The Human Cloud is a technology industry term that has started to take over when describing online/digital labor and staffing platforms. These platforms not only help workers find jobs, but they also specialize in the management and optimization of your workforce. Workers of the Human Cloud are usually made up of contractors, freelancers, consultants, and other categories of the flexible and contingent workforce. These workers value flexibility and need a quick and efficient way to connect to job opportunities. As more and more of the US workforce chooses to work in a flexible and on-demand way, online staffing platforms are needed to connect workers to employers and help improve the management of these remote workers.
According to Barry Asin, president of Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA), about $80 billion is spent annually on human cloud technologies. Staffing Industry Analysts defines the Human Cloud as “an emerging set of work intermediation models that enable work arrangements of various kinds to be established and completed (including payment of workers) entirely through a digital/online platform.” Human Cloud services offer technology that supports everything from recruitment and work assignment to time and attendance tracking and payroll. There are three main types of Human Cloud platform models: CrowdSourcing, Online Work Services, and Online Staffing Platforms.
What are the Benefits of the Human Cloud?
By utilizing technology to manage your workforce and moving them to a human cloud, you can significantly reduce the time that your team is currently spending on manual management processes. Online staffing platforms that allow you to move your team to the cloud can eliminate costly and outdated systems that you may be using now. This speeds up the entire staffing and on-boarding process and frees up your manager’s time to spend on more important business goals.
Moving your workforce to a Human Cloud allows employers to take jobs and break them into specific shifts while assigning them to the top performers exactly when are where they are needed most. With more workers choosing to move to freelance/gig work, the battle for talent is heating up. Employers can make faster hiring decisions while onboarding and deployer workers even faster by leveraging a cloud-based workforce management platform to manage their team.
