1. The present report aims at defining the future of talent management in an age of uncertainty
and the growth in the flexibility of the jobs. The conventional staffing industry id getting more
and more informal in its approach towards the rising demand for specialists and experts who
are available on demand.
TALENT ON DEMAND
A RISING SECTOR IN AGE OF UNCERTAINITY

2. 1
TALENT ON
DEMAND
A RISING SECTOR IN AGE OF
UNCERTAINITY
TALENT MANAGEMENT
Talent management is the process through which employers anticipate
and meet their needs for human capital. Getting the right people with the
right skills into the right jobs—a common definition of talent
management—is the basic people management challenge in any
organization. While talent management often focuses on managerial and
executive positions, the issues involved apply to all jobs that are hard to
fill.
Failures in Talent Management
Failures in talent management may be more recognizable than the
concept itself. Those failures include mismatches between supply and
demand: on the one hand, having too many employees, leading to
layoffs and restructurings, and on the other hand, having too little talent
or not being able to find the skills that are needed. These mismatches
are among the biggest challenges that employers face. Over the past
generation, many employers have lurched from surpluses of talent to
shortfalls and back again. Something is wrong with this picture. Most
talent management practices, especially in the United States, fall into
two equally dysfunctional camps.
The first and most common is to do nothing—making no attempt to
anticipate your needs and developing no plans for addressing them.
Recent survey data suggests that about two-thirds of all US employers
are in this category. Making no attempt to anticipate and plan for needs
means relying on outside hiring, a reactive approach that has begun to
fail now that the costs and difficulty of finding candidates has risen.
The second strategy, which is common among older companies, relies
on complex bureaucratic models of forecasting and succession planning
from the 1-2 1950s—legacy systems that grew up in an era when
TALENT
ON
DEMAND
A generation ago, 96%
of large employers in
the U.S. had dedicated
departments to do
workforce planning,
according to a
Conference Board study
done in 1966. Now, less
than a third even
attempt to forecast
demand for talent.
Some estimates suggest
that less than one in
five companies attempt
to plan for internal
succession.

3. 2
business was highly predictable. These models fail now because they are
inaccurate and unresponsive as well as costly in the face of
uncertainty.
A new way of Talent
Management
The first step in a new approach is to be clear about the goal. Talent management is not an end in itself.
It is not about developing employees or creating succession plans. Nor is it about achieving specific
benchmarks such as limiting turnover to 5 percent, having the most educated workforce, or gaining any
other tactical outcome. Rather, the goal of talent management is the more general task of helping the
organization achieve its overall objectives. In the business world, that objective is to make money. And
making money requires that you understand the costs as well as the benefits associated with your talent
management choices.
In this context, the basic problem for organizations is to manage risk, which
we can think, as the costs associated with
events that are uncertain or at least difficult to
predict. Business risk, driven by uncertainty
about business demands, translates directly 1-
3 into risk for talent management. The greatest
risks in talent management are, first, the costs of
a mismatch in employees and skills (not enough
talent to meet business demands or too much,
leading to layoffs) and, second, the costs of
losing your investments in talent through the
failure to retain employees.
Acknowledging Uncertainty
Fundamental to the new model is acknowledging the uncertainty that appears to be a permanent part of
the business world and being able to respond and adapt to it. That acknowledgment means that you
cannot rely on the assumption that drove the old models of workforce planning and talent management—
the assumption that you can forecast away the uncertainty and plan years or decades into the future.
Few of the innovations in talent management are taking place at the older “Academy” companies.
Perhaps not surprisingly, it is newer companies, and often those outside the United States where the
talent crunch is greatest, that are the innovators because they have no stake in the older practices. Their
innovations, along with basic lessons on managing risk from supply chain management, led me to
formulate four key principles for managing talent in the contemporary environment, where uncertainty is
the major challenge.
No attempt to
anticipate
needs and no
plans
Complex
bureaucratic
models of
forecasting and
succession
planning
These models
are highly
inaccurate and
unresponsive
Cost of mismatch in employees
and skills
• Not enough talent to meet business demands
• Too much talent leading to lay-offs
Cost of losing investment in talent
through failure to retain employees

