Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Quick Takes Tim Stinovic from Bloomberg Radio. Every time I
Speaker 1: talked with the company and senior leaders, I was doing it.
Speaker 1: So this morning, the really issue of the workforce, access
Speaker 1: to workers, reskilling, figuring out the way forward post pandemic. Really,
Speaker 1: what comes up a lot too is hybrid flexibility, work patterns.
Speaker 1: All of this continues to come up. We're all trying
Speaker 1: to figure it out our way forward. Our next guest
Speaker 1: has often joined us to talk about all of this.
Speaker 1: She's got a front seat to it. Great to add
Speaker 1: back with us, Jody Miller. She's co founder, co CEO
Speaker 1: and chairwoman at Business Talent Group BTG, and she's back
Speaker 1: with us on the phone from Los Angeles. How are
Speaker 1: you great, Carol, Thanks so much for having me. It's
Speaker 1: great to have you here, and it's a great day
Speaker 1: to talk with you, especially when we just heard from J. Powell,
Speaker 1: Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and he says the labor
Speaker 1: market has a ways to go in terms of getting
Speaker 1: back to those pre pandemic levels. How do you see
Speaker 1: it well from our point of view, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: fast moving on demand talent. It's it's booming. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: everyone in the space is seeing you know, double digit
Speaker 1: growth and there's enormous demand and talent is busy, and
Speaker 1: uh so it's a it's a good time to be
Speaker 1: an independent professional. Well, remind our audience that the kind
Speaker 1: of talent you're dealing with, right, because we know that
Speaker 1: there's dislocations in the workforce. Where are you seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: this on demand talent, where is it really being called upon?
Speaker 1: So we deal with what we would call the high
Speaker 1: high end independent talent, former management consultants, former executive subject
Speaker 1: matter experts um, you know, senior business people who can
Speaker 1: go in and take on projects immediately. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. We just did our fourth Skills Index and
Speaker 1: what we found, not surprisingly, is there a category of
Speaker 1: things that are somewhat related to the COVID period that
Speaker 1: are growing very fast. So B two B marketing, you know,
Speaker 1: anyone who's in B two B marketing knows you had
Speaker 1: to we write the playbook UM forecasting, compliance, strategy and
Speaker 1: process these huge, huge growth. At the same time, the
Speaker 1: things that are most um common in the on demand
Speaker 1: world are basics project management, market landscape and research, growth strategy.
Speaker 1: So I think we're seeing this population able to both
Speaker 1: pitch in and help on very specific things that are
Speaker 1: happening in the world now, but also take on, you know,
Speaker 1: the traditional roles that you know they can jump in
Speaker 1: and provide value for. What about the trend that you're
Speaker 1: seeing today post pandemic is different from what you saw
Speaker 1: pre pandemic And what does it tell you, potentially, Jody,
Speaker 1: about the broader economy? So the most significant surprising trend
Speaker 1: is that our projects just flip to switch and went remote.
Speaker 1: Clients who would never consider remote work all of a
Speaker 1: sudden had to and they learned that it could be
Speaker 1: very productive. So, where you know, we used to have of,
Speaker 1: you know, let's say our projects with some on site component,
Speaker 1: we shifted to you know, almost fully remote. And I
Speaker 1: think that is a change that will persist and be
Speaker 1: part of the mix going forward. Interesting, how do you
Speaker 1: deuxtapose that against companies who are with their regular workforce
Speaker 1: trying to figure out remote not remote hybrid? How do
Speaker 1: we do it? Someone said to me this morning, and
Speaker 1: I think it's a great line. Is remote is a capability,
Speaker 1: not a challenge, And I think that's really a great
Speaker 1: way to think about it. That companies have learned that
Speaker 1: they can do a lot remotely. Um, there's also a
Speaker 1: lot of benefits to being in person, and I think
Speaker 1: each company is going to have to figure that out.
Speaker 1: I think with with the on demand talent, you actually
Speaker 1: have the ability to test right. You can try to
Speaker 1: do something remotely on a project and see if it works,
Speaker 1: and if it does, then you have confidence in doing
Speaker 1: it remotely going forward. So in other words, one size
Speaker 1: doesn't fit all. Yes, yeah, which makes sense, Jody. If
Speaker 1: we start to see the economy or companies kind of
Speaker 1: pull back, we've already seen it, Google, Apple kind of
Speaker 1: postponing when they bring everybody back to the workforce, how
Speaker 1: might that impact what you're seeing? And just got about
Speaker 1: thirty seconds and then we'll come back and talk some more.
