Why Don’t We Share Our Workforces?
We’re always resource hungry, yet over resourced at the wrong times.
WHAT IS A SHARED WORKFORCE MODEL?
A shared workforce model lets organisations lend or borrow employees across mutually supportive organisations. It helps monetise underused capacity, scale with agility, access resources without permanent hires, retain recall rights via SLAs, and reduce contractor reliance and costs.
THE HIDDEN TRUTH BEHIND HEADCOUNT: MATCHING WORK TO REAL CAPACITY
Most organizations track headcount as a flat number let's say 100 people. But in reality, due to holidays, sickness, training, and other non-working time, your actual available capacity is closer to 83 people. That's because the effective work year is only 10 months, not 12.
Now let's look at the work coming in.
Work isn't flat. It fluctuates, and over 80% of it is reactive interruptions, urgent tasks, and fire-fighting. This reactive work consumes all available time and leaves no space for proactive work like improvement, innovation, or strategic planning.
This creates a dangerous imbalance:
- When the workload is below capacity (shown in green), the team can handle it.
- But when demand exceeds capacity (shown in pink), it leads to burnout, bottlenecks, and stagnation.
The graph visualizes this clearly:
- Grey line: Nominal headcount (100 people)
- Blue line: Real working capacity (83 people)
- Orange line: Incoming, variable workload
- Green areas: Work matched to available capacity
- Pink areas: Demand exceeding capacity your team is overloaded and stuck in reactive mode
COST MODEL EXPLANATION
KEY STATISTICS SUPPORTING WORKFORCE SHARING
UNDERUTILIZATION & IDLE TIME
UNDERUTILIZATION & IDLE TIME
UNDERUTILIZATION & IDLE TIME
- 78% of employees report involuntary idle time at work (Harvard Business School)
- UK businesses lose an estimated £37 billion+ annually to underused staff (ONS)
- Average employee productivity remains 30–40% below optimal levels across the UK and US (HBS / ONS)
JOB MARKET SHIFTS
UNDERUTILIZATION & IDLE TIME
UNDERUTILIZATION & IDLE TIME
- Over 1.25 million UK workers and 9 million Americans hold more than one job (ONS / US BLS)
- 38% of US workers now take on side gigs or additional income streams (Upwork)
- Job vacancies are down 20% YoY in both the UK and US (ONS, BLS 2024)
- Attrition in service and support roles is over 35% in the UK and 47% in the US
AI AND WORK RESHAPING
UNDERUTILIZATION & IDLE TIME
AI AND WORK RESHAPING
- 29.5% of total work hours are expected to be automated by 2030 (McKinsey)
- Only 12% of UK employers have a strategy to redeploy people impacted by AI (CIPD 2024)
- AI adoption is freeing up capacity across HR, finance, and operations — without a plan for what happens next