4. 3
THE RISE OF ON-DEMAND TALENT
Adhering to all the uncertainty in the talent management, another phenomenon has given way for the rise
of on-demand economy. Also, in a big way what is coming as a part of this change, is the growth of on-
demand talent management. Just like the product and services
industry, the staffing or talent management as a sector is
emerging in a big way. For all practical purposes, this is going to
be the answer to all the discrepancies existing in the area of talent
management.
We are in the midst of the third revolution within the knowledge
economy, the beginning of the On-Demand Economy, and it is
drastically transforming how we transact with all aspects of the
marketplace. The On-Demand Economy is revolutionizing the
way in which individuals manage their daily lives, and interact with
the labour market, but we are only just now experiencing the very
beginning, by unlocking the potential of this new order.
The On-Demand Economy will see exponential growth as a new wave of Millennial’s and Generation X -
join the early adopters in this digital marketplace.
Evolution
This past year will be remembered as the year of the on-demand economy. For many people, especially
those outside of Silicon Valley, it seemed to come out of nowhere. On the consumer side, this was almost
universally a welcome surprise. The impact on workers was, of course, much more hotly debated.
Headline-grabbing events, such as the class-action lawsuit
over Uber’s supposed “worker misclassification,” were
portrayed as nothing less than the on-demand economy on
trial. Decisions by other companies to reclassify
their independent contractors as employees were
interpreted as an attempt to pre-empt an inevitable crack-
down. There was drama at the local level, with Florida
declaring that an Uber driver was — and then wasn’t — an
employee, and Seattle passing legislation that effectively
paves the way for ride-sharing drivers to unionize.
Well, this is the human resources side of the on-demand economy. However, this has indirectly led to
another development in the form of bringing in a new system of talent management. Instead of worker
classification, we’ll instead focus on building new solutions that support the future of work and a new
generation of entrepreneurs. This will usher in a workforce, which is not permanent and secure but, at
the same time much more competitive, high paying and flexible in nature.

5. 4
Need for On-demand Employment
The on-demand economy didn’t make traditional employment go away, and it isn’t creating a new kind
of work that demands new regulatory action. Far from being a phenomenon that came out of nowhere
in 2015, the reasons people are choosing on-demand work can be traced back 30 years, or more.
The benefits of traditional
employment have been
steadily eroding since the
1980s. Take, for example, the
fact that:
During this same time, the
contingent workforce has been
steadily growing. Full- and part-
time contingent workers
represented 17 percent of the
U.S. workforce 25 years ago;
they have reached 36 percent
today, and are expected to
grow to 43 percent by 2020.
Further, this can be attributed
to the Uberification of jobs in
the area of staffing and talent management. The major reasons for this growth can be given to the
boom in the internet and the rise of smartphone. Ubiquitous communication and lowered transaction
costs give rise to new firms where, efficiency is bringing together consumers and suppliers of goods
and services with highly scalable platforms. A few of the drivers contributing to the new on-demand
order:
1) The availability of ubiquitous and inexpensive computing power, sophisticated applications and cloud-
based services have given way to this dramatically new convenience based era of digital marketplaces
2) Social habits have changed dramatically; the immediacy of our connected-world through instantaneous
communication, media and purchasing has fueled a sense of consumer entitlement that has drastically
transformed consumer-purchasing behavior. Millennial’s 21-33 are the largest cohort of the on-demand
workforce, and are often perceived to be more adaptable, open to change, creative and entrepreneurial
over Generation X. (Mary Meeker report, 2015)
3) The ability to divide work into component parts and subcontract to specialists around the globe: we
now have the ability to create greater efficiencies across all aspects of the labor market through hyper-
specialist occupations
Advances in information and communication technologies have had a tremendous impact on the
structure of companies; this has led to massive shifts towards organizational decomposition with
companies fragmenting to smaller and smaller entities.
In 1982, almost 60
percent of full-time
workers at U.S. private
sector firms were
enrolled in defined-
benefit pension plans.
•Today it’s
about 14
percent.
The average duration of
unemployment was
about 8.5 weeks in
1980.
•In June 2015, it
was 28.1
weeks.
Today, 37 percent of
American households
are home to adults
working two or more
jobs.

