Evolving attitudes to work and the work environment are facilitated by technology in the cloud which enables remote working without the traditional infrastructure of an office space. Technology enables businesses to collaborate across a range of locations and timezones and equally include candidates who may not be formally employed but have the skills that are required for a project. This has lead to the development of what is known as the ‘GIG’ economy.

You only have to mention ‘Uber’ or ‘Deliveroo’ to understand the scrutiny that the GIG economy has been under the last few years. Yet with 46% of HR professionals predicting 20% of  their workforce will be made up of self-employed or contractual workers (PwC, 2015) by 2022 the GIG economy is set to flourish. To flourish, however, employees will need to live in a intelligent mobile world, powered by technology.

Flexible working is a major priority for Millennials and Generation Z who are likely to assess the suitability of a role against the possibility of a positive work/life balance. To achieve this in the future, research is suggesting that prospective employees will be in control of finding this balance; opting to perhaps have multiple ‘employers’ whilst working on a range of projects.

International short-term assignment (STA) and short term business visitor (STBV) opportunities will work hand-in-hand with project-based employment; allowing organisations to ‘tap into’ the skills required for an agreed timeframe. Such levels of flexibility within the work environment call out for a robust form of technology that can handle easy deployment of resources (including assessing the workforce or prospective assignee for immigration and other suitabilities) and facilitate real-time tracking for compliance purposes.

Collaborative technology that the assignee can utilise intuitively will give organisations the edge in the GIG economy when prospective employees are assessing competitive opportunities and assignments. Organisations with an intelligent tech infrastructure designed to make processes easier and more interactive will be far more favourable to the tech-savvy Millennials and Generation Z than older, less efficient practices.