The Future of Flexible Work Report

The gig economy narrative has long overshadowed a bigger shift in the workforce. Highly skilled independent contractors do more than fill gaps. They drive revenue.

Independent contractors, particularly in healthcare, professional services, and insurance, are core contributors. They deliver billable work and specialized expertise that companies can't hire fast enough. With 56% of companies planning to grow their contractor workforce in the next three years, the infrastructure you choose today decides whether that growth runs smoothly or stalls.

When contractor management breaks down, it rarely surfaces at the top of the org chart. It gets absorbed by the Directors and Managers closest to the work. That gap between executive confidence and ground-level reality is one of the most striking findings in the data.

Operations teams are twice as likely as any other department to exceed 81 hours per month on contractor-related work. Because the burden is spread across Finance, HR, and Operations at once, most leadership teams underestimate the true cost to the business.

High-demand contractors can choose who they work with. For them, payment delays and onboarding confusion are dealbreakers. Since 84% of contractors do billable work, churn is a direct threat to revenue.

Speed and timeliness of payments is the #1 contractor complaint (66%), followed by payment-reconciliation delays (53%) and a lack of payment transparency (46%). On the company side, integration with internal workflows (54%) and compliance and classification (52%) top the list. That friction compounds at every stage of the contractor lifecycle.