Agile Workforce Model – How ANZ Companies Are Competing with Smaller Talent Pools
Australia and New Zealand’s workforce landscape is shifting in a fundamental way. The traditional model of building teams almost entirely through permanent hiring is giving way to something more flexible, more modular, and more responsive to how work actually gets done today.
This isn’t just a response to talent shortages, although those are real and persistent. It’s a broader recognition that the skills businesses need are changing faster than traditional hiring can keep up with, and that the organisations best placed to compete are the ones that can access the right expertise at the right time, regardless of how that expertise is contracted or where it sits.
The Numbers Behind the Shift
The data makes it clear that this is already well underway in ANZ. According to the Hays 2025 Skills Report, based on 5,623 survey responses across 10 industries, 86% of employers in Australia and New Zealand are now moving toward skills-based hiring, prioritising demonstrated capability and transferable skills over degrees and rigid career pathways. At the same time, the independent talent market is expanding rapidly, with freelancer registrations in Australia surging by 122%, reflecting a structural shift in how senior professionals are choosing to work and how enterprises are choosing to engage them.
These two trends are connected. As skills needs become more specialised and change more rapidly, businesses are increasingly looking for ways to access expertise on demand rather than carrying it all internally. And as more senior professionals move toward independent work, the pool of specialist talent available outside traditional employment is deepening.
| The Finding | Why It Matters |
|---|---|
| 86% of ANZ employers are moving toward skills-based hiring | Demonstrated capability is replacing credentials as the primary hiring filter |
| Freelancer registrations in Australia surged by 122% | Independent work is becoming mainstream at senior and specialist levels |
Source: Hays, Skills Report 2025 / Outsized, Talent-on-Demand Report 2025, via PR Newswire
Why Traditional Hiring Is No Longer Enough on Its Own
The shift toward agile workforce models is not happening in a vacuum. It is a direct response to the structural constraints that ANZ employers are facing.
Hays found that 85% of hiring managers in Australia and New Zealand report skills gaps that are negatively affecting team performance, productivity, and operational delivery. Critically, 87% of professionals believe the skills required in their roles will change significantly within five years, meaning the problem is not static. The implication is significant. Businesses that rely solely on permanent hiring to build capability are not just facing a short-term shortage. They are operating a model that is structurally misaligned with the pace at which skills needs are evolving.
Research from Outsized reinforces this from the demand side, finding strong and growing appetite across Australian businesses for external specialists in transformation, digital modernisation, product development, governance and risk, and technology delivery. These are not peripheral functions. They are core to how modern businesses operate and grow.
The Skills That Matter Most Right Now
One of the more striking findings across both reports is what skills are actually in demand. The conversation around workforce transformation often focuses heavily on technical capability, and that demand is real. But the data points to something broader.
The largest skills gaps sit across hard and technical skills at 57%, critical thinking and problem solving at 50%, leadership and management at 46%, and communication skills at 41%. Meanwhile change management, risk, product, and strategy are among the hottest independent skill categories in the Australian market right now.
Both reports make the same underlying point: as AI and automation take on more technical and process-driven work, the skills that remain most valuable are the ones that require human judgment, stakeholder management, adaptability, and the ability to lead complex change. The agile workforce model is not just about accessing technical talent faster. It is about building teams that combine the right technical and human capabilities for the work at hand.
| The Gap | What It Means for Business |
|---|---|
| 85% of hiring managers report skills gaps affecting performance | Shortages are hitting productivity and delivery across industries |
| 87% of professionals say required job skills will change within five years | Static hiring models are becoming a structural liability |
| Hard and technical skills at 57%, critical thinking at 50%, leadership at 46% | The shortage spans both technical and human capability |
Source: Hays, Skills Report 2025
What an Agile Workforce Model Looks Like
For many ANZ businesses, the shift toward workforce agility is already happening in practice, even if it has not been formalised as a strategic model.
It looks like engaging independent specialists for transformation programmes rather than building permanent teams for project-based work. It looks like supplementing onshore capability with dedicated global teams that bring depth in areas where local supply is constrained. It looks like designing roles around the skills the business actually needs rather than around the credentials that candidates traditionally held.
