by Brent Budke
In today’s economy and remote working environment, there is much discussion about the need for a fractional workforce. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce notes that fractional hiring began in the academic world but then expanded to small start-up businesses that were looking to fill skill gaps. Now it has become just as important in larger companies that can’t afford the loss in business momentum that often coincides with open positions.
What is a fractional employee?
Fractional employees (or what we refer to as SIVO On Demand Talent) are typically Professionals or Specialists with unique or advanced skillsets, that only work for a set number of hours per week and/or for a finite timeframe. This can be beneficial for the employer as the company only pays an hourly rate for the agreed-upon time per week that the Professional works. Engagements can be 10 to 40 hours per week for a specific timeframe, such as, 2 months, 6 months, or a year.
This type of engagement can also benefit the fractional professionals who prefer to only commit to working shorter time frames or prefer to divide their time across multiple employers. For instance, a fractional employee might work 2 days a week at one company and 2 days a week at another non-competing company to enjoy a 4-day workweek. Having specialized skills or valuable work experience tends to make fractional professionals attractive to employers who might not need or can’t afford a full time, permanent employee.
Today’s work environment makes this scenario even more attractive as companies have learned to function with employees working remotely, which gives them a broader pool of fractional professionals to choose from.
THREE KEY BENEFITS OF FRACTIONAL EMPLOYEES:
1. Maintain momentum without burning out current employees
We’ve all experienced the pain of doing your own job and covering for another team member who is taking a needed leave-of-absence or has left the company. It often creates a surge in workload for supervisors or for teammates when the business cannot afford to slow down or pause critical business initiatives. Open roles can cause remaining team members to be overworked or overwhelmed, leading to mistakes and eventual burn-out. Fractional or temporary employees can be a great solution to keep the business running, to cover temporary openings and to allow the normal hiring process to play out.
SIVO Note: Hiring fractional insights professionals is even easier if SIVO is already on your company’s “approved vendor” list. Our first step would be to meet with you to understand your business, key needs, and focus areas. From there, the SIVO On Demand Talent team will create a personalized approach to match the optimal talent to the business needs to ensure success.
2. Gain immediate expertise - No training necessary
It can take months to find, hire and train the talent you need to fill open roles. Hiring fractional employees can help you move forward quickly and right-size your talent, getting a person in place within a week or two vs the months needed for a typical hiring process. Additionally, the beauty of fractional on demand talent is that they have already been vetted and assessed for certain skill sets and expertise, so no training is needed. Lastly, experienced fractional professionals can bring a fresh perspective and new approaches to your team and projects.
SIVO Note: SIVO On Demand Talent team leverages our extensive pool of fractional insights professionals with years of experience and expertise across an array of industries such as, CPG, Healthcare, Financial, Technology, Apparel, and Retail. Whether you need an Insights Associate to execute research projects or an Insights Director to help teams develop strategy and design learning plans, we can match the right talent to your unique needs.
3. Save the company money by focusing on specific business needs
Because fractional employees are typically classified as contractors for the purposes of payroll and taxes, employers don’t have to deal with costs associated with the hiring process nor the costs of typical benefits, such as health insurance or 401k contributions. That saves the company time and money while still staffing teams with highly qualified professionals. Below is a high-level comparison for fractional Insights Talent vs Full-time Insights employees:
SIVO Note: The advantage of working with SIVO for fractional insights professionals is that our team has access to a full-service consumer insights agency for ad-hoc resources, tools, and consultation.
We’d love to talk to you about your needs and how we can match the right talent to quickly make an impact in your business. Please contact us at OnDemandTalent@SIVOInsights.com or visit our website at SIVOInsights.com.
Every year, businesses face the same challenge: key research projects grind to a halt when insights professionals go on vacation. Deadlines can slip, stakeholder requests pile up, and business decisions get delayed, all because critical expertise isn’t available when it’s needed most.
For many teams, the choice is either overloading remaining staff (leading to problems like burnout) or putting projects on hold (risking lost momentum and missed opportunities). But there’s a better way.
Leading brands solve this problem by leveraging On Demand Market Research Talent—highly skilled, fractional insights professionals who step in seamlessly, ensuring that research initiatives keep moving, even when core team members are out. Whether planned months in advance or needed at the last minute, these experts keep insights flowing year-round without the cost or commitment of full-time hiring.
In this article, we’ll explore:
If your research team has ever struggled to keep up during vacation seasons, this is for you. Let’s dive in.
