With the continuing shortage of IT professionals and the uncertainty facing the entire economy, employers are growing in interest in external experts and entire specialized teams. This not only solves the lack of professional skills to continue R&D projects without delay and loss of competitiveness, but also gains much-needed flexibility today. In addition, as the use of work from home grows, the distinction between internal employees and external staff is blurred, as all need to be managed remotely.
"There is a lack of IT experts and specialists with an overlap from IT to electrical engineering in the Czech Republic for several years. For a long time, employers preferred internal employees to contractors, ie externs working on a contract. This year, however, the attitude of companies has changed. Due to the uncertainty that exists across the market and the economy, they are more open to externals, who allow them a greater degree of flexibility in the field of human resources, "says Illya Pavlov, CEO of Acamar, a consulting and team building R&D team. In addition, employers are aware that the current health situation makes it very difficult to train often inexperienced newcomers. Hiring an entire functional team for a specific product or for a limited period of time thus began to make more sense than ever before. Thanks to the majority of work from home, which has ruled in the Czech Republic since the spring and has become the standard in many areas, the difference between internal employees and external staff is blurred, all need to be controlled remotely.
The situation is similar overseas. According to a survey by the American company Upwork, three quarters of recruitment managers plan to increase or maintain the existing share of independent experts. Three out of five recruitment managers prefer to work with independent professionals so that they can work faster and anticipate that their workforce will be "more distant" in the future than before the pandemic. Half of the recruitment managers also said that working directly with independent professionals gave them access to locally unavailable skills.
According to statistics, the average length of involvement of external talents overseas is over 4 months. "At Acamar, we distinguish between short-term projects, with a typical duration of 2-4 months, and long-term projects, which normally last 12-18 months, but sometimes even three years," says Illya Pavlov. According to him, short-term projects include websites, e-shops, online catalogs and mobile applications. They are long-term for large customers, so they are more complex, have multi-layered management and ongoing financing
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