independents are more agile than ever, and the promise of entrepreneurship, project-based work, and home offices draws new converts as fast as companies are reassessing strategies to accommodate them.

But for those who dream of quitting their desk jobs and adopting the lives of digital nomads, the reality is that, while companies are hiring more on contract, many lack processes and infrastructure to support these new workforces. Without proper relationship management in place, abuse will continue to rise, forcing many freelancers to push back against inept management, acting as their own enforcers and debt collectors.

* * *

Early this year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the number of open jobs outstripped unemployment totals, a state of affairs that was encouraged, according to Upwork, by 63 percent of independent professionals going freelance in the last two years—as a choice, not a necessity.

For many companies, this shift represents major strategic challenges for recruiting. As more workers swap their cubicles for home offices—coupled with the widening skill gap across multiple industries—companies with openings are experiencing a talent shortage. In 2017 Upwork reported that 39 percent of hiring managers felt hiring had gotten harder over the previous year because of this shift.

“Everybody is chasing the same talent,” says Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel. “But hiring is time-consuming—you conduct multiple rounds of interviews, meanwhile candidates interview with multiple companies.”

It takes an average of 31 days to fill an open job in the US, with some reports claiming numbers as high as 42, up from 23 days in 2006 and about 15 days in 2009.

“Hiring is also incredibly expensive,” continues Kasriel, citing a study from SHRM that prices the average cost-per-hire for companies at $4,129.

With costs per hire that steep—and the demand for knowledge workers at an all-time high—talent platforms like Upwork, FlexJobs, Guru, Hired, and Hubstaff Talent work well to connect freelancers and agencies with clients who need skilled workers, regardless of where they live.

Upwork’s success hinges on the platform’s all-inclusive talent pool, which includes anyone with an internet connection. Freelancers can create an account and bid for projects within minutes, providing its customers with a nearly limitless global workforce. This business model feels apt given the independent spirit of freelance work, and offers Upwork an advantage in the project-based economy, where more organizations are considering contract workers over location-dependent ones.

“Twenty cities in the US account for over 50% of America’s GDP,” says Kasriel. “These are the places where the cost of living is rising fast, traffic and pollution are issues, and it’s difficult for people who don’t make high wages to live in these places.”

According to Kasriel, our traditional perceptions of work “all stemmed from this idea that work had to be a place,” emphasizing the idea that location-dependant work was an industrial era construct. One need look no further than the mass migrations to tech hubs like Silicon Valley to see this concept in action.

“We are at a point today where a lot of people are being left behind,” says Kasriel. “We aren’t considering the people who are highly skilled, want to work really hard, and just happen to be living a couple hundred miles away.”

* * *

“Freelancing can mean sacrifices, especially if you live on your own,” says Adam McNeill, a freelance web designer, developer, and communications strategist based between Toronto and London, Ontario, Canada. “There’s no safety net, but it’s exciting as hell.”

McNeill pivoted into full-time freelance work in 2016 after a personal injury hindered his mobility. When he asked his managers about working remotely until he healed, his employer dismissed his request, claiming there was no company policy for remote work. Frustrated by the miles of red tape, McNeill shouldered his lance and tendered his resignation. Nearly three years on, he is confident in his decision.

“Working from my home office, not having to commute, setting my own hours—the advantages of freelancing quickly outweigh the drawbacks and liabilities,” he says. “Plus, the ways these benefits affect your emotional wellbeing are impossible to overlook.”

Most self-employed workers report a better work-life balance, better health, and higher incomes than their office-worker counterparts, with a vast majority (97 percent) of current independent professionals electing to stay self-employed rather than return to traditional work.

With conferencing software and shared asset management platforms taking the traditional workspace into the cloud, “relationships with clients can be ongoing,” says McNeill. “This has opened up a new world of possibilities for freelancers at all levels. For many verticals, freelancing could even become the norm.”

Upwork highlights that 48 percent of hiring managers are already hiring freelancers, up 43 percent from last year, and the number of hiring managers willing to consider freelance workers is almost unanimous at 90 percent. The reason for this, according to Kasriel, is that 9 out of 10 hiring managers claim to be more satisfied with the skills of freelancers than those of their most recent full-time hire.

Freelancers are much more likely to have better, more updated skills because, “you have to market yourself constantly,” says Kasriel, “whereas full-time employees are less likely to reskill themselves between jobs.”

For many businesses, extending talent pools to include freelancers allows for greater talent diversity, reduces company spending, and boosts productivity on a project basis.

