New Report Identifies Top Roadblocks Companies Face with 'Future of Work' Preparation

BOSTON, April 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Catalant, the technology company enabling an agile workforce, today released a report which revealed that while the majority of companies have a 'Future of Work' plan in place (63 percent), several roadblocks are impeding companies from truly transforming their workforce to be more dynamic – the most urgent issue for operationalizing a company's Future of Work strategy.

Driven by dramatic and irreversible trends in labor demographics and technology, today's organizations are faced with massive pressure to rethink the role of talent. For HR leaders, this is so significant that developing an agile workforce (53 percent) outranks "investing in artificial intelligence and automation" (19 percent). The report, Reimagining Work 20/20, identifies the issues facing organizations as the modern workforce evolves due to changes in labor and advances in technology.  

According to the survey, training (44 percent), planning and budgeting (38 percent) and technology (37 percent) are the top three challenges standing in the way of companies trying to evolve their workforce in order to take advantage of the Future of Work. While companies have started to address these challenges, there's a realization that traditional methods of finding talent aren't working – with 47 percent of companies reporting that it takes more than 90 days to fill critical roles. Additionally, the survey found that there are gaps in functionality and awareness of tech solutions that could very well remedy the talent situation: 36 percent of companies plan to increase the number of technology tools to manage their "talent supply chain" in 2018, while 25 percent of companies that do not currently use online talent marketplaces plan to start using them in 2018.

Within organizations, CEOs (10 percent) and CHRO/Chief Talent Officers (38 percent) are both considered stakeholders driving the conversation around the Future of Work, but most respondents (52 percent) see both as drivers – meaning that the responsibility for preparing a company for the future of work lies with both parties. But operationalizing the Future of Work must go beyond conversations around rethinking the role of talent. To fully realize the potential of the Future of Work, companies will have to make bold and tough changes to their internal cultures and reimagine how talent and strategy are interlinked.

Companies who plan to overcome these roadblocks, by developing a change management strategy and adopting new technology believe there are significant benefits including:

• Access to highly skilled or specialized talent (75 percent of respondents)
• Finding the right talent to get work done faster (62 percent of respondents)
• Increased speed of talent acquisition (57 percent of respondents)
• Reduced reliance on brand name consulting firms (40 percent, compared with 66 percent of respondents who said their companies were overspending on consulting)

"Our experience with the Fortune 100 and leading global companies suggests we've reached a critical transformation point, as they prepare for what the Future of Work actually means for their business in the present. We've found that they believe the Future of Work is radically agile; going forward, talent strategy will mean accessing the right skills inside or outside their company, at the right time, without the constraints of job descriptions, office walls or geographic boundaries. Those that embrace this future and develop an on-demand mindset in managing their workforce will be positioned to innovate faster and adapt more quickly to changing market conditions. Those that do not may fail," said Rob Biederman, Co-CEO and Co-Founder, Catalant.

For more information on the results, click here to download the whitepaper and learn more about the report.

Survey Methodology
Survata conducted the Catalant-sponsored survey of 100 senior HR professionals in the United States. Respondents represented organizations with revenues of $100 million in more and at least 2,000 employees.

About Catalant Technologies
Catalant Technologies helps companies build an agile workforce, with technology and programs that enable them to access the talent they need, when they need it, wherever it is. Forward-looking executives partner with Catalant to transform the structure of how their companies' work gets done and the behaviors that drive or delay agile workforce transformation.

Over 20 percent of the Fortune 1000 use Catalant's best practices and platform to frictionlessly access and deploy internal and external talent, including over 50,000 independent consultants and 1,000 boutique firms in Catalant's expert marketplace. Anonymized data from leading companies train Catalant's AI-powered talent matching and recommendation engine, inform its program design and best practices, and surface counter-intuitive insights that get smarter over time.

Catalant is based in Boston, Massachusetts, and serves customers around the world. Visit us at gocatalant.com.

Press Contact

Elizabeth Banta
Edelman
[email protected] 
212-704-4510

SOURCE Catalant Technologies