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Extended Workforce

AI, Direct Sourcing, and the Future of Talent

The path to Direct Sourcing 2.0 is rooted in the idea that data should drive talent-led decision-making. Most next-generation direct sourcing programs leverage AI-driven functionality to enable a more robust picture of available skillsets, improve the matching of available skills with open positions and project requirements, streamline the assessment of candidate skills and expertise, and enhance worker intelligence. The majority of businesses see AI and advanced analytics as a catalyst for Direct Sourcing 2.0 over the next two years, as discovered by Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange.

An employer’s brand can be a catalyst for talent transformation because it can be used to attract talent and maintain an allure as non-FTE workers shift in and out of enterprise projects. Direct Sourcing 2.0 builds on brand concepts and pushes them to a higher level by using AI and analytics on candidate data to improve messaging, and gain a clearer picture of the worker expertise available in the market. Our research shows that:

  • Nearly 70% of businesses plan to leverage AI-based tools for candidate assessment within two years. Candidate fraud has not grabbed headlines yet, but it is a risk for businesses, particularly those that require specific skills and certifications. With more candidates operating in a remote environment, businesses require better means to ensure that their potential hires actually possess what is represented in their resumes and history. AI-fueled candidate assessment tools support the validation of competencies and skills, helping to ensure that the talent pipeline is filled with candidates who can succeed in their placements.
  • Sixty-four percent (64%) of enterprises plan to use AI to solve talent retention issues. The labor market over the past two years has been anything but stable and certain: within the span of 12 months, the market has experienced a dramatic increase in, and, the largest tallies ever in history, of worker resignations. There are more open positions in the United States than at any other time this century. HR, talent acquisition, and procurement leaders and their teams need the insights required to more accurately forecast what their workforce will look like in the future, given economic and organizational changes. Predictive retention data, modeled within direct sourcing programs, can augment how and when businesses engage talent pool candidates and what skillsets should be targeted in upcoming recruiting marketing campaigns.
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Prosperity and Disruption: Prosperix’s VMS Network is a Future of Work Innovation

Vendor Management System (VMS) technology, along with Managed Service Providers (MSP), are typically considered the two most traditional and widely-used solutions in the greater workforce management technology market. Rightfully so: each of these on their own drive services-based (MSP) and end-to-end automation (VMS) for their clients in such a way that there may never be a time when Best-in-Class organizations aren’t utilizing one of the two (or, in many cases, both) to gain visibility and control, and, of course, optimize, the way extended talent is brought into the organization and ultimately managed.

Today, the landscape looks much different than it did even a couple of years ago. The pandemic brought about revolutionary change in how executive leaders perceive their operating structures, finances, technology utilization, and, critically, their workforce. The talent acquisition arena has been permanently altered, with enterprises finding that there is so much more to engaging top-tier talent than simply filling out a job requisition and expecting candidates to flock to open roles.

“To remain competitive, businesses must brace for more dramatic changes than ever before,” said Sunil Bagai, CEO of Prosperix. “The rapidly-evolving landscape requires new solutions and ways of thinking that allow businesses to become more agile, resilient, and more capable of meeting the seemingly endless demands today’s business landscape presents.”

When we examine the talent technology market today, there are many variables that have accelerated just as quickly as those Future of Work attributes (such as remote work, hybrid workplaces, etc.) that were quickened due to the pandemic’s far-reaching grasp. Talent marketplaces and digital staffing platforms enable users with on-demand and real-time access to pre-vetted, top-tier talent that align with dozens of project- and role-based perquisites.

Direct sourcing solutions actively assist enterprises with the ability to curate known and new talent into talent communities, nurture those communities with relevant and engaging content, and ensure that all recruitment streams leverage these talent pools. “Direct Sourcing 2.0,” a concept heralded by the Future of Work Exchange as the next iteration of direct sourcing, involves the application of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other innovative functionality to drive repeatability and scalability of core direct sourcing mechanisms.

Within 2022’s evolving world of work and talent, San Jose-based Prosperix is taking all of the above into consideration as it launches its new “VMS Network” offering. Prosperix’s core VMS solution is not just a standalone VMS platform, but rather an extended workforce management tool that enables a dynamic connection between enterprises and talent via a robust, on-demand network of suppliers, candidates, and businesses.