6. 5
At the same time economies of scale and network effects are leading to organizational consolidation
where the’ big’ players dominate the landscape. With this, a rapidly growing on-demand freelance
workforce has moved in to fill labor gaps, and new services are launching that aggregate and organize
freelance labor, this is ultimately having a knock-off effect of satisfying supply and demand functions for
the benefit of workers and consumers at both the local and global level.
Trends in On-demand Talent
A recently released initial findings of a new study of more than 4,000 people working for 11 different on-
demand platforms has found that:
 Only 5 percent earn all of their income from a single on-demand platform.
 43 percent also have a traditional full- or part-time job (defined as a W2 job).
 On average, people spend 12 hours per week on their primary on-demand platform.
 People generate an average of 22 percent of their household income from on-demand work.
This data shows that employment as we know it has shifted. It’s not black or white — employee or
contractor — it’s a rainbow of options. Instead of trying to categorize workers, it’s time to focus on how
best to enable on-demand companies to grow and thrive, while also protecting and enabling workers to
find the flexibility they need to be successful.
Over the course of the last several years we have observed a trend where-by traditional specialist
occupations have been becoming increasingly more refined and highly niche subcategories of traditional
roles. This trend has been coined as the emergence of ‘Hyper-Specialists’, which enables firms to divide
work into component parts that can then be subcontracted to hyper-specialists around the globe. This
trend is enabling micro/SMEs to realize tremendous gains through improved market efficiencies, lowered
transaction costs and higher quality outputs.
Likewise, this rapidly growing section of Freelance labor, is enabling firms to ramp labor capacity up or
down based bursts in demand at that time, or project scope. We can predict that the continued refinement
of hyper-specialist computer-based jobs has led to a reduction in transaction costs by as much as 75%
for micro/SMEs, and this is just the beginning…
We can predict that the next major disruptive wave in the On-Demand Economy will be for Marketplace
providers to virtually link Freelancer data points. This will provide a consolidated source for ratings,
reviews, qualifications, pictures and income statements. Ultimately, digital data linking will provide
tremendous portability of worker reputational equity.
In 2014 it is estimated, that freelance workers contributed approximately 103bn to the UK
economy in collective sales, around 3.1% of total private sector turnover and 2.8% of UK
GDP.

7. 6
Thus, we can clearly see how fast
the demand for a hyper-specialist
role is being sought after in the
present market. In this context, it
becomes really interesting to see
how we can predict the demand for
self-employment and freelancing in
the years to come.
Contrary to the existing fear for the
loss of secured jobs, there is going
to be a demand for freelancing.
With the increase in competition
and demand for higher
compensation, the expertise in
different skill will be the key. Unlike
the present dysfunctional system of
talent management, focus will be on the specifics and flexibility of jobs. On one hand, different jobs can
be clubbed into one role whereas on the other hand, there will be specific area of expertize zeroing on a
particular aspect of a job.
In a report published by Peopleforsure, a considerable growth in the on-demand talent has been
predicted. The following is a UK Labour Force study by ONS, 2015. In the same study for different
economies, major growth has been predicted
for on-demand talent and which has a high
possibility of getting into other developing
economies as well. While the developed world
has stumbled and stalled, the developing world
— led by China, India and Brazil — has
prospered, proving remarkably resilient even
during the global economic downturn. In case
of India, given the high percentage of unemployment but, growth in the on-demand industries within a
very short span of time, it can be predicted that it soon follows the same.
Marketing
• 7x increase
Writing
• 14x increase
Design
• 20x increase
Web
Development/Mobile
• 38x increase

