In the fall of 2016, human resource leaders from companies around the United States traveled to Boston for a gathering in the Catalant offices. “The Thought Leadership Summit,” we called it. From our vantage point, we hoped to hear about strategic initiatives being developed inside organizations that wanted to remain relevant in the 21st century and beyond. The idea was to bring together executives from a dozen or so of the country's most forward‐looking companies to talk about trends in the marketplace. We weren't the ones pushing through these macro changes, but we definitely played a key role in enabling them. And for a day‐and‐a‐half we also figured we could serve as catalyst and provocateur. The future of work was happening—and the sheer blind luck of our timing in founding Catalant meant we could play a proactive and positive role among those seeing a better way for both the corporation and the employee.

We conducted an exercise that had people think about what they would do if they could rebuild their company from scratch. (Consensus: far fewer full‐time employees.) There were brainstorming sessions on what work needed to remain in the hands of full‐time employees and what could be reimagined as project‐based. There was a lot of discussion about what people see 5 and 10 years down the road (short answer: a lot more change), and strategies for being prepared for that change (experimentation, an openness to new ideas). For participants, it was a chance to hear from one another, as well as from the experts we had brought in for the event. For us, it was a chance to learn from those on the cutting edge, racing to stay ahead of the curve. It was our opportunity to figure out where we could adjust our product road map accordingly and meet the needs everyone saw coming.

Our friend, Catalant board observer, and management professor from HBS, Joe Fuller, was one of those experts. He got everyone's attention early on with a set of alarming slides pointing to the coming talent crunch. “Management” and “business and financial operations” were two of the fastest‐growing employment categories, yet who would fill those positions? Only 33 percent of business leaders polled said college graduates were workforce ready, compared to 96 percent of college administrators who said they were. In short, while the theoretical supply of workers was enormous, the number of workers businesses would want to hire was tiny.

Complicating the picture, Joe said, was the rise of millennials as a force within the workplace. Flexibility, a sense of purpose, societal impact—these were what millennials most care about after salary when considering a job. “Employers must address the dichotomy between a career path and life path. Millennials, who the U.S. Bureau of Labor said will comprise 75 percent of all workers by 2030, want a career that fits into their life and not vice versa. This gives them a lot more bargaining power,” Joe said, and it requires businesses to think differently about talent acquisition to compete.

We knew this. We built a business on it. More great ideas and people reside outside the walls of your business than inside, which is why businesses need what Joe called “fluid work arrangements” to thrive.

Rob then delivered his usual “vision for the future of work” presentation about totally dissolving the existing system, resorting to his favorite movie‐making imagery to make the point. He chose Good Will Hunting as an example because we were in Boston, and what movie says Boston more than the Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, and Robin Williams classic? Miramax made a bundle on Good Will Hunting, Rob said, but what if the cast and crew were full‐time employees who just sat in the building with each other for 14 years trying to think of good ideas? Talk about inefficient.

“Think of your human resources spend like this,” he said. “I have a set of problems and I have a bunch of money to solve those problems, so let me figure out the most efficient way to maximize my talent buy. Internal employees? External?” He declared this breakdown a “ridiculous false distinction” in today's world of the Internet and remote collaboration tools. He criticized all the Future of Work conferences and future‐of‐work books about equipping leaders with Band‐Aids “to make people hate their jobs less.”

“We think that in order to have people love what they do, you have to start again with a new paradigm,” he said.

For us, the gathering was about learning from a group that deliberately included some participants not yet using Catalant. There were worries about inculcating values among regular freelancers inside mission‐driven organizations. People spoke of “blending” (the mixing of full‐time, part‐time, and independents) as an issue and of the challenges this vision would present to managers, who would need to hone their skills “scoping” projects in the fashion of a Bain consultant. Venturing into the great unknown, how do you model out the costs and structures of this new paradigm? People expressed worry over the loneliness factor among people who worked from home every day. There were concerns about intellectual property protections and data security. There was an acknowledgment that when health care is tied to work, ours is a system structurally biased in favor of full‐time employment.

Yet mainly the event seemed a chance for a lot of like‐minded people from different industries (tech, pharmaceuticals, industrial) to brainstorm solutions rather than give in to roadblocks. A blended workforce might present a manager with new challenges, but also with new opportunities. A SaaS platform like we were developing lets them access retirees on a project when appropriate, or alumni. Instilling a company's core mission among independent contractors also meant reinforcing an important message among those working within your walls. If much of your team is remote, someone suggested, why not consider biannual meetings that could help with team building, regardless of where someone sat.