“When we built our VMS Network solution, we understood that providing exponentially greater access to talent would be a game changer. And that’s proving to be the case,” Sunil said. “Clients become a node in an open, connected network where their jobs are matched to a network of suppliers and talent pools. This network effect enables jobs to be filled in record time, with amazing quality, and at lower costs. Additionally, the interconnectedness of the network allows us to leverage data and algorithms in ways that were not possible with siloed VMS systems. This is revolutionary for the industry, and we are excited to be the first to bring this compelling new technology to market.”

The Prosperix VMS Network is unique in the sense that it effectively blends a fully-digital talent network (akin to what most talent marketplaces offer) with a powerful, end-to-end series of functionality that leverages modernized reporting, analytics, and intelligence that drive better business outcomes and better matches between candidates and open positions/projects.

And, on top of those features, Prosperix leverages a candidate-centric approach that provides, among other things, candidates with their own career dashboard where they can apply to matched jobs across an ecosystem of clients and stay up-up-to-date on their job applications. This is aligned with the company’s overall purpose as a technology platform: to fuel human, workforce, and business prosperity.

As we wrote about the solution in 2021 upon its rebranding: “Prosperix’s messaging is incredibly unique in today’s workforce solutions market, leading with an edge that differentiates the company from others in the space. Understanding that it is the convergence between the “human” and “technology” elements of workforce management that will help both candidates and businesses prosper in the face of continued evolution across the greater world of talent and work.”

“I don’t think any business is standing still today. Most are adapting just to survive, and those that embrace change as the norm have the potential to thrive. Our VMS Network makes it possible for businesses to achieve greater scalability, agility and resilience, so they can more easily manage the expected while being better-prepared for the unexpected. And they can do all of this while attaining extraordinary hiring outcomes,” Sunil said.

Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange believe that there is still much, much more change ahead for the world of talent and work. As “The Great Resignation” continues its rampage and the “Talent Revolution” becomes a foundational element of the Future of Work movement, solutions like Prosperix will be a guiding light for enterprises that not only want to tap into the power of the extended workforce, but also leverage next-generation technology to drive workforce prosperity.

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The Role of Talent Marketplaces in the Future of Work

Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 80% of leading organizations are currently leveraging digital staffing channels and talent marketplaces to fuel their talent acquisition strategies. And in today’s hyper-competitive, Great Resignation-led labor market, enterprises require on-demand solutions that not only align with their talent-based needs, but also support greater extended workforce management processes, operations, and programs.

Last month, the Future of Work Exchange partnered with Bluecrew for an exclusive webcast focused on the role and impact of talent marketplaces and digital staffing within the Future of Work movement. If you missed the event, now’s your chance to check it out:

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Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange Launch Definitive MSP Report

New Study Evaluates the Leading Managed Service Providers (MSPs) for the Workforce Solutions Market

BOSTON, MA, March 1, 2021 – Ardent Partners, a leading research and advisory firm, along with the Future of Work Exchange, a top destination for executives focused on the evolution of work and talent, announced today that its new 2022 MSP Solution Advisor report, which evaluates the Managed Service Provider (MSP) marketplace, is now available. MSPs, as the most mature offering in the greater workforce management solutions market, are continue to drive innovation in the rapidly shifting labor market and Future of Work landscape and tailor  their services to suit the needs of a dynamic, agile, and extended workforce.

“The world of talent and work has changed tremendously over the past two years, forcing enterprises to reimagine their core talent engagement, talent acquisition, and extended workforce management strategies,” said Christopher J. Dwyer, senior vice president of research, managing director of the Future of Work Exchange, and author of the new MSP Solution Advisor report. “This report will help readers identify the MSP provider that best-fits the needs of their agile workforce and educate them on the different approaches that each provider takes towards key workforce management areas, including direct sourcing, SOW management, services procurement, and reporting and analytics.”

