5 Ways to Prepare for a Blended Workforce

Last Updated: December 16, 2021

To prepare you for a blended workforce including contractors & remote workers, this article covers how to keep your organization connected through the use of technology and communication styles writes Dale Strickland, Marketing Coordinator, CurrentWare.

Technology gives employees access to working options beyond the traditional model of the past decade. If you want to leverage a blended workforce that includes these employees, there are some things you should do to prepare.

What is a Blended Workforce?

A “blended workforce” describes a combination of employment options including full-time, part-time, temporary, contracts, remote workers, and freelancers.

Providing employees with remote working options is of particular interest – a study by Global Workplace Analytics has shown that the number of employees working from home has grown by 173% from 2005-2018 – and that’s not including those who are self-employed!

Remote workers come in a variety of forms including:

  • Employees/contractors/freelancers that work from home using a personal workstation or company-supplied equipment
  • Transient workers working from off-site locations such as cafes and coworking spaces, all out of the comfort of their laptops
  • Employees that occasionally work from home (telecommuting/telework)

1. Blended Workforce Recruitment

If you’re looking to prepare for a blended workforce, you need to know how to use blended recruitment to attract that talent in the first place. Do traditional hiring practices attract a blended workforce? Maybe, but there’s more that can be done to find this talent.

If you’d like to recruit a blended workforce, it helps to know where they are and what they’re looking for. Here are a few ideas:

  • Remote Workers: Do you support remote workers? That’s great! Mention it directly in your recruitment marketing, and link potential applicants to supporting materials that demonstrate how your company accommodates and manages remote workers.
     
  • Freelancers: Looking for a freelancer with unique expertise for a special project? If you don’t yet have a go-to person in mind, you’re going to have to find one. Freelancers often rely heavily on marketing themselves through freelancing websites, social media, and recommendations from happy clients. Ask around!
     
  • Contractors: If your company has a limited-time special project or a busy season that’s not quite the right fit for standard employment, that’s a great time to hire contractors. Contractors are generally attracted to recruitment agencies that specialize in their field, or they may operate similarly to Freelancers by marketing themselves through contractor-specific websites or their own personal marketing.

2. Communication in a Blended Workforce

No matter the composition of your workforce, communication is key. But how do you communicate with someone who is rarely, if ever, in the office? How can they feel connected to your company if they’ve never so much as met face-to-face? Let’s explore that.

Communication Challenges for Remote Workers

  • Non-Traditional Schedules: Remote workers typically desire flexibility in their work schedule
     
  • Timezone Differences: They can work from nearly anywhere in the world – adapting to different time zones can be challenging.
     
  • Out of Sight, Out of Mind: They aren’t physically present in the office, so they can inadvertently be kept out-of-the-loop and miss out on social chats with their coworkers

Communication Considerations in a Blended Workforce

Without access to the “open door” benefits of being in the office, the external arm of your blended workforce needs a way to communicate with everyone on the inside. For projects that require a lot of back-and-forth between different members, email really isn’t that great. It can also be difficult to figure out when a good time is to have a quick clarification chat if they can’t see that their colleague is busy.

  • How will you communicate?
    • Email is fine for one-off messages, but poor for extended short-form notes between multiple parties.
    • Team chat platforms work wonders for quick updates, questions, and banter.
    • Video conferencing is great for connecting as it lets you see and hear who you’re talking to.
       
  • How will team meetings be organized? How much notice should be given before a meeting is called? Better yet, when is a meeting truly necessary rather than using email or team chat?
     
  • For hybrid employees (working both on-site and remotely), when are they expected to be in office?
     
  • How will projects be tracked and communicated to external employees?

Learn More: 5 Remote Work Statistics to Guide Your Mobile Workforce StrategyOpens a new window

3. Company Culture in a Blended Workforce

How can someone feel like they’re a part of the team when they’re miles away, completely isolated from their colleagues? If you want your blended workforce to feel included, you are going to need to put in a little extra creative effort.

How To Make Your Blended Workforce Feel Connected

  • We’re the same, you and I: Give the same treatment to everyone that works in your organization, including your contractors and freelancers.
    • Have Fun: Do you have a “just for fun” social channel? Invite your external workforce to join you there too!
    • Nice Job!: Your in-house staff love feeling like they’re making a positive contribution, so why should your external workforce feel any different? Share updates about the stunning work that everyone does, not just your in-house staff
       
  • Events: If they’re close by, do everything you can to invite external workers to company events! If they’re too far away to join in, you’re going to have to get creative. How about paying for pizza and having a social video call with the whole team?

4. Technology For a Blended Workforce

There are tools out there that give you access to everything you need to give your external workforce the same opportunities for success as your in-house employees.

  • Collaborate on the Cloud: Cloud-based collaboration tools allow your blended workforce to have remote access to the most up-to-date version of project files.
     
  • Perfect Projects: Project management tools give your blended workforce an overview of project status without needing to explicitly ask for updates. Key details are centralized to a given thread, card, or folder to give everyone a clear view of progress & bottlenecks.
     
  • Stay Social: Team chat apps help everyone stay connected with conferencing features and messaging. Many team chat apps also allow you to invite guests (such as freelancers, temporary workers, and contractors) to be invited to discussions that are relevant to them while preventing access to files and discussions that are only meant for your internal employees.

Learn More: 

Freelance Employment and Self Employment: Benefits, Best Practices, and Key DifferencesOpens a new window

5. Training Your Blended Workforce

Onboarding and training can be tricky for external workers – here are some ways you can train them.

  • Screen Sharing: Most chat apps allow you to share your computer screen, making it easier to give presentations to external workers
     
  • E-Learning: Both onboarding and training can leverage e-learning platforms to provide a structured lesson plan
     
  • Progress Updates: Schedule regular check-ins where you and your external workers can sync-up to discuss their learning progress and clarify any questions they may have

What’s Next?

You’ve had the opportunity to see an overview of considerations for a blended workforce, but this list is far from exhaustive. One of the greatest challenges for your blended workforce is going to be in managing the productivity and inter-team connections between blended teams. In addition to adopting new processes and technology for recruiting and communicating with everyone in your blended workforce, you will need to consider other ways to manage team dynamics and keep your blended workforce happily collaborating.

How do you keep your employees connected? Let us know on FacebookOpens a new window LinkedInOpens a new window , or TwitterOpens a new window

Dale Strickland
Dale Strickland

Marketing Coordinator, CurrentWare

Dale Strickland is a digital media designer from Eastern Canada specializing in voice over, content writing, and graphic design. As CurrentWare’s Marketing Coordinator, Dale leverages his creative thinking and digital media skills to collaborate with his team members to develop multichannel marketing initiatives that attract and inform B2B customers searching for employee monitoring and endpoint security solutions. Dale’s diverse multimedia background allows him the opportunity to produce a variety of content including blogs, infographics, videos, eBooks, and social media shareable. In his personal life, Dale’s favorite hobby is collecting hobbies. Dale’s hobby collection includes singing, dancing, acting, board games, photography, video games, and cycling.
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