8. 7
This data taken from the ONS and US bureau and extrapolated for 5 years, shows some significant
development in this sector.
MAJOR PLAYERS IN THE ON-DEMAND TALENT
In a very short span of time, we have a number of on-demand talent platforms around. Some of them,
even deal with executive search to recruiting senior executives on demand. So, this business is here to
stay. Here, we list some of the major players in this area.
PeoplePerHour
OVERVIEW
PeoplePerHour is a UK-based company that provides a website for the
advertisement of freelance work.
In August 2012, PeoplePerHour was named by the science and technology
magazine, Wired UK as one of "Europe's 100 Hottest Start-ups of 2012". In
2012 its 50-person engineering department relocated to Athens.[8] One of the
major investors in PeoplePerHour's is Index Ventures, which gave the company £2M ($3.2M) dollars in
2012. Mike Volpi has named PeoplePerHour among the three "most underrated companies" in the
Index's portfolio. In its previous seed round the company had raised approximately £425k.
BUSINESS
In the last 3 years since inception
 Over 600000 jobs posted
 250000 hourlies sold
 Over 150000 satisfied buyers
 Over £40000000 earned by handpicked freelancers
 In over 226 countries

9. 8
FOUNDERS
Born on labour day Xenios has been tasked by cosmic forces to
disrupt the labour market. He started PPH in mid 2007 manually
micro-brokering small projects between business and freelancers
using pen, paper and a phone (occasionally email too!).
Today, 700K+ lines of code later, the site serves over 1m people
worldwide, and Xenios has gone from pen % paper to being on
BBC News, Bloomberg, Wired, Forbes, the Financial Times,
and many more, as a thought leader in the burgeoning
freelance / on-demand economy.
When not working (which isn’t very often), he blogs , paints, visits Art galleries, cooks a messy meal
(more often than not too close to burring his place down), plays sports or watches movies. He holds an
MA & MEng from the University of Cambridge and did a short stint at Harvard Business School –
enough to convince him never to do an MBA!
I have been a part of the PPH family from the beginning as CTO
although in the early days that more or less meant sitting in a
room with Xenios for hours, working our way through a huge ‘take
over the world’ to-do list while trying to come up with solutions to
a seemingly never-ending list of problems.
I love startups and technology and a couple of years ago inspired
by my PPH journey I decided to take on a new challenge and
founded Yumbles, a marketplace connecting food lovers with
independent food makers.
In my spare time I love hanging out with my family and friends and trying (somewhat extreme) sports
most people have never even heard of. I (somehow) ended up holding an M.Eng. (first-class honours)
from the University of Cambridge.
KEY TALENT
Spyros Lambrinidis, CTO
In charge of the company technology, building scalable and robust systems and infrastructure. Constantly
in the lookout for great talent and time to do some actual coding. Special knack for new tech and large
scale engineering solutions. Prefers not to talk a lot and tries to avoid long meetings – has therefore
optimised agile methodology to suit that need. Always trying to find the fastest and easier to maintain
solution to every problem while minimising technical debt. Regards himself as very humorous and laughs
loudly with his amazing jokes, even if on second thoughts, admits their poor quality. Holds many hobbies
Xenios Thrasyvoulou
• CEO and Founder
Simos Kitiris
• Co-founder

10. 9
and desirable activities, which have been greatly abandoned after having two sons. So has his spare
time. Answers irrelevantly to irrelevant questions.
Tom Fotherby, Web Developer / DevOps
Having been at PeoplePerHour since Nov/08 I remember the days where the technical landscape was
quaint – where we didn’t use Amazon Web Services, or github, where adding rounded-corners to a button
took a hour to do, where being a “full stack developer” was actually possible. Technology is changing
fast, things are becoming easier and easier to build. It really is ever so exciting! I love being a part of it!
Panagiotis Moustafellos, Lead DevOps
I am a self driven Senior Systems Engineer. My main professional passion is Automation (can’t stand
having anything not automated), Distributed Systems, High Availability and Fault Tolerance. My focus is
keep things running while bridging the gap between Development and IT Operations teams.
Freelancer.com
OVERVIEW
Freelancer is a global crowdsourcing marketplace, which
allows potential employers to post jobs that freelancers can
then bid to complete. Founded in 2009, its headquarters is
located in Sydney, Australia, though it also has offices in
Vancouver, London, Buenos Aires, Manila and Jakarta.
Freelancer is a marketplace where employers and employees are able to find each other. The site allows
employers to post work to get done. Anybody is then able to offer quotes to complete the project, upon
which point the original employer is able to award the work.
Freelancer has different levels of membership. Free accounts can only bid on 8 projects per month and
cannot make direct deposit withdrawals. Higher tiers of paid accounts get additional bids, direct deposit
withdrawals, and other features.
Freelancer takes a 10% fee, which can be reduced with paid monthly membership, with a minimum fee
of $5. The company has recently announced its new move into home and local services, staying first in
its home market of Australia.
 2015 Best Employment Website, 19th Annual Webby Awards and People's Voice
 2015 Best Professional Services Website, 19th Annual Webby Awards and People's Voice
BUSINESS
Freelancer.com has acquired several outsourcing marketplaces including GetAFreelancer.com and
EUFreelance.com (founded by Magnus Tibell in 2004, Sweden), LimeExchange (a former business of
Lime Labs LLC, USA), Scriptlance.com (founded by Rene Trescases in 2001, Canada, one of the early
pioneers in freelancing), Freelancer.de Booking Center (Germany), Freelancer.co.uk (United Kingdom),
Webmaster-talk.com (USA), a forum for webmasters, Rent-A-Coder and vWorker (founded by Ian
Ippolito, USA, another early innovator in the freelance marketplace space).
 17,825,366 REGISTERED USERS