The 2022 MSP Solution Advisor is the leading assessment report for MSPs that guides HR, procurement, human capital management, and talent acquisition leaders through a deep solutions landscape by discussing the key functionality, capabilities, competencies, offerings, and performance of the main providers in the MSP industry. The new report highlights dozens of feature-specific offerings and market differentiators from which Ardent and the Future of Work Exchange evaluated the industry’s top MSP solutions.

The Ardent analyst team identified and selected eleven key providers – Atrium, Evaluent, GRI, Guidant Global, KellyOCG, nextSource, Pontoon Solutions, PRO Unlimited, Randstad Sourceright, RightSourcing, and Talent Solutions TAPFIN – in the MSP solutions market for admittance to this research study.

“Since 2010, Ardent Partners has been a guiding voice for professionals managing their extended workforce management programs and the solutions that they use to drive them,” said Ardent’s Chief Research Officer, Andrew Bartolini. “The new MSP Solution Advisor report is a reflection of this expertise and delivers a clear and insightful report that is a must-read for leaders seeking to optimize their extended workforce.”

Click here to download the new MSP Solution Advisor study (or click on the image below), which will be followed by the VMS Technology Advisor in the spring.

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How Does The MSP Model Fit into The Future of Work?

As solutions, they have been around longer than any other workforce management offering in our industry. As brand names, there may be no bigger logos than those synonymous with some of the largest in our space. And, as the extended workforce continues to grow in size, impact, and scope, they have evolved to meet the dynamic needs of businesses across the globe.

The Managed Service Provider (MSP) model has long been a powerful force across the contingent workforce management and traditional recruitment spectrums, offering an end-to-end, outsourced array of tailored, customized, and global offerings that help businesses tap into key staffing suppliers, standardize extended workforce management operations, and enhance the overall approaches to how talent is engaged and managed.

The non-employee workforce was once less than 20% of the average company’s total talent, as recently as a decade ago. With the stratospheric rise of this labor over the past ten-plus years, we’ve collectively experienced and leveraged a slew of both innovative, consistently-progressive outlets (such as VMS and extended workforce platforms), solutions that are actively capturing the power of direct sourcing, and digital staffing and talent marketplace offerings that enable real-time access to top-tier talent and expertise.

The Future of Work demands that business operations be dynamic, repeatable, and scalable. And, to boot, nearly half of the total global workforce is considered “extended” or “agile” in some manner. For service-oriented solutions like MSPs, the question becomes, “How does this model fit into the Future of Work movement?”

The answer is actually quite simple: an evolved model that blends traditional managed services with technological overlays for various “pieces” of the extended workforce lifecycle, combined with key integrations and partnerships with innovative platforms that address niche areas of talent engagement and talent acquisition.

One just has to look at the current landscape of MSPs ruling the day: some are some of the most mature in our industry and are revolutionizing the way services and technology interact, such as Randstad Sourceright and KellyOCG. RSR is reimagining SOW management and services procurement, as well as its bringing its unique TalentUX tech overlay to areas like direct sourcing. KellyOCG’s digital Helix infrastructure could be a gamechanger.

PRO Unlimited is advancing a “platform approach” that solves every need of the current workforce management program while pushing the criticality of data and intelligence; the solution has made incredible strides within direct sourcing, and other key facets of extended workforce management. Talent Solutions TAPFIN is refashioning the market with a fresh approach to SOW management/services procurement and integrated, data-led offerings around workforce advisory and direct sourcing.

Solutions like GRI offer near-unrivaled, powerful, and self-service analytic modules that help clients design better business outcomes (GRI is also a robust provider of Managed Direct Sourcing (MDS) solutions).

Organizations like Atrium and nextSource are transforming how direct sourcing and tech-led approaches can help the mid-market thrive. RightSourcing is actively helping a struggling industry (healthcare) take advantage of an evolving labor market whilst offering wide-scale support for those medical facilities that need it coming out of the latest COVID surge.

Pontoon continues to lead with its innovative service delivery models and technological foundations, while Guidant Global is building on its vast expertise, global reach, and progressive direct sourcing offerings. Even newer solutions, like Evaluent, are proving that there’s incredible room for innovation in our industry.

