Increased reliance on technology and changing demographics have shaped the way that companies hire. Hiring processes are designed to find “perfect” candidates in an efficient manner, but in doing so systematically exclude several categories of qualified workers, including caregivers, veterans, the formerly incarcerated, those with disabilities, etc. These workers are “hidden” by traditional hiring processes. Companies who have hired one or more of these groups of hidden workers report that these workers are more loyal and perform better on several key metrics compared to traditional sources of talent. With many companies facing a talent shortage, hiring these hidden workers may be the solution.

In the report Hidden Workers: Untapped Talent we studied workers who are often excluded by traditional hiring processes. In this follow-up, we focus on a large sub-set of hidden workers: part-time workers, who indicated in our survey that if their circumstances were different, they would prefer to work more hours. Part-time workers are heterogeneous, with a variety of attributes that prevent them from working to their full potential: caregiving responsibilities, health challenges, and partial retirement, among others. By learning about