MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Manage Your Workforce Ecosystem, Not Just Your Employees

“How do you define your workforce?” We have posed this question to dozens of executives and in multiple global management surveys. The most common answer is also the most surprising.

A confident minority of executives say their workforce is just their employees. But the overwhelming majority, especially leaders on the front lines of organizational transformations, takes a broader view that goes beyond just employees. Increasingly, they characterize the workforce as all of the people and groups involved in achieving the company’s business objectives. Organizations’ extended workforces have become so essential to their businesses, brands, and approaches to value creation that they need to think differently about, and act differently toward, their entire workforce.

About the Author

Elizabeth J. Altman is associate professor of management at the Manning School of Business at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. David Kiron is editorial director, research, at MIT Sloan Management Review. Jeff Schwartz is vice president for insights and impact at Gloat and an adjunct professor at Columbia Business School. Robin Jones is a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP and serves as the Workforce Transformation Practice leader. They are the authors of Workforce Ecosystems (MIT Press, April 2023), from which this article is adapted.

Learn more about MIT SMR.