Insights teams (or their superiors) often assume they can absorb the impact of vacation gaps—but the reality is more disruptive than expected. When key insights professionals are out of office, projects stall, timelines get pushed, and business decisions are delayed. The ripple effect extends beyond just a temporary pause—it can create significant financial, operational, and strategic costs.
Insights don’t operate in isolation. When research is postponed due to staffing shortages, marketing campaigns, product launches, and strategic initiatives suffer. A postponed concept test could mean missing the ideal market entry window, and a delayed brand study could leave unanswered questions right when leadership needs clarity.
The default response to vacation gaps? Overloading remaining team members. This short-term fix often leads to long-term burnout, reducing productivity and increasing the likelihood of rushed, lower-quality insights. High-performing researchers need time to recharge, but when teams are stretched too thin, performance—and retention—suffers.
Even with strong documentation, there’s always implicit knowledge that only team members carry—research nuances, stakeholder preferences, and the context behind past decisions. When an insights pro steps away, this expertise temporarily disappears, forcing teams to either pause projects or make assumptions that may not align with prior research.
Insights teams thrive on being trusted advisors to the business, but when gaps in coverage lead to stalled projects or incomplete data, stakeholder confidence erodes. If leadership views the insights function as unreliable, they may turn to gut instinct over data-driven decision-making—undermining the very role of the Consumer Insights function.
The bottom line? Vacation gaps in insights teams aren’t just an inconvenience—they create costly disruptions that affect business performance. But there’s a way to avoid these risks while still ensuring that research professionals get the breaks they need.
Vacation gaps are inevitable—but research delays don’t have to be.
Vacation gaps are inevitable—but research delays don’t have to be. The key to maintaining momentum without burnout is having a strategy in place before gaps happen. Whether you’re proactively planning or scrambling for last-minute coverage, here’s how leading companies keep research running smoothly, even when key team members are away.
When key team members are out, the biggest risk is insights bottlenecks—studies stall, stakeholder questions pile up, and research deliverables get delayed. SIVO’s On-Demand Talent steps in seamlessly, ensuring business-critical work continues without disruption.
Certain projects can’t afford to pause just because someone is on vacation. Product launches, consumer deep dives, and ad testing require continuity and expert oversight.
Sometimes, vacation coverage isn’t planned—it’s needed last-minute. Whether it’s a sudden leave of absence or a forgotten PTO overlap, scrambling to fill gaps can lead to expensive delays.
Whether planned or unexpected, vacation gaps don’t have to slow down insights. With an On-Demand Talent strategy in place, businesses stay ahead of potential disruptions—avoiding last-minute scrambles and keeping research moving seamlessly year-round.
Leading companies plan ahead—or react quickly—with On-Demand Talent, ensuring no critical work falls through the cracks that can impact the organization. Here’s how organizations leverage fractional insights pros to bridge gaps and keep research running smoothly:
Scenario 1: A national CPG company has ongoing brand equity tracking and ad testing, but their Senior Consumer Insights Manager was heading out for a month-long vacation.
Without coverage, research timelines would have slipped, and stakeholder meetings would have lacked fresh insights. Instead, the company brought in an On-Demand Consumer Insights Strategist to manage the process, ensuring:
This proactive approach prevented research bottlenecks and decision-making gaps, keeping the business moving.
Scenario 2: A global food & beverage company had a new product launch scheduled—but their Head of Consumer Insights and two key team members had overlapping PTO.
With final-stage concept testing still underway and last-minute adjustments needed for packaging and claims, the company faced a potential launch delay. Instead of postponing, they brought in a fractional Insights Lead to:
ODT gave them specialized expertise exactly when they needed it, ensuring no compromises in research quality or speed.
Scenario 3: A leading technology brand was in the middle of a competitive landscape study when an unexpected leave of absence left their insights team short-staffed.
Rather than overloading remaining team members or pressing pause on critical work, they:
With rapid-response talent placement, the company avoided research disruptions and kept its competitive intelligence up to date.
Scenario 4: A major retailer had a busy summer innovation pipeline, but multiple insights pros were out on PTO at the same time.
Rather than pausing consumer co-creation sessions and delaying concept testing, they used On-Demand Talent to:
With fractional insights experts seamlessly filling gaps, the company stayed on schedule without sacrificing research quality.
Whether you plan ahead or need urgent support, On-Demand Talent ensures your research stays on track—so your team can take time off without work grinding to a halt.
