As remote workplaces, growing employee preference for flexible, project-based work and diverse employee types create unique business challenges around scheduling and correct employee classification, professional services (PS) firms are making wholesome changes to their workforce management processes.
In fact, data from the Global Talent Trends Study reveals that 48% of global firms are prioritizing improving their workforce planning to better inform buy/build/borrow talent strategies. This entails either investing time and resources to build talent pipelines internally or recruiting them from the external market to overcome shortages. Additionally, firms are increasingly borrowing talent by onboarding freelancers, consultants, gig workers, etc.
Key Workforce Management Trends
There are several factors transforming the workforce management landscape at a tremendous pace. Here are some key drivers of this change and trends to watch out for in 2025 and beyond:
1. Rise of the Gig Economy
The gig economy has grown since the pandemic came knocking, as employees sought flexibility to work from anywhere and freedom from longer-term organizational commitments. Employee fatigue, burnout and growing tech adoption have also fueled the trend. There is also an economic angle: the shortage of highly skilled knowledge workers has led to a massive spike in wages, helping boost the gig economy.
On the business front, clients now prefer an “outcomes-based” payment model over a “volumes-based” payment model, putting additional pressure on PS firms to deliver results while keeping their profits intact. This is also attracting PS firms toward freelancers and part-time employees as they can onboard talent faster, reduce the time-to-hire and lower their workforce-related expenses. This explains why the global gig economy is predicted to grow from $646.77 billion in 2025 to $2.1 trillion in 2033.
2. Hiring of Global Workforces
Even as businesses operate in limited geographies and markets, they are hiring globally more than ever. As mentioned, the ongoing war for talent, pressure on revenues and an employee-driven shift toward gig work have forced organizations to look beyond their traditional workforce catchment markets.
Such an approach will become more mainstream as firms cater to increasingly complex project requirements. Growing access to digital technologies is also opening up hitherto untapped workforce markets. This change is helping PS firms build resilience with a diverse employee pool to ensure business continuity and insulate themselves against frequent regional and global disruptions.
3. AI and Automation
Artificial Intelligence (AI), gen AI and automation have evolved from buzzwords to the backbones of organizational operations and workforce management. Most organizations wish to employ AI in some form to streamline workflows, automate administrative tasks, overcome resourcing unpredictability and identify and address revenue leakages.
65% of firms suggest that AI adoption remains a strategic organizational priority, but only 10% believe they are fully prepared to adopt AI, blaming the lack of data foundation and access to high-quality data.
Such firms can start small by automating simple business processes such as time tracking to understand how AI can benefit their business processes while making better sense of vast tracts of data. A unified time-tracking software can help firms better manage resource scheduling and forecasting processes and staffing requirements.
AI and automation will assume a more prominent role in workforce management as organizations adopt AI-powered time tracking and resource management solutions for a real-time view of their global resources and their current and future allocation levels.
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4. Changing Skills Landscape
Fast-changing skills requirements are a critical catalyst for a transforming workforce management landscape. 68% of organizations report initiating employees’ skills journey and establishing ways to track and manage their skills. Firms now seek employee skills like communication, collaboration, resilience, AI literacy, data analysis, complex problem solving and learning agility. Meanwhile, skills like manual bookkeeping, basic accounting, data entry and basic coding and programming are in less demand.
As the skills needed in the workplace change rapidly, many organizations struggle with skills gaps—one of the biggest obstacles to business transformation. To address this, companies should take a strategic approach to upskilling and reskilling their employees.
Instead of relying solely on top-down initiatives, organizations can empower teams and managers to take a bottom-up approach, identifying the specific skills their groups need most. For PS firms in particular, it’s important to manage employees’ workloads carefully to ensure they have the time and capacity to participate in these important development efforts. Technology can help by assessing current skills and identifying both immediate and future skill needs.
5. Predictive Workforce Planning
According to the latest SPI Report, PS organizations that faced the least employee attrition of 9% in 2024 also reported meeting the highest percentage of annual revenue target at 93.6%.
High employee churn, changing client preferences and new and complex project requirements can disrupt even the most well-staffed organizations.
Therefore, PS firms need to utilize their existing employee strength while accurately predicting future workforce requirements. They can do so by making sense of historical employee data and predicting their productivity and performance levels to anticipate workflows.
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Getting it wrong can be a double-whammy for businesses as they may have to hire quickly, often paying over budget to avoid project delays. Or they may have to bench employees and pay them without assigning them any projects. Either way, they stand to lose – why getting predictive workforce management right should be a business priority.
Want to Learn More About Key Workforce Management Trends in 2025 and Beyond?
Looking for an actionable workforce management framework and a maturity model checklist to assess your firm’s standing in the journey to becoming future-ready?
Learn all that and more in this Deltek guide: The Future of Workforce Management in Professional Services.
