Flexible employment, as distinct from full-time standard employment, is a model based on the fluctuating demand for manpower, allowing for the flexible hiring of talents according to demand peaks and troughs. This encompasses various forms such as part-time employment, labor dispatch, retiree rehiring, internships, job outsourcing, business process outsourcing, partnerships, self-employment, platform-based employment, and more.
In China, as more individuals choose flexible employment, its importance has gained recognition from the Chinese government. Limited formal job opportunities and stringent regulations have led formal workers to experience notably lower income levels than before. Consequently, many seeking higher incomes have shifted to flexible employment at the lower levels. This trend might expand and help ease unemployment pressures. Initiatives supported by the government have significantly improved the environment for flexible workers in China, leading to more organized and quality-focused employment development. As China undergoes economic transformation and structural adjustments, informal sectors have experienced rapid expansion. Both macro statistical data and micro household data consistently demonstrate one thing: flexible employment is an effective solution for addressing present and future unemployment challenges in China. (1)
What problems can flexible employment solve for enterprises?
Flexible employment not only reduces the labor costs for companies but also allows them to quickly assemble professional work teams when encountering projects with high demands for specialized skills or sudden needs for a large amount of temporary labor. This flexibility enables companies to adapt to market changes effectively. Therefore, flexible employment is one of the crucial human resource management strategies for modern enterprises.
1. Reduce costs and risks for enterprises.
The flexible employment model can reduce the labor costs and risks for enterprises from multiple dimensions. Under the full-time standard employment model, the labor costs that companies need to bear include salary and benefits (such as social insurance, provident fund, bonuses, welfare, paid leave, talent development), office space rental fees, and recruitment management, among others. Flexible employment can help companies save on both fixed and hidden labor costs as sociated with talent management, shorten the recruitment cycle, eliminate complex onboarding and offboarding processes, flexibly combine diverse salary and benefit costs, and increase talent retention and job matching rates.
2. Allows companies to have flexible team sizes.
While a unified and fixed employment model facilitates efficient business operations, flexible employment can meet diverse business operational needs in the face of rapidly changing external environments and internal business developments. It helps companies better adapt to fluctuations in market demand. For instance, when companies engage in inter-ecosystem collaboration, inter-segment collaboration within a group, or operate across regions and countries, temporary business demands may arise. When companies hire temporary or part-time staff, they can more easily adjust the number and duration of personnel according to project requirements or workload changes. This flexibility allows companies to meet their temporary or seasonal labor needs and achieve efficient resource allocation.
3. Allows companies to have teams with outstanding expertise.
Flexible employment emphasizes collaboration rather than employment, allowing companies to collaborate with talents possessing key capabilities through diversified employment methods such as consultants, joint investments, and other partnership forms. This enables companies to successfully leverage external capabilities, quickly acquire more professional talent resources, assist in project completion, and enhance project quality and efficiency. Assigning dedicated personnel to specific tasks through flexible employment can help companies to meet project requirements, reduce the time and energy core employees spend on tasks they are not adept at, enabling them to focus on their core responsibilities and improve work efficiency.
4. Enables companies to accomplish tasks more efficiently.
Flexible employment can help companies establish resilient employment models, reducing recruitment management time and efficiently responding to project demands. By utilizing flexible employment platforms to post job openings, companies can adjust their human resources more quickly and flexibly, increasing or decreasing staff numbers in response to fluctuations in talent demand during peak and off-peak seasons, project expansions or contractions, and other changes in project requirements. This helps reduce the risks and time costs associated with unforeseen events and emergencies affecting normal business operations. Additionally, automated scheduling systems and commission settlements reduce the time invested in human resource management, allowing companies to focus more on strategic decision-making and market expansion. These factors contribute to companies delivering projects ahead of schedule or more efficiently, enhancing their competitiveness.
5. Enables companies to gain a deeper understanding of the market.
External temporary employees often come from diverse backgrounds and industries, providing companies with a broader range of perspectives and experiences. This encourages companies to generate creative solutions that are tailored to market demands from new ways of thinking, thereby enhancing competitiveness. Additionally, as globalization deepens, companies increasingly need to expand their global market share. Flexible employment can help companies overcome obstacles posed by differences in employment regulations and cultures across different countries and regions. When hiring local talents, companies can gain access to professionals who are more familiar with and experienced in local regulations and business practices, providing valuable insights into the local market. This not only helps companies reduce the risks of entering new markets and better integrate into local markets but also enhances their competitiveness globally, reducing operational risks.
What problems can flexible employment solve for enterprises? Through adopting flexible employment, companies can overcome budget constraints or lack of human resource management, effectively respond to market changes, enhance project execution efficiency, expand professional skill reserves, recruit suitable talents accurately, achieve faster project delivery, gain insights into the local market, and achieve business growth.
As a reliable bridge connecting enterprises with excellent professional talents in China, Robert Half is committed to providing high-quality professional talent recruitment services to enterprises, helping them achieve business growth and successful development. Please contact us now to learn more about the problems flexible employment can solve for enterprises, as well as the risks and responsibilities that companies need to face when implementing flexible employment models.
Bibliography:
(1) China new flexible employment report 2023
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