11. 10
 9,379,633 TOTAL PROJECTS POSTED
DIRECTORS
Matt Barrie is an award winning entrepreneur, technologist
and lecturer, having won numerous awards including being
named the inaugural BRW Entrepreneur of the Year in 2011.
Matt was previously founder and CEO of Sensory Networks
Inc., a vendor of high performance network security
processors, which Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC)
announced in 2013 it was acquiring. Matt is also an Adjunct
Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical and
Information Engineering at the University of Sydney, where
for the last 12 years he has taught Cryptography, and from
2010, Technology Entrepreneurship. He is the co-author of
over 20 US patent applications.
Matt is a prolific speaker and has spoken at, or featured in; the Summit Series, the New York Times,
Bloomberg TV, The Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, The Atlantic, Switzer, BRW and The Economist.
In 2012, he was selected out of a field of 600 presenters to be one of 21 featured speakers at South by
Southwest in Austin, Texas (SXSW), which is one of the world‘s largest interactive, music, film and
technology festivals.
In 2006, he was awarded the State Pearcey Award for contribution to the IT&T industry. In 2010, he was
named Alumnus of the Year for the Faculty of Engineering and IT at the University of Sydney.
In 2011, SmartCompany named him in the 11 most influential Australians in IT. In 2011, he was named
inaugural BRW Entrepreneur of the Year. He was also the winner of the technology category in the
National Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards for 2011.
In 2012, he was named in the top 100 most influential engineers by Engineers Australia, and a 2012 Man
of Influence by Men‘s Style Magazine. In this year he also completed the Executive Program at Singularity
University. In 2013, he was named in the top 10 Australian entrepreneurs to watch in 2013 by
SmartCompany, the Blackberry Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year by News Limited, a Silver
Stevie in the International Business Awards for Executive of the Year in Internet/New Media, and again
in the top 100 most influential engineers by Engineers Australia.
Matt has first class honours degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University
of Sydney, a Masters in Applied Finance from Macquarie University, and a Masters in Electrical
Engineering from Stanford, California. He is a graduate of the Stanford Executive Program at the
Graduate School of Business. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Engineers Australia and Councillor of the
Electrical and Information Engineering Foundation at the University of Sydney.
Matt is regularly invited to speak at the world‘s leading entrepreneurship, internet and business
conferences/forums. He is also one of the worldwide Linkedin Influencers, along with Richard Branson,
Barack Obama and Deepak Chopra, where he writes on the topics of entrepreneurship and technology.
MATT BARRIE
•Chief Executive Officer &
Chairman