One HR executive left a Post‐it note on the glass wall of the conference room while we were out to lunch: “Exciting to ponder efficiency gains if we do this right!”

Another participant asked: “Are organizations ready to go truly talent‐centric?”

We're happy to leave that question for academics and others studying organizational behavior. But over time, we doubt businesses will have a choice. Every poll we've seen since starting Catalant shows that the talent gap persists as a major pain point for business leaders both in the United States and internationally. A 2016 survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, for instance, found that 72 percent of chief executives worry about the availability of key skills.

One solution for managers confronting a brain crunch: double down on recruiting efforts. Increase perks and allow for more flexible hours.

Or embrace a future already here for those willing to take advantage of critical tools for any company interested in competing in today's global economy. Look outside those walls. We talk a lot about the high caliber of talent we've attracted to Catalant since our founding. Simply put, companies won't thrive in today's rapidly changing business environment if they rely on the relatively small number of people who happen to wear that company's employee badge.

Winning organizations put talent front and center. They access, engage, and deploy the best and brightest wherever they can find them. They look to the fixed supply of in‐house people they have working for them, but they also search outside for the best talent. It's about getting the work done. As we've learned, the rest figures itself out.

Flexibility, nimbleness, collaboration—those will be the building blocks of success moving forward. Companies that adapt will be able to take advantage of capabilities wherever they are located. They'll plug into what Mark Cuban memorably dubbed the “spot market for intellect,” unleashing the fresh energies and thinking of people outside an organization and gaining access to new markets more readily than in the past. They will enjoy newfound agility in seizing strategic opportunities.

We can tell you we're empowering the future of work, but it's not us. It's the technology. Technology lets us easily search talent based on keywords and tags. The genius of the network has opened the doors wide to the finest and most expert talent in the world. We simply provide the match to your company.

Flexible talent‐access platforms like ours are empowering this new world of work, making it easier than ever before to bring in the right skills for the right project at the right time. The world's most successful media companies long ago figured out that winning meant finding the right balance between full‐timers and freelancers. They saved money while simultaneously ensuring they had access to a wider talent pool.

Digital disruption means that it is incumbent on virtually every company to follow suit. Organizations must be reimagined and rebuilt to catch up. To us, it seems almost existential: the very long‐term survival of the corporation requires executives to think about talent in a completely different way.

We've lived through the initial resistance of some businesses to embrace a more fluid view of the people who work for them. Many organizations still look at talent the old‐fashioned way: develop a job description, engage in a search, hire for a full‐time posting. But old mind‐sets and policies that enable an internal‐only workforce need to change.

Winning depends on it.

Everything we are seeing out on the street and through our own experience points in the direction of the future as we imagine it. On the employer side, our sales pitch and those of others pushing for a rise in the contingent workforce seem to be having an impact. More than 80 percent of the country's large corporations plan to “substantially increase” their use of a flexible workforce in the coming years, according to a 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics report. At the start of 2016, the World Economic Forum released a report looking at workforce strategies at the start of what the organization dubbed the fourth Industrial Revolution.¹ Of the HR executives surveyed, 44 percent agreed that their “organizations are likely to have an ever‐smaller pool of core full‐time employees for fixed functions, backed up by colleagues in other countries and external consultants and contractors for specific projects.”

A shrinking world means accessing talent that can reside anywhere on the planet. You don't need to hire that PhD who lives in China or India or central Africa—only engage her when a deliverable demands harnessing the global brain. Spouses working dual careers is the norm these days, demanding a more creative approach to work. People are living longer, which means a greater share of the workforce seeking the flexibility that will allow them to care for an ailing parent.

There have always been those intrepid souls hiring out their talents on a freelance basis. Think of the samurais in feudal Japan, whose skill sets were off the charts, or their modern‐day equivalent, the mercenary soldier. Since the dawning of the computer age, prize programmers have been jobbing themselves out to the highest bidders in between ski vacations. All those graphic designers depicted in ads, working on the deck of their lakeside second home? They've been with us for decades as well.

Today we have the so‐called digital nomad, enabled by technology. They meet with clients via Skype, collaborate with their coworkers inside a company using Google Docs. They may even be sitting next to you right now if you're reading this in a Starbucks. Venmo, Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and other mobile payment apps simplify online payments. JotNot Pro lets you scan your receipts, if not the next work agreement. Media accounts celebrate this “digital nomad” who needs nothing but a laptop, reliable Wi‐Fi, and Skype to be in business. Yet it's been the rise of talent‐access platforms that have truly liberated those who might otherwise be toiling away unhappily in a cubicle. The catch for any freelancer since the beginning of time has been one of matchmaking. Businesses need their talents. Freelancers want the work. But until recently, how did they find one another? Often the life of a freelancer has been feast or famine, steak or peanut butter—which drove many back into a corporate world they would have preferred to keep at arm's length.