Tomorrow, Ardent Partners and the Future of Work Exchange will unveil the 2022 MSP Solution Advisor, an industry guidebook that will serve as the definitive guide for businesses seeking new insights on the mature MSP solutions market, allow them access to the necessary information to guide solution selection journeys, and enable contingent workforce program leaders to better understand how each MSP offering differentiates itself from the competition.

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Direct Sourcing 2.0 Is Here to Combat “The Great Resignation”

Today, the stakes for finding, attracting, and hiring the right talent are higher still, and a literal talent “frenzy” has hiring managers in all industries and geographies struggling to fill key positions. And that was before “The Great Resignation” of 2021-2022 took hold. Now, more than ever, these leaders need to take control of their talent destinies. As a result, direct sourcing has become one of the hottest topics in the world of talent and work.

With an ever-increasing number of talent channels, including digital staffing marketplaces, traditional staffing vendors, professional services, talent networks, and social media platforms, the ability to match project requirements with available skillsets has never been easier. It has also never been more competitive or difficult to hire top candidates.  Businesses that harness the power of direct sourcing and talent pools have the ability to develop an agile, extended workforce which can be the key to truly thriving in these evolving times.

In 2021, Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research found that 82% of all businesses felt the challenging times of the past two years increased the demand for extended and non-employee talent. This number reinforces the idea that workforce flexibility (and scalability) are essential links to economic progress in the now-chaotic, hyper-competitive global marketplace. And, in many ways, operationalizing that flexibility/scalability has become a driving force in enabling overall workforce agility. To do so, enterprises can tap into talent pools, marketplaces, clouds, and communities to enhance the work done by the trusted full-time staff; they can also leverage a range of services and other recruiting streams to build a dynamic talent acquisition process that can support crucial enterprise initiatives.

This is why direct sourcing has become such a powerful tool for business leaders today.

Truth be told, even basic direct sourcing programs can drive value through a combination of on-demand, plug-and-play talent, and hard-cost savings. But the pandemic’s impact on the workforce has dramatically accelerated market shifts. Today, talent is scarce and comes at a premium. As a result, workers are demanding greater flexibility from their employers. They are more focused on work-life balance, while also desiring greater independence. Among many things, the “Talent Revolution” indicates a seismic shift in power towards the worker and away from the employer…meaning that businesses require a more powerful, more flexible, and more scalable version of direct sourcing. Enter “Direct Sourcing 2.0.”

Now is the time for “Direct Sourcing 2.0,” the next generation of sourcing strategies that blend innovative solutions with a renewed focus on the candidate experience and an ability to use talent pools to populate the key projects and roles that require expertise and experience. Today’s business climate has accelerated the need for a reimagined approach to candidate engagement. As the market for talent continues to tighten amidst the lingering pandemic and a surging number of resignations, businesses find themselves in a new kind of “war for talent,” one that is far more extensive and complicated than anything experienced pre-pandemic.

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Let’s Demystify AI in Hiring

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the premier technologies under the Future of Work spectrum. Along with machine learning, AI has transformed the way businesses think about data and insights, adding an additional layer of depth that was previously out of grasp. As AI became more prominent within the business stratosphere, it quickly moved from merely augmenting existing “Big Data” strategies to becoming a means of transforming both tactical and strategic enterprise operations.

As talent became even more of a competitive differentiator over the years (especially in these evolving times), businesses realized that they required additional support in executing more educated talent-based decisions. Today, AI is prevalent in both full-time/traditional talent acquisition and within the extended workforce arena. Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research finds that nearly 60% of organizations are effectively “blending” AI and human-led processes into the current hiring initiatives, with another 34% expected to do the same over the next 12-to-24 months.

I am excited to join Beeline and HiredScore next Thursday, February 24 (11am ET) for an exclusive webcast on demystifying the role of artificial intelligence in hiring and extended workforce management. I’ll be joined by Beeline’s Colleen Tiner (SVP Strategy) and HiredScore’s Athena Karp (CEO & Founder). We’ll tackle (and answer!) such questions as:

  • Can AI really help my program hire the best talent?
  • What will my legal team say?
  • How can we use AI safely without bias?
  • Are there laws regulating the use of AI for employment decisions that I need to know about?
  • How do I get started on this journey?

Click here or on the image below to register for next week’s event. Looking forward to seeing you there!

