Skills Over Permanent Employment: A New Organizational Model for the Future of Work

The shortage of skilled workers and executives is one of the biggest challenges facing companies. There is hardly a debate on economic policy or a discussion about human resources that does not include complaints about the labor market situation. Companies are therefore investing considerable resources in recruiting, employer branding, and talent acquisition. Nevertheless, key positions remain unfilled, transformation projects are delayed, and often the very skills needed for the next stages of development are lacking. The obvious conclusion, therefore, is that companies need better recruiting processes, more attractive employer brands, or more modern selection procedures. But is this assumption even correct?

In fact, recruitment has become significantly more professional in recent years—driven by digital platforms, data-driven processes, and artificial intelligence. Nevertheless, the shortage of skilled workers and executives continues to worsen in many places. The crucial question, therefore, is not: How can companies recruit more effectively? But rather: Can the current challenges be overcome through recruitment alone?

We propose a different thesis: The shortage of skilled workers and managers is primarily an organizational problem. Those who seek to solve it exclusively through recruiting are treating the symptoms—not the root cause. It is time to shift our focus from the search for employees to access to skills.
 

The Organizational Model of the Industrial Age

For decades, companies have been organized according to a simple principle: For every recurring task, there is a position. This position is filled by an employee. Several positions form a department; several departments form the organization. This model was very successful. It created clear responsibilities, stable processes, and a high degree of predictability. Because markets developed slowly and requirements changed only gradually, it made good business sense to build up skills within the company and maintain them on a permanent basis. The underlying assumption was simple: The competencies that companies need today will still be relevant tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. It makes sense to permanently anchor the corresponding knowledge and professional qualifications within the organization through permanent positions. 

Requirements for companies are changing

It is precisely this assumption that is coming under increasing pressure today. This is because the traditional organizational model assumes that all necessary competencies are available in-house. But can this prerequisite even be met today? Technological innovations, artificial intelligence, and increasingly shorter innovation cycles are changing the demands placed on the management of knowledge and skills. New competencies emerge within a few years or even months, while others lose their relevance. Due to these new conditions, the traditional organizational model is reaching its limits. Not because it is fundamentally flawed, but because the demands placed on companies today are changing faster than their organizational structures.
 

Why Recruiting Doesn’t Solve the Problem

Against the backdrop of this development, many companies initially react in the same way they have for decades: They intensify their recruiting and employer branding activities, tap into new recruiting channels, and accelerate their recruiting processes by using additional digital tools and automating workflows with AI. Measures like these can be useful. They improve the efficiency of recruitment and increase the likelihood of finding suitable candidates.

The problem is: These measures are the right answer to the wrong question, namely: How can a job opening be filled more quickly?

But the real challenge has long been a different one:

What skills are needed to successfully overcome a business challenge? 
And how can companies gain access to these competencies as quickly as possible?

There is a fundamental difference between these two questions. Traditional recruiting is focused on positions. Yet companies must increasingly organize their value creation around competencies.

A position describes a role within the organization.
A competency describes the ability to solve a specific task.

The difference may seem minor at first glance. In fact, it fundamentally changes the perspective on the shortage of skilled workers and managers.

Example: IT Leadership

A company needs someone on short notice who has experience in cloud transformations, IT security, and the implementation of AI applications. So it posts the position of IT leadership. Upon closer inspection, however, the question arises: Is a permanent position really the fastest and most effective way to acquire the necessary skills? Essentially, it’s not about filling the position. Rather, the company needs to close a skills gap.

Example: Executive Management

Facing economic difficulties, a company is looking for a new CEO. In reality, however, the company lacks, above all, experience in restructuring, reorganization, and turnaround management. The question should therefore not be: Where can we find a new CEO? But rather: How can we gain access to the necessary expertise? 

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This perspective—shifting from filling positions to accessing skills—fundamentally changes how we view the shortage of skilled workers and managers. Companies no longer compete exclusively for employees. They face the challenge of securing the competencies that will enable them to overcome the next business challenge.
 

Competencies are the decisive resource

Anyone who views the shortage of specialists and future leaders from the perspective of competencies will arrive at a fundamental insight:

A position is an organizational construct.
Competencies create value.

A competency is not inextricably linked to a specific position or a specific person. Multiple people can possess the same competency. Likewise, each person typically brings different competencies to the table. And companies do not necessarily have to make a competency available through a permanent position. It is equally possible to bring a competency into an organization through project-based collaboration with external specialists and executives into an organization. In other words, it is not the number of employees that determines a company’s future viability. In the future, the companies that will be successful are those that can access the skills they need at any time to overcome a challenge.

Not every open position automatically leads to a critical skills gap.
And not every skills gap necessarily requires a new permanent position.
 

