It would probably surprise you to learn that a quarter of your millennial employees – these born after 1985 – would like to quit their current jobs sometime this year. Those that do want to stay want to mix where they work between the coffee-shop-around-the-corner, their home office or even at the beach, if that's okay with you? Oh, and they'd prefer not to work 9-5. Instead, they'd like to go to the gym mid-morning and grab a coffee with a friend mid-afternoon.

They're a demanding but talented bunch, which creates a real problem for your business. It's hard enough to attract new talent, those with the critical digital and emerging tech skills and especially hiring fast enough to meet rapid changes in demand, let alone having to think about the strategies you'll need for keeping your very best employees.

And if that wasn't challenging enough, the cost of maintaining your (fast diminishing) workforce is probably also on the rise. At some point, Coase's law will come into play – the idea, first proposed by Ronald Coase in 1937 that a company should continue to expand internally until internal transaction costs become equal to the cost of sourcing that transaction from the open market. Some of the most successful start-up businesses have turned this trend on its head, to allow incredibly rapid growth in previously hard to disrupt markets. They seek and implement new ways that can handle aspects of business that are not core to the strategy. They do this with a simple test: If it isn't core to the business, do we need an internal function for it?

So how is this achieved?

One of the ways some companies have approached this is by looking to external, on-demand communities' a.k.a crowdsourcing to deliver better, faster and cheaper results than they could have done otherwise:

  • Better – because the smartest people don't always work for you
  • Faster – because the three billion is out there for you to access
  • Cheaper – because on-demand workforce is the way forward in the new economy

This isn't about taking away jobs or trying to take short-cuts, this is about working in new ways which help create outcomes in better, faster, cheaper ways – through enterprise crowdsourcing.

The enterprise crowds provide an array of approaches and communities that help organisations navigate and position themselves in the rapidly changing business environment. These crowds undertake simple rote tasks, like image tagging or voting, as well as far more complex problems, like brainstorming ideas, algorithm optimisation or even strategic planning.

What does this mean for millennials?

Today's workers do not want to settle and abide by traditional norms. Many millennials do not believe that their current employers are taking full advantage of their skills. Working in the crowd offers an alternative to traditional employment and gives the opportunity for variety, flexibility and sometimes bigger rewards (for the best, earnings can reach $500,000 per annum).

In summary, millennials believe in what they have to offer the world, and they want the freedom to determine how they do that.

To learn more about crowdsourcing read The three billion - Enterprise crowdsourcing and the growing fragmentation of work – or get in touch with Greg Howard, the Deloitte Pixel Lead.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.