Speaker 1: I think when you have instability and uncertainty, having an
Speaker 1: ability to quickly bring in talent and have them focus
Speaker 1: on something near term and specific can be a very
Speaker 1: smart way to deal with that kind of uncertainty. Jody,
Speaker 1: you said at the top of our last block that
Speaker 1: on demand talent is booming. What does it tell you
Speaker 1: about a lot of the businesses that are out there,
Speaker 1: and I'm assuming that a lot of the businesses that
Speaker 1: you work with are large. But you can clarify that
Speaker 1: for me because that also gives us an idea of
Speaker 1: kind of what's going on in the economy. If if
Speaker 1: they're upbeat enough to hire these talent to work on projects,
Speaker 1: they must have some optimism about the outlook. Yes, um,
Speaker 1: our clients tend to be you know, Fortune one thousand
Speaker 1: or equivalents, the firms, major nonprofits, and they are busy
Speaker 1: and as you know, you know, the the whole talent
Speaker 1: market is busy. Um. The permanent recruitment is very um busy.
Speaker 1: Right now. Talent have options, they have, you know, the
Speaker 1: ability to decide what they want to do, and as
Speaker 1: more and more projects become available, that also makes being
Speaker 1: an independent professional more attractive. And so we're seeing it
Speaker 1: happen on kind of both sides of the scale, more
Speaker 1: talent coming into the market and more clients understanding that
Speaker 1: this is a resource that they can tap into. I'm
Speaker 1: always cursed when you talk about these because they are
Speaker 1: their senior level individuals um as you said, executive management
Speaker 1: who take on these projects. Do they often hire staff
Speaker 1: and others to do it or is it usually a
Speaker 1: one person kind of thing. It's a great question. Um,
Speaker 1: there can be small teams UM. Firms like ours can
Speaker 1: help build those small teams UM and they are able
Speaker 1: to leverage their expertise with people who can do different
Speaker 1: pieces of the puzzle. So it's absolutely or you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes they go in and the company themselves have resources
Speaker 1: that they can surround them with. Well. Based on then,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm most thinking about trickle down trickle up,
Speaker 1: But these are obviously the senior people who are leading
Speaker 1: the projects. But I do wonder, based on where you
Speaker 1: know they're working, what does it tell you about kind
Speaker 1: of the younger workforce where they need to be focusing
Speaker 1: their efforts. Again a great question. You know, the younger
Speaker 1: workforce is very intrigued by the control that being a
Speaker 1: project executive and independent professional gives you UM, And what
Speaker 1: you know I would say to that generation is you
Speaker 1: need to be sure you've got the skills that are
Speaker 1: in demand and have the ability to go in and
Speaker 1: provide value right away. So you know, looking at you know,
Speaker 1: all of the growth sectors, look at the things you
Speaker 1: know that we get asked to do every day, compliance
Speaker 1: strategy and processes, you know understanding how to help these
Speaker 1: companies with the increase cyber security risks. You know, understanding
Speaker 1: how to go in and help a company that can
Speaker 1: no longer meet their clients in person the same way
Speaker 1: they used to. So having really relevant timely skills and
Speaker 1: the ability to jump in and create value is going
Speaker 1: to be what's going to give them options. I am
Speaker 1: also curious to how much are you increasingly seeing big
Speaker 1: companies or the companies that you work with. You mentioned
Speaker 1: Fortune one companies and PE firms and nonprofits. How much
Speaker 1: are also increasingly just kind of outsourcing when they've got
Speaker 1: a specific project, rather than maybe having kind of a
Speaker 1: special projects team in house. You know, I think companies
Speaker 1: do both. UM. They can have special projects teams in house,
Speaker 1: but sometimes growth comes, you know, when you don't expect it,
Speaker 1: and so you have needs that you didn't plan for.
Speaker 1: And this allows you to take advantage of opportunistic moments
Speaker 1: or to handle issues you know, like covid um that
Speaker 1: came up quickly, UM that you didn't care for. So
Speaker 1: I think you need both. I think it's an an
Speaker 1: not an or. And you know, the whole on demand
Speaker 1: UM revolution is really about giving options to talent and
Speaker 1: clients to supplement what already exists in the world today.
Speaker 1: It makes sense. It makes sense, Um, Jody, we gotta run.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Jody Miller, co founder, co CEO
Speaker 1: and chairwoman of Business Talent Group, on the phone from
Speaker 1: l A. She also, in some of the research she
Speaker 1: sent ahead to us, shared with us the concerns of
Speaker 1: a great resignation with expectations of the global workforce considering
Speaker 1: leaving their employer in the next year. That's according to
Speaker 1: some research out from Microsoft, so something that she is
Speaker 1: certainly focusing on too in terms of what she does