What makes this work at scale is not just flexibility in how people are engaged. It’s the operating model that sits behind it. Businesses that build agile workforces successfully are the ones that maintain visibility and control across all of their talent, permanent and otherwise, and that invest in the integration, culture, and development that turns a collection of people into a high-performing team.
How HLB Mann Judd Built a Model That Held Up
HLB Mann Judd’s approach is a strong example of what proactive workforce redesign can deliver. The firm did not wait for the skills shortage to force their hand. Back in 2014, through an internal initiative called the Future People Project, they identified a looming talent gap and rising salary pressure and made a deliberate decision to redesign how their workforce was structured.
Rather than competing harder in a tightening local market, they built a dedicated offshore team through Emapta, starting with a single division and expanding systematically using detailed process maps and 90-day onboarding cycles. Within 18 months, all onshore divisions had dedicated offshore support. starting with a single division and expanding systematically using detailed process maps and 90-day onboarding cycles. Within 18 months, all onshore divisions had dedicated offshore support.
The outcomes reflected the value of the model: a utilisation rate above 75%, client turnaround times improved by 20%, an NPS score above 80, and less than 5% attrition since 2023. Critically, the firm did not lose quality or oversight in the process. They built a model that gave them access to the capability they needed without being constrained by what the local market could supply.
How More Telecom Scaled Without Being Constrained by Local Hiring
More Telecom’s story illustrates what agile workforce design looks like in a fast-scaling business. Faced with rapid growth and the challenge of building capability quickly across multiple functions, the Melbourne-based telecommunications provider partnered with Emapta to build a global team that could scale with the business.
Starting with just seven team members through Emapta’s 16-office network in the Philippines, More Telecom expanded to 365 people across customer service, IT development, QA testing, UI/UX design, multimedia, and data analytics. The model meant one Australian hire equated to bringing on up to two highly skilled global professionals, freeing the business to invest in capability rather than overhead.
What both cases share is a deliberate approach to workforce design. Neither business simply reacted to market pressure. Both made proactive decisions about where talent would come from, how teams would be structured, and what model would give them the flexibility to scale without being held back by local supply constraints.
What to Look for in a Global Talent Partner for Agile Workforce Design
For ANZ businesses building toward a more agile workforce model, the right global talent partner needs to address a few core requirements. Teams should be dedicated and exclusive rather than shared across multiple clients. Pricing should be fully transparent with no hidden markups. Engagement terms should offer genuine flexibility without long-term lock-ins. And the model should include a real commitment to developing the people in those teams over time, so capability grows rather than churns.
The businesses that get agile workforce design right are not just sourcing talent differently. They are building a model that gives them reliable, flexible access to the skills their growth demands, with the same standards of quality, visibility, and accountability they would apply to any part of their onshore operation.
The Competitive Advantage Is Access
The shift toward skills-based, agile workforce models is not a trend that ANZ businesses can afford to observe from a distance. With 85% of employers reporting active skills gaps and independent talent registrations surging across the market, the transition is already underway.
The businesses that will compete most effectively in this environment are not the ones with the most rigid structures or the deepest permanent headcount. They are the ones that have built the most reliable and flexible access to the skills their growth demands, wherever those skills sit.
For ANZ leaders, that means rethinking not just how roles are filled but how the workforce is designed. The organisations getting this right are treating talent access as a strategic capability, not just a hiring function.
| The Trend | The Business Implication |
|---|---|
| Top independent specialists earning AUD 1,500 or more per day | Specialist talent scarcity is pushing rates to executive consulting levels |
| Change management, risk, product, and strategy are the hottest independent skill categories | The most in-demand expertise sits outside traditional permanent employment models |
Source: Outsized, Talent-on-Demand Report 2025, via PR Newswire
Ready to Build a More Agile Workforce?
Whether you are building a dedicated global team, accessing specialist talent on demand, or redesigning how your workforce is structured, Emapta can help. Get in touch with one of our workforce solutions specialists to explore what the right model looks like for your business.