However, in order for a company to work successfully with its freelancers, the decision must be unanimous, where hiring teams and executives align to lay the groundwork for successful freelance-client relationships.

The Upwork model makes finding great talent convenient, but many organizations are neither aware of, nor sensitive to, the stiff competition and fierce undercutting that occurs on these platforms. Unfortunately for most freelancers, budgets often associated with posted jobs are unrealistic, “I routinely see jobs for 1500-word blog posts that are offering a flat $5 fee,” says McNeill.

A pittance for your average mercenary, but the problem, according to McNeill, it that “fresh grads will gravitate to those gigs ‘for the exposure’, but they’re lowering the bar for everyone else.” When speaking at local colleges, McNeill warns the next generation of workers about these practices. “One of the values I try to impart to them is not to pander to this crap,” he says. “If you don’t value your own tradecraft, how can you expect anybody else to?”

Many of the professional services offered by most online talent platforms can, in an increasing number of circumstances, be completed by anyone, regardless of location, which often pits workers from North America and Europe against technical and creative contractors in developing countries over pricing wars.

Allowing customers to purchase a service at the lowest cost often results in workers undercutting one another in an “arms” race to the bottom price. As one Upwork user noted, not only does this “drive the perceived costs down for the buyers, but also dramatically drives the quality of the work down as well because the freelancers don’t have the time to pay attention to the details, the budget not allowing it.”

Meanwhile, the companies managing these talent platforms are raking in huge profits. Upwork generates $1.5 billion in gross sales a year, works with over 100k SMB clients, and boasts that 28 percent of its clients are on the Fortune 500 list. To date, the company has completed over $4 billion in work via its platform. In just last week Upwork generated $187 million through its IPO, its shares rising 40 percent above their prior value in the weeks before trading.

Seasoned freelancers are no stranger to the pricing wars fought on these online platforms, but for contractors like McNeill, issues of relationship management are the greatest pain points. “Organizations build their businesses on the near-religious belief that it’s all about trust,” he says, “but when they deal with freelancers they forget that trust and accountability also matter in these relationships.”

McNeill cites examples when he or other freelancers suspended websites and withheld services when clients delayed payment for months without justification. “These were not knee-jerk reactions,” he says. “I’m talking about pulling the plug after 8 months of being told that your check is in the mail. It happens all the time, and with big brands—no freelancer wants to work this way.”

When it comes to getting paid, a recent survey from Bill.com found that 54 of freelancers feel it takes too long. “Most corporations have payment terms of 45 days or even 60, which is brutal when you’re self-employed,” said Liz Steblay, founder and CEO of the Professional Independent Consultants of America (PICA). “To add insult to injury,” she continued, “it’s surprising how many clients still pay by hard-copy check, which can easily add another week to the payment process.”

* * *

Even with trends suggesting that the freelance workforce is growing, are companies really willing to embrace freelancers and entrepreneurs, or are they merely paying lip service to the idea without understanding the full extent of what managing a freelance workforce requires?

For as much as companies strive to continually improve candidate and employee experience—offering benefits packages, further skills training, and hosting team-building events—is the same consideration given to freelancers?

Sort of. Traditionally, businesses saved money hiring freelancers because they were not obligated to provide medical benefits or paid vacation time as part of compensation, but more corporations are realizing they need to make their work environments more appealing to top-quality free agents with perks like retirement savings, health insurance, tax assistance, and workers compensation coverage.

Reticence from companies to hire remote workforces likely stems, in part, from expectations that these benefits packages will become standard offerings to freelancers, which often position companies in murky legal waters. Certain benefits could mean companies must classify its contract workforce as employees, which can result in additional tax and wage requirements for businesses.

But as Millennials continue to become the largest workforce demographic, they are driving change in the workplace by seeking an updated dynamic for how they bring their employers value, and on terms that facilitate the unpredictable demands of a hyper-pressure world.

So what exactly does the future of freelancing look like? Kasriel argues that workforces will soon resemble movie crews, where “teams are self-assembled and everything is project-based. Movies are an industry where flexibility, agility, and specialization are increasing to meet the demands of the labor market.”

The film industry has a long and well-established history, with unions like the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) tracing its lineage back to 1893, only a few decades after Sir Walter Scott’s first mention of the freelance crusader mercenaries of old. Likening the freelance economy to the movie industry sounds like hopeful conjecture, particularly when workers and organizations require more education on sustainable and responsible freelance practices.

“We should be teaching kids how to do this,” says McNeill. “I would really love to see more of a curriculum revelation. I don’t think we’re teaching the future workforce in a way that will prepare and support them for what will likely become an inevitable stage of their careers and lives.”