Permanent Employment Remains the Foundation

In practice, companies by no means have to choose between a permanent workforce and collaborating with external experts. Permanent employees are and remain the foundation of successful companies. They ensure continuity, embody the corporate culture, stabilize customer relationships, and are valuable repositories of knowledge. Without a strong core workforce, it is nearly impossible to organize sustainable value creation. However, there are increasingly more tasks that require expertise not available in-house.

Example: Development of AI Solutions

The use of artificial intelligence is a requirement that is also being imposed on companies from outside: Anyone who wants to remain competitive must use AI. You hear, read, and see this every day. But deriving meaningful opportunities for one’s own company from these technological possibilities is an internal task. What should you do if there’s no one internally who is capable of designing meaningful use cases, testing the developed AI solutions, and ultimately implementing them? Bringing these skills into the organization for a certain period of time is a wise business decision. 

Example: Developing New Business Areas

Another example is business development. For example, there are manufacturing companies whose components, produced for civilian use, are also suitable for military drones. The components are similar, but the area of application is completely different. Tapping into such new business areas or adapting existing ones accordingly is a challenge with tight deadlines. There is an urgent need for experts who are well-versed in the new market and can effectively guide and support the company through its transformation.

Targeted Reinforcement for Critical or Forward-Looking Projects

In situations like these, the goal is not to replace the core workforce. No, companies are well advised to bring in external professionals for critical or forward-looking projects. These highly qualified freelancers bring exactly the skills that the permanent staff lacks. They expand the organization’s capabilities in areas where specific knowledge and long-term experience are lacking. Once the challenge is overcome, the external professional leaves the company, while the permanent staff continues to form the backbone of the organization. This creates an organizational model that combines the stability of a strong core workforce with the flexibility of external experts. This type of flexible workforce management forms the foundation of modern HR strategies. 

From Ownership to Availability
What do cloud computing and modern HR strategies have in common? In the past, companies operated their own servers. Today, they obtain computing power, storage space, and software from the cloud as needed. What matters most is no longer owning the infrastructure, but being able to access the necessary resources at any time. The same applies to skills. Companies must be structured in such a way that they can bring skills into the organization on a temporary basis. This does not diminish the importance of permanent positions. Rather, they become part of an organizational model that effectively combines internal and external skills.

Connected Workforce: A Concept for a Competency-Based Organization

We coined the term Connected Workforce for this organizational model. Connected Workforce describes an organizational structure in which companies supplement their core workforce with external specialists as needed. The goal is to combine internal and external competencies in such a way that the skills needed to enable change, drive growth, and create value are available at all times. 

Definition
“Connected Workforce” means making the necessary skills available regardless of employment status and forming a networked workforce consisting of permanent and independent contractors.

Implementing the Connected Workforce concept not only changes the organization of work, but also the tasks of human resources management. While human resources department has traditionally focused primarily on planning workforce deployment and on recruiting, developing, and retaining employees, the Connected Workforce approach focuses on all the skills available to a company. It is no longer enough to simply fill open positions. What matters is sustained access to the competencies needed for value creation, growth, and transformation—regardless of whether they are available internally or whether qualified external experts join the company for a certain period of time.

The ability to leverage external expertise in a precisely tailored manner is becoming a strategic component of modern organizational and human resources development. In the future, human resources management will take on the task of systematically building internal competencies and ensuring targeted access to external expertise. 

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On our blog, you can learn more about the background of the Connected Workforce as a concept for modern human resources management.

Interim Management Opens the Door to External Expertise

For companies to benefit from the advantages of a Connected Workforce, they must be prepared to make targeted use of external expertise and make it available at short notice when needed. That is precisely where the challenge lies. Highly qualified specialists and executives are often not available on the traditional job market. They work independently and on a project basis, carefully selecting their projects.

This is changing the role of interim management. It no longer serves solely to bridge vacancies or staffing shortages. Within the context of the Connected Workforce, interim management is becoming a strategic tool: It allows companies to specifically access skills that are not available—or not available in a timely manner—within their own organization.

A prerequisite for this is that companies have access to the specialists they need. However, they generally lack both the necessary market transparency and robust networks to identify suitably qualified interim professionals on short notice. This is precisely where interim management providers play a central role. They create the conditions that enable companies to effectively leverage a Connected Workforce in the first place. They provide access to an extensive pool of experienced specialists and executives—with precisely the skills that companies lack.

Interim management thus evolves from a solution for bridging individual staffing shortages into an effective tool for a competency-based HR strategy. Companies gain the ability to strategically supplement their core workforce with external specialists and maintain their operational capacity even during phases of growth, transformation, or personnel changes. This is precisely where the added value of a Connected Workforce lies.

In our concise brochure, we’ve summarized the key information about the Connected Workforce for you. You can download the brochure here for free.