By leveraging fractional insights professionals, companies can prevent last-minute scrambles, reduce the risk of missed deadlines, and maintain research momentum year-round.
So, how do you avoid research slowdowns when your team is out? And if you’re already facing an urgent coverage issue, what’s the best way to bridge the gap without scrambling?Let’s break it down.
Businesses plan for financial forecasts, marketing campaigns, and supply chain logistics months in advance. Yet, many insights teams still treat PTO gaps as an inevitable issue. The key is building vacation coverage into your annual research strategy so that insights continue flowing, no matter the time of year. Some things you can do:
Planning ahead prevents vacation gaps from becoming business roadblocks. But what if PTO conflicts weren’t anticipated—and now key insights work is at risk of falling behind?
Even with careful planning, unexpected gaps happen. A last-minute PTO request, overlapping team absences, or an urgent business need can leave insights teams short-staffed at critical moments. If you’re already dealing with a research gap, here’s how to minimize disruption fast:
As companies seek more efficiency, many turn to AI-powered research tools to bridge staffing gaps. While AI can be a valuable support system, it has clear limitations that make it an unreliable substitute for expert insights professionals—especially when high-stakes decisions are involved.
For instance, AI is great at surfacing data but doesn’t interpret nuances, human motivations, or cultural relevance—leading to misaligned insights. AI models also (unfortunately) inherit biases from training data, which can skew results if not carefully reviewed and adjusted by human experts. Additionally, executives rely on strategic recommendations, not just raw data—AI lacks the credibility and business acumen needed to drive stakeholder decisions.
If you’re considering using AI to fill vacation coverage gaps for your research team, keep in mind that the more tools you introduce, the more training your team will require. This can actually take more time away from employees rather than increasing productivity—especially for short-term needs like a vacation fill. What seems like an easy solution can quickly turn into a time-consuming distraction, creating more inefficiencies rather than solving the original problem.
When critical insights projects can’t wait, finding temporary research experts quickly is essential. So, where can businesses turn for immediate, high-quality research support?
Many organizations look to freelance platforms and consulting firms, but these often require lengthy onboarding or lack the industry expertise needed for specialized research roles. Others attempt to redistribute workloads internally, which can lead to inefficiencies and overburdened teams.
A more effective approach is tapping into pre-vetted insights professionals (like ODT) who can integrate quickly, understand complex research needs, and keep projects moving without disruption. Whether covering for a planned PTO or responding to an unexpected gap, having a flexible resourcing strategy ensures that insights teams can maintain momentum—without last-minute scrambles or overburdening internal staff.
At SIVO, we provide businesses with flexible, on-demand insights talent to keep research initiatives moving—no matter the challenge. Whether you need short-term vacation coverage, interim leadership, or specialized expertise for a critical project, we place senior-level insights professionals within days.
Don’t let research slow down when key insight team members are out for vacation. Let’s talk:
contact@sivoinsights.com | www.sivoinsights.com/on-demand-talent-management/
by Cindy Blackstock
At SIVO, our team of insights experts have honed their skills over many years of market research and the lessons gained along the way now prove to be invaluable. We have learned that insights are just useless facts unless they can be applied to the business in a way that drives action among our client teams and growth on their businesses. So, in the spirit of sharing useful content and a bit of our “secret sauce” with our valued clients and partners, here are 5 Keys for Turning Consumer Insights into Action.
Start with the End in Mind
As market researchers in search of consumer insights, the SIVO team must understand how the results will possibly be used, what actions will be taken by our clients and how our clients intend to influence and have impact in their organization using our research. When we are equipped with the business objective and the actions that might stem from the results, we become clear on the research objectives and design. We all know that best consumer insights experts can envision how the research results need to come to life before starting the research. When we do this, we avoid two big pitfalls in research – first, the fatal one, missing a key question and second, the sloppy one, asking questions that don’t need to be answered or are already known.
Conduct a “Get Smart” Session
By facilitating a “Get Smart” Session with the client team, SIVO can mine existing information and surface institutional knowledge. There are 3 key reasons for the session:
Plan for Quality Input to Get Quality Output
It has been said that the quality of the output is only as good as the quality of the input. This is very true when designing market research. SIVO experts start with detailed learning plans to outline how the business objectives translate to the learning objectives and market research approach. This is where we align with the client team by defining things like sample composition and size, key measures, and of course, the action standards. Action standards outline the “if/then” scenarios for research outcomes and the follow-up actions. For example, if the results indicate X, then the action to be taken is Y. Documenting the action standards, before the research is executed, forces both the SIVO and client teams to think through the possible actions for each hypothesized outcome.