At the same time, companies need guidance in developing solid foundations for freelance talent management before they start hiring contract workers. This means establishing more efficient communication channels, prompt and fair payment methods, and contingency plans or systems to navigate conflicts and challenges.

Until businesses and contract workers can realize a more mutually beneficial work relationship, it’s likely that most freelancers, despite experiencing greater autonomy and reaping better opportunities than ever before, will continue to trek through the industry like battle-weary soldiers without leadership.

“The traditional way of doing things has engendered a false sense of authority in organizations, says McNeill. “Many managers have had it easy with employees who never push back and are happy to take their employers’ money, confident that warm bodies in chairs do productive employees make. This attitude doesn’t work for freelancers.”

The American workforce is becoming increasingly freelance, and Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel wants to leverage this to establish a new work mentality.  

If data is now our most valuable currency, then time is the greatest commodity. When it takes businesses an average of 32+ days to fill open positions, it’s no stretch to see why companies are delaying, canceling or extending their project workloads. And this comes at great expense. According to Upwork CEO Stephane Kasriel, the competition for high-demand jobs like developers and engineers means talent shortages, multiple rounds of time-consuming interviews, and increased company spending.

Even though traditional hiring depletes company resources, demand remains, and freelancers need to connect with clients who need their skills. To learn more about why companies are foregoing hiring in favor of contracting, we invited Stephane Kasriel to speak at our Hiring Success conference in San Francisco. You can watch his full presentation in the video embedded above, or continue reading for a summary.

Kasriel frames his talk around the historical evolution of work over the last two centuries, beginning with the Industrial Revolution, where labor contracts brought many workers “from farmhouses to factory floors”, which eventually led to the cubicle model of the 1950s, ushering in service jobs that required phones and computers. Over time, these models of work laid the foundation for today’s work landscape, where “technology is removing barriers of traditional hiring models born of the Industrial Era.”

True, many professions today can be accomplished anywhere with a broadband connection, and with the rise of free video conferencing software and flex schedules, Kasriel sees a dwindling need for traditional offices. It’s no secret that an increasing number millennials are embracing the white-collar gig economy, electing to freelance full time, creating opportunity for online platforms like Upwork to address the talent shortage facing many businesses.

According to a recent report from Upwork, three times as many hiring managers felt hiring had gotten harder in 2017 over the previous year, citing issues related to the interview process and hiring costs.

Upwork claims its platform is solving many of these problems by “making online work similar to local work, with added speed, cost, and quality advantages.” Kasriel outlines how improvements to each of these criteria have contributed to making Upwork the world’s largest talent platform, resulting in $1.5 billion GSV per year and 28 percent of its clients on the Fortune 500 list. From developers to lawyers and designers, Upwork covers “over 5000 skills, across a hundred different categories,” says Kasriel. “We are the place where people can find just about any kind of knowledge work that can be done from anywhere in the world.”

And breaking down the borders separating people from work is exactly the kind of messaging Kasriel and his team want to promote, with claims that Upwork can create a new mentality he calls “work without limits”.

“We are at a point today where a lot of people are being left behind,” he says. “We aren’t considering the people who are highly skilled, who want to work really hard, and just happen to be living a couple hundred miles away.”

To that end, Kasriel argues that contracting workers is not only better for businesses, but aligns with the demands of today’s job market and independent professionals. Kasriel predicts that “by 2027, the majority of the US workforce will be freelance,” and points to a study from McKinsey Global Institute, that suggests freelancers could add $2.7 trillion to global GDP over this same period.

The future of freelancing looks promising for online talent platforms like Upwork, especially when validated by companies shifting their talent strategies to include more contract workers. Kasriel says that these companies are seeing results, with 90 percent of hiring managers claiming to be more satisfied with the skills of freelancers than their most recent full-time hire and 80 percent of them reporting increased team productivity thanks to a recent freelance hire.

As more individuals pursue careers as independent professionals, the scale will inevitably tip away from traditional work models, and more companies will evolve their talent strategies in response. In an era where efficiency and cost-cutting are the metrics by which we evaluate business success, for many companies, contracting workers rather than hiring them full time is today’s most convenient solution.

As more individuals pivot into freelance and self-employed work, companies are rethinking how to attract and retain independent professionals.

Corner offices and pensions are no longer the end game for many working professionals, and—as usual—you can blame millennials. As of 2015, millennials are the dominant demographic of the American workforce, and the white collars of this up-and-coming generation have a new career priority in mind: independence. It’s the gig economy, but for professionals, and it could be the answer to the talent shortage currently squeezing the tech sector.