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Digital Staffing, Talent Marketplaces, and the “Elastic Workforce”

It’s no great secret that the many layers of talent acquisition and talent engagement have been transformed over the past two years. Businesses, dealing with both a “Talent Revolution” and “The Great Resignation,” continue wage war for skillsets and expertise in an on-demand economy that demands agility and flexibility.

Digital staffing solutions and talent marketplaces have been augmenting talent engagement for a number of years. Ardent Partners and Future of Work Exchange research have been covering, evaluating, and following these platforms for nearly a decade; we have discovered that adoption of these solutions has increased nearly 725% since 2015, a surefire marker of the high-impact, top-tier benefits of these platforms.

There’s a reason why talent marketplaces have become such critical pieces of the Future of Work puzzle: they drive true workforce agility, scalability, and flexibility. Future of Work Exchange research found that, in 2021, nearly 84% of digital staffing and talent marketplace users stated that their extended workforce drove true scalability and flexibility in the face of challenging times. Being able to plug-and-play talent as the market dictates is a powerful competency that can empower enterprises of all sizes with an ability to engage with many of the best and brightest minds in an on-demand manner. Throughout the toughest days of 2020 when uncertainty reigned, companies were constantly reshuffling their workforce strategies.

In 2021, those businesses that could effectively harness the power of a scalable workforce were the ones that entered 2022 with the ability to thrive during evolving labor market conditions. Best-in-Class organizations are 32% more likely to tap into digital staffing outlets for talent acquisition needs. These offerings are often considered enterprise-grade solutions that facilitate real-time and on-demand talent engagement with independent, freelance, or contract workers via a web-based network or portal. Talent marketplaces typically offer “white-glove” or high-touch talent management services (akin to Managed Service Providers) to help their clients source the best-fit talent for their project requirements as well as the automation of core workforce management processes (such as requisition management, talent pool development, and back-end financial operations).

I encourage you to join Bluecrew, Ardent Partners, and the Future of Work Exchange on Thursday, February 24 at 1pm CT for an exclusive webcast on the advantages of the talent marketplace model, its impact on building an “elastic workforce,” and the core workforce strategies required for successful extended workforce management. Click here on or on the image below to register.

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The Industry Is At A Crossroads

[Editor’s Note: Today’s article is a guest contribution from Neha Goel, Vice President of Marketing at Utmost.]

We are interconnected in all aspects of our lives, and work is no exception. We have become global citizens, and organizations are utilizing talent outside traditional full-time employees in record numbers. In fact, a company’s workforce is becoming inherently external, made up of episodic, variable, and dynamic engagements.

People are choosing careers that are no longer hierarchical or linear, and demanding flexibility in how and where they work. Similarly, companies want to capitalize on collaborating with a talent ecosystem that can deliver speed and value with highly-skilled, hyper-specialized workers.

Today, this looks like a large and complex network of extended global workers, spanning staff augmentation contractors, Statement of Work (SOW) project-based workers, independent consultants, freelancers, gig workers, and consultants. Now, it’s up to the enterprise to determine how best to capitalize on this new world of work.

Many companies are doing just that. New data from LinkedIn (via Forbes) finds there has been a 60% increase in “future of work” job titles and a 304% increase in titles where “hybrid work” has been included in the past two years. The job title Head of Future of Work was listed as one of the most in-demand job titles available today.

Once you have the people in place, leadership also must get on board with how all talent wants to be engaged. Today’s market “requires leaders to develop a much deeper empathy for what employees are going through and to pair that empathy with the compassion—and determination—to act and change,” said a recent McKinsey article on the role leaders play in understanding attrition. “Only then can employers properly reexamine the wants and needs of their employees—together with those employees—and begin to provide the flexibility, connectivity, and sense of unity and purpose that people crave.” Our findings support this to be true.

Finally, the next challenge becomes finding a technology that can support the risk, size, and complexity of today’s workforce. This must be done in a way that makes it easier to find, engage, and attract top talent while meeting them how and where they want to work.

As I’ve said before, it’s not just about managing suppliers and vendors and merely augmenting a contingent workforce management agenda on the world of talent, but rather looking at how to manage the workforce effectively in optimizing how work gets done.