To refrain and underscore the point: 89 percent of the workforce lacks passion for work. Sixty‐seven percent feel overwhelmed. Is it any wonder that some are predicting that as many as 5 million people will join the freelancer ranks between 2015 and 2020? We're inclined to agree with Micha Kaufman, cofounder of Fiverr, who wrote in Forbes, “Now more and more of us are eschewing 9‐to‐5 jobs to plow our own paths, pursue our career passions, and wrest control of our daily grind. And that transformation is only accelerating. Soon, we'll look back on the desk‐jockey era as a distant memory.”²

We realize the vision we're laying out is not for everyone on the employee side of the equation. Some seek the predictability of the corporation. Not everyone is built to be a free agent, nor do they have the right skills to compete given the depth of talent at our site. An important distinction needs to be drawn between those who are freelancers by choice and those who have joined their ranks because of a lack of job opportunities.

Businesses that right‐size themselves to run as leaner, more efficient entities that swell or shrink as needed will mean pain for some. It will mean layoffs and lost benefits and a lack of choice for some who would prefer full‐time employment. Not everyone has an MBA from a top business school or a deep domain knowledge that they can successfully peddle on the open marketplace. We appreciate that Catalant is a platform for those on top of the talent pyramid. Others will feel threatened by the future that we're working to usher in. We appreciate, too, that there's a world of difference between the consultant able to work hard for a month or two, then surf or travel or spend more time with his kids—versus the driver working 50 or 60 hours a week to make ends meet.

Yet if the past couple of decades have taught us anything, it's that it's futile to fight technology. Change is inevitable. From our point of view, the right tactic is to embrace the new reality and do what we can to advocate for those aspects of society that haven't caught up.

People are always asking us: If your platform is the future, why do we have full‐time employees?

Part of the answer to the question is that every business needs them. What we're advocating is that leadership rethinks the way they engage knowledge workers and finds the optimal mix of permanent and independent people to run their business.

We've benefited tremendously from an internal version of our own business model: the use of external advisors in serious, part‐time capacities. We've been able to attract incredible talent to work with us flexibly. In addition to Professor Fuller from HBS and Amy Villeneuve from Amazon, these ranks include Kylie Wright‐Ford, former Chief Operating and Strategy Officer at World 50, a private global community of senior executives, and Bill Macaitis, former CMO of Slack and Zendesk, and SVP of Marketing at Salesforce. Brynn Thomas Harrington, Facebook's Director of People Growth, has been a key partner on human capital management, while Mark Roberge (former CRO at Hubspot) and Dave Walsh (former VP of Enterprise at Salesforce) played indelible roles in shaping our ultimate go‐to‐market organization. Vijay Subramanian, a critical player in building Rent the Runway, has worked with us for many years on building the correct systems to capture data most efficiently and accurately.

Like all businesses, we also need and want a corps of folks who are 100 percent devoted to growing our company. As Rob often reminds our company, having the years of audacious faith required to will a new market into existence requires almost irrational, complete devotion to the cause.

We know we're not there yet. We're still building out our system. We're proud of where we've gotten, but we'll be happier when we have 80 percent of the Fortune 1000, rather than 25 percent, regularly posting projects at our site. We sometimes need to pinch ourselves when we realize that 40,000 firms and experts have signed up with us. And securing an additional $41 million in financing, led by Highland and General Catalyst, in mid‐2017, was an incredible accelerant for the future. But we're also looking forward to running an ecosystem with millions of participants, and work looks entirely different than it does today.

In some ways, however, the future is now. In 2016, a pair of prominent economists, Harvard's Lawrence Katz and Princeton's Alan Krueger, released a study of “alternative work arrangements” (temp workers, on‐call workers, contract workers, freelancers). They found that their ranks jumped by 9.4 million between 2005 and 2015. Significantly, this was the entire net growth in employment during that period.

We're optimistic about the future. We feel excited by the potential of a dynamic new world where a lot more people are going to a have a healthier relationship with the workplace. More will enjoy their work, and businesses will have a powerful new tool for scoping out talent. Work will be done better by people who are happy to be doing it.

It's inevitable that this is our future. It's just a matter of time.