Report the Key Findings (and, all the rest too!)
Some client teams want an at-a-glance Executive Summary of results that they can quickly act upon, and others want all the details for a more thorough understanding before taking action. SIVO provides both, either in one report or in two separate deliverables. We must be clear on the delivery of the topline summary versus the full report with the detailed findings (supporting data, quotes, video clips, images, etc.) for future reference.
Make Clear Recommendations
It’s critical to turn data into insights and insights into actions. Too often professionals in the insights industry are hesitant to make bold recommendations on potential actions to take. However, client teams are looking for more than data and insights. They need courageous recommendations that inform their decisions. To drive action, SIVO puts a stake in the ground! It is, however, important to point out that recommendations are an educated opinion or point-of-view, based on the insights and findings of the research. Clients will then use research recommendations, in conjunction with other external factors, to guide or inform their actions and decisions. The best way to be confident about the recommendations is to circle back to Step 1! Start with the end in mind!
Contact the SIVO team at Contact@SIVOInsights.com or reach out to me directly at Cindy.Blackstock@SIVOInsights.com to help you uncover insights that inform your future decisions and actions!
We can all probably agree that we are living through one of the most disruptive events of our generation. With our worlds turned upside down, it comes as no surprise that the way people work in America has also vastly changed.
Just as news stories cropped up about 2021 being the year of the Great Resignation, other stories followed asking the question ‘where have all the workers gone?’ I’ve pondered this question as well, seeing the ‘short staffed’ signs everywhere I go and hearing from countless businesses about their struggle to retain talent.
The answer to what is causing the Great Resignation might lie in the reframing of the phenomenon. A smart colleague of mine, Vina Klein, astutely calls it the “Great Values Reset.” I really like that. It gives more insight to what is happening. People seem more attuned to their values when choosing how to live and how to work. At the start of the pandemic, we were sent home and we slowed down, we took stock, and we re-evaluated our lives. That experience impacted our choices in 2021 and beyond.
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Do customers want to ‘hire’ your product?
Now enter the gig economy. The gig economy has always been around, but something interesting happened as a result of Covid-19. Gig workers represented around 35 percent of the U.S. workforce in 2020, up from between 14 and 20 percent in 2014. The number of companies that fully operate on gig work has increased by 85% since 2014. That growth has only accelerated as a result of Covid-19. As workers reset values and put more focus on having some control over their lives, employees are leaving the confines of a 9-5 and corporate bureaucracy. The gig economy is where they land, and SIVO Insights has the perfect launchpad for these workers.
I’m very fortunate to lead SIVO Insights On-Demand Talent. I’m passionate about helping my consumer insights consultants find fulfilling roles that match their skills and talent. I’m also very much “in the zone” when I’m able to help our clients fill a specific need on their team or find the right talent for a project. Matching our clients’ needs with SIVO’s On-Demand Talent experience and skills is the best part of my job.
SIVO Insights On-Demand Talent allows people to choose how they want to work. It provides the flexibility and work-life balance that comes with the gig economy. For companies, On Demand Talent delivers flexibility, too. Whether an organization is struggling to find and retain talent or is not in a position to commit to a full-time hire, tapping into SIVO On Demand Talent is a win-win!
Be consumer first. Don’t be consumer only. Powerful words by leading Insights executive, Khary Campbell, VP of Consumer Research & Insights at Comcast.
https://youtu.be/xJSQO7VSw5Q
During a recent SIVO Insights Forum, Khary shared the importance of considering the implications of all functions. After all, every function is working in orchestra of the business.
Click here for a lively on-demand conversation “Bridging The Gap: Translating Insights Into Meaningful Business Results" to hear from Khary and other Insights experts including Eliana Whanon (General Mills, VP of Consumer & Market Insights) and Elizabeth Oates (Book Author, and former Ulta Beauty VP of Consumer Insights.)
Learn from Insights leaders as they discuss:
Thank you to Natasha Weith, VP of Research at SIVO Inc. for hosting The SIVO Insights Forum!
SIVO Insights brings together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence. Have a business challenge? Let's talk!
We bring together research, talent, and intelligent technology to help organizations navigate complexity with confidence