Whether you believe in acquisition and consolidation of the VMS/EWS market to expand functionality or are skeptical of the “FrankenSuite” approach and believe a purpose-built system is favorable, many organizations find themselves at a crossroads now that almost half their workforce is made up of non-employee labor with no seamless, scalable way of managing it.

As companies compete for greater access to on-demand, agile, highly specialized talent at better rates, faster access to information and analytics, and the ability to meet today’s workers where and how they want to work is imperative.

Whatever companies decide, it’s clear workers need to be redeployed faster, have agency over their information, and have a positive user experience that makes it easy to come in and out of companies and projects with ease. This is the new world of work, and if companies don’t embrace the changes quickly, they may be left behind when it comes to finding talent that ensures their success in the market.

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“The Great Resignation” Is a Problem for All Businesses

I know, I know. We’re all getting sick of the phrase. It’s one of the main reasons why we need to look farther and deeper for why “The Great Resignation” is happening instead of pointing at the big, headline-inducing numbers. While we all wait with bated breath for the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ next report on resignations (the last one, which covered November 2021, showed a then-record 4.5 million quits in the United States), let’s take a moment to remember this:

The “talent revolution” is happening across all sectors and industries. I’ve heard conversations in which point to specific verticals as being more prone to quits than others, particularly areas like hospitality, restaurants, retail, travel, etc., considering that employees within these industries are more likely to desire flexibility, better pay, safer working conditions, better work-life integration, clearer career pathways, etc.

However, this discussion leaves so much more out of the equation. Take, for instance, this now-weeks-old article from The New York Times. It talks of the low-income sector’s turnover rates as a big reason why The Great Resignation was continuing to shatter monthly records consistently. But then we have this piece from my hometown Boston Globe, which finds that a booming local market (biotech, perhaps the “hottest” of industries at the moment) faces the same issues as other industries:

“About 16.5 percent of life sciences employees in Massachusetts voluntarily quit their jobs last year, a recent survey from research firm Radford found, up from 13 percent in 2018. Both figures are high enough to affect a company’s effort to grow.”

Massachusetts has become a hotbed of biotech giants and startups alike. It’s home to one of only two companies that offer an FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine (Moderna). And it’s now facing the same staff shortages and turnover rates that other industries have been experiencing for nearly a year.

One critical, yet overlooked, reason why The Great Resignation continues to be an annoying issue is no business leader wants to believe it’ll happen to his or her industry…until it actually does, and by then, the numbers will point to the fact that it’s been happening for quite some time, right under their noses. All the more important, then, that enterprises attack this problem right at its foundation: talent.

Look at the media/relations/advertising industry (or industries): this fantastic article at AdAge is FILLED with quotes from leading ad execs that all state a common refrain. They understand that the market is shifting, that talent acquisition must change (and change quickly), and that Future of Work attributes, especially the extended workforce, are a means to success during these strange times:

“One potential upside that Ad Age reported on last year was that ad industry turnover isn’t a true “brain drain”—employees might not be qualifying for W-2s, but because contract work is thriving again, many are leaving staff jobs for freelance. In fact, an estimated 50% of the ad industry could be freelance within the next decade.

“We see the hybrid workforce as a win/win,” says Brett Channer, founder and CEO of Mass Minority. “As we grow across North America, this gives us access to a wider range of talent representing the market we serve.” For anyone who might see an increase in various state income tax requirements as a deterrent to freelance or location-agnostic hiring, Channer notes that though “it does add cost to our payroll operation, those costs are lower than the overhead to office these people.””

Purpose is a big contributor to the Talent Revolution. Flexibility is a core ideal, as well. Remote and hybrid work are non-negotiable at this point. These are the foundational aspects of what talent wants, what talent needs, and what talent will not sacrifice in 2022 and beyond. The Great Resignation is not just an issue for specific industries or verticals, but rather all enterprises within corporate America. If businesses can welcome the transformation of talent, harness the power of Future of Work strategies and tools, and truly embrace the workforce shifts happening today, there is hope that The Great Resignation will be looked back on as a watershed moment for workers in these progressive times of the past two years.

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