When Jason Cerrato, senior director of product marketing at Eightfold, the AI-powered, talent-management platform, listens in on the zeitgeist conversation about how hard it is to be an HR leader right now, his more than two decades of experience in the field helps him stay grounded.

“In every one of those years there was always this phrase we would hear: ‘Next year’s going to be a difficult year,’” Cerrato said. “So even when times were good, it was difficult.” Still, someone as seasoned as Cerrato admits that challenges abound in 2023.

As he noted in From Day One’s recent January virtual conference, during a presentation titled, “Why an Elastic Workforce May Be the Answer to Your Talent Challenges,” many companies today face hiring freezes or a lack of candidate volume in the job market, which may generate frustration in hiring managers. Some organizations are also spending lots of energy to find in-house talent that can capably fill positions higher up on the company totem pole, while others are considering layoffs.

“How do you have a hiring freeze while you’re trying to build pipelines, where you’re trying to find [employees with] the right skills, where you’re trying to increase candidate volume?” Cerrato said. “It’s a little bit of three-dimensional chess.”

An elastic workforce, however, could be a solution to these problems for many employers. according to Cerrato’s Eightfold colleague, Rebecca Warren, the company’s director of customer success, “freelancers, ‘giggers,’ temps, contingent workers, consultants and contractors” are the kinds of employees that can comprise an elastic workforce. And, as she explained, “connecting non-traditional workers to an overall talent strategy [generates] flexibility for organizations to scale up and down.”

For example, when a contingent worker finishes a project, Warren said, a contract is simply closed, a maneuver with less of an impact on an organization than the elimination of an entire position. 

“Being able to be agile and dynamic and respond to changes in the market, in how you deliver to customers, in the skill mix you need, what you’re trying to develop in-house, and what you’re trying to supplement with external expertise,” Cerrato said. “I think that’s what we’re seeing with this type of strategy coming into popularity.”

While 517,000 jobs were added to the U.S. market in January, many still predict a rocky economic road in the near term. Given this uncertainty, more employers are turning to contingent workers to fill their open positions. Between May and November 2022, according to Fortune, the number of openings for contract and temporary roles posted in the U.S. shot up 26% compared to the same period in 2021. 

Regardless of the economic forecast for 2023, Eightfold believes this hiring trend is here to stay. Warren said in a recent survey, Eightfold found that by 2025, most Fortune 500 companies will expand their contingent workforce from six percent to 30 percent.

Getting the most out of this approach, Warren advised, will mean adopting it as a true hiring strategy, as opposed to a series of “knee-jerk” hires done just to get some small projects finished. “There’s a lot of folks that are looking at this around: ‘How do we build out this workforce with contingent workers, with full-time employees, with all different kinds of sourcing to get at the proper skill mix?’” said Cerrato.

“We’re seeing a lot of companies now work in projects, as opposed to in positions,” Warren added. “So [they’re asking]: ‘What do we need to do to get this project done? Is it pulling in cross-functional folks? Is it adding consultants who have that expertise, either to get it off the ground, keep it going or to finish off the project?’”

Achieving an elastic workforce could mean “building an internal talent pool,” Warren said, of employees who might want to work in different areas. People managers should find out what skill sets workers may have that are not being utilized in their current role, the better to project what else they could be doing inside the company. 

Hiring managers can also build their elastic workforce by sourcing past employees, contractors and applicants, Warren said, and by asking current workers about past colleagues they may still be in touch with. There’s also third-party agencies that companies can tap for sourcing vetted candidates, she said. 

“Organizations are building frameworks and using technology that allows for a project-based approach, while still supporting, growing, and maintaining their existing talent from project to project,” Cerrato said. “This kind of whole project marketplace and project-based approach, from all talent audiences, allows for more agility, but also this incorporation of your total talent network.”

So elasticity in a company’s workforce isn’t just a 2023 solution. It should come in handy all those other years in which things in HR seem overwhelming.

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Eightfold, for sponsoring this Thought Leadership Spotlight.

Michael Stahl is a New York City-based freelance journalist, writer, and editor. You can read more of his work at MichaelStahlWrites.com, follow him on Twitter @MichaelRStahl, and order his first book, the autobiography of Major League Baseball pitcher Bartolo Colón, at Abrams Books.