By 2020 it’s predicted that 27 million American will transition to self employment, nearly tripling the number from 2015. And it’s a mistake to think those numbers are coming mainly from entry-level task apps like Uber, Postmates, or Task Rabbit. In fact, task workers only account for 10 percent of the 15 million full-time independent workers in the US according to an annual report from the accounting service FreshBooks. The study, which surveyed 2700 full-time independents, found that 43 percent of individuals desire more control over their careers, with an additional 43 percent planning on completely switching their careers once self-employed.

As a result, the labor market is now experiencing a talent vacuum, and employers are desperately seeking to fill a record number of openings. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that employers posted 6.6 million available jobs in March 2018, up from 5.6 million the previous year. With 6.3 million people currently unemployed in the US, there is a now surplus of open positions in the job market, allowing more individuals to lead their own charge in the war for talent, and command a premium price for their services.

A 2017 report from MBO Partners identified 3.2 million full-time independents who made more than $100,000 annually, up 4.9 percent from previous years. As a whole, 43 percent of full-time independents said they earn more money working on their own and experience greater job security than traditional work. Top earners in the freelance sector include: programmers and software developers, web designers, content marketers, and graphic designers—and companies are paying top dollar for their work.

Though higher incomes and more stable careers are attractive byproducts of self-employment, many next wave workers value the emotional and psychological payoff of work more strongly than previous generations. Quickly becoming the “work to live” generation, 51 percent of millennials with traditional jobs say more flexibility is an advantage of becoming an independent worker or starting your own business, compared to 42 percent of Gen Xers and 40 percent of Baby Boomers. Meanwhile, 44 percent of millennials with traditional jobs say pursuing a passion or interest is an advantage of working independently, while only 32 percent of Gen Xers and Baby Boomers say it is a factor.

While new independent workers value the flexible and emotionally rewarding lifestyle that self-employment provides, the transition is not without its challenges, albeit ones that millennials are willing to embrace. Independent work often demands longer hours with less availability for time off, even extending the age of retirement beyond the traditional 65 cutoff. Yet, 62 percent of millennials surveyed don’t expect to stop work after age 65, and will continue working as a choice rather than a necessity.

Delaying retirement also seems to have an effect on workers’ overall career satisfaction. Employee satisfaction in a traditional job typically diminishes as the age gap increases, but the FreshBooks report shows that self-employment has an upward trend the longer independents keep working. Despite more time spent working, many self-employed workers report that they experience a better work life balance, better health, and higher incomes, with a vast majority (97 percent) of current independent professionals electing to stay self-employed rather than return to traditional work in the future.

TA professionals also seem to struggle with sourcing and hiring great talent for permanent positions, as a 2018 study from Upwork revealed that 39 percent of hiring managers felt hiring was harder in the past year, citing difficulty in accessing candidates with specialized talents as the biggest challenge. As new technological innovations in fields such as robotics, AI, and blockchain further disrupt the industry, training workers to stay abreast of new technologies will become a high priority for many companies.

In response, hiring managers are now tapping into the independent workforce to fill open positions on a contract basis. Gene Zaino, President and CEO of MBO Partners, highlights how an increasing number of companies are hiring more independent workers over permanent employees as a way to stay flexible and agile in the swift modern economy. “If you are in a very high-change environment,” he says, “making full-time commitments is a bigger decision than just paying someone to get a project done.”

Independent workers may also have a positive effect on team dynamics. Jeff Christofis, VP & Practice Lead of KellyConnect at Kelly Services sees an increase in employee satisfaction and productivity thanks to their remote hiring practices. “Embracing the remote work environment has proven to be a highly effective approach to not only attracting talent,” he says, “but allowing companies to achieve higher levels of productivity, and gain efficiencies while providing employees with greater work life balance.”

It’s no secret that respected and valued employees are prepared to deliver their best work, and independent workers are no different. More companies are realizing the need to become the “clients of choice” for freelancers, and that includes treating them as a more than replaceable and inexpensive labor tools. Including independent workers in the company culture or offering services that promote their growth and success—such as job boards with new opportunities, training programs to expand their skills, and networking events with employees—can be foundational in building strong relationships with freelance workers.

The independent professionals of the future workforce are poised to be some of the best educated and highest paid contract workers in the modern economy, and companies will soon need to adapt their hiring practices and team structures to accommodate them. This shift in the American workforce hails a profound change in the American dream: Rather than climbing the corporate ladder, the next wave of professionals want to be their own bosses.