12. 11
Darren transitioned from Executive Director and Chief Technology Officer of Freelancer to Non-Executive
Director in late 2015. In his time as an executive he was responsible day-to-day for strategic leadership of the
company‘s operating and technical direction.
Darren has experience in computer security, protocols,
networking and software. Prior to joining Freelancer, Darren was
a co-founder of Sensory Networks, a venture-backed network
security hardware company, where he held the roles of Chief
Technology Officer and subsequently Chief Executive Officer.
Darren previously lectured in Computer Science at the University
of Sydney in a variety of areas to postgraduates and
undergraduates.
Darren has authored numerous articles, patents and papers
relating to security technology, software and networking, and
has spoken at a number of international conferences. Darren
holds a first class honours degree in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Computer Science specialising in
computer networking from the University of Sydney.
Simon is a founding investor of Freelancer. Simon has
more than 17 years’ experience in high growth technology
businesses in both Australia and the United States. His
technical expertise includes proficiency in multiple software
development languages, computer security and
vulnerability analysis, and he is co-author and inventor of a
number of technology patents.
Focusing on consumer-centric software and Internet
enabled technology he founded, and was CEO of
WinGuides, which later became PC Tools. With Simon
as CEO PC Tools grew to over $100 million dollars in
revenue, more than 250 employees and offices in 7 countries. PC Tools was acquired by Symantec
Corporation (NASDAQ:SYMC) in October 2008 in one of Australia‘s largest ever technology acquisitions
at the time. Following the acquisition Simon became a Vice President at Symantec, before leaving in
2009 and founding Startive Ventures, a specialised technology venture fund. Today, Startive actively
maintains investments in a number of successful global start-ups and Simon acts as a Director and
advisor to companies around the world.
KEY TALENT
NEIL KATZ, Chief Financial Officer
Neil Katz is the Chief Financial Officer at Freelancer and is responsible for the finance and administration
functions of the Company. Since joining Freelancer in May 2009, Neil has been an integral part of the
DARREN WILLIAMS
• Non-Executive Director
SIMON CLAUSEN
•Non-Executive Director

13. 12
management team and has been involved in establishing the financial disciplines and internal controls of
the Group.
Neil has over 20 years’ experience in finance, accounting and general management. Neil has held CFO
roles at a number of technology companies, including IPscape, Threatmetrix, Sensory Networks and
Aptrix. Neil has experience and been involved in numerous private equity and venture capital raisings,
obtaining multiple government grants, corporate restructuring and trade sale activities. In particular, Neil
was involved in the sale of Aptrix to IBM. In these previous roles, Neil has provided financial guidance to
assist in the growth and international expansion of these businesses. Neil has also provided consulting
services to a number of smaller technology start-up companies in areas of commercialisation strategies
and capital raising.
Prior to his roles within the technology sector, Neil held senior finance positions in distribution and retail
sectors, including at Checkpoint Systems.
Neil holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) degree in Financial Management obtained from the
University Of Cape Town, South Africa, and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in
Australia.
WILLIX HALIM, Senior Vice President of Growth
Willix Halim is the Senior Vice President of Growth at Freelancer and manages the growth team, which
oversees all revenue, product management, engineering, data science and customer operations. Willix
manages a technical and multi-disciplinary team consisting of data scientists, engineers, mathematicians,
statisticians, physicists and product managers.
Willix conducts speaking engagements internationally and has recently spoken at or featured in
Bloomberg, CNBC, AdTech, SydStart, ABC Australia, Echelon, Tempo and Kompas. Willix also lectures
at universities on topics such as growth, strategy and data science.
Willix grew up in Indonesia and graduated as valedictorian with first class honours degrees in
Mechatronics Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Melbourne. Willix recently
completed the Stanford Executive Program For Growing Companies at the Stanford Graduate School of
Business.
PETER PHILLIPS, Vice President, Engineering
Peter is Vice President of Engineering at Freelancer. In this role, he is responsible for leading the global
engineering teams and defining and executing the company's operating and technical direction.
Peter has extensive experience in software engineering, scalable infrastructure and IT management.
Peter previously lectured in Computer Science at James Cook University in a variety of subject areas at
both the postgraduate and undergraduate level.
Peter has authored numerous articles, patents and papers relating to data mining, algorithm design and
software engineering, and has spoken at a number of international conferences. Peter holds a first class

14. 13
honours degree in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Computer Science specialising in spatial data mining
from James Cook University.
Other major players in this business are:
http://www.iqworkforce.com/
IQ Workforce
http://www.findly.com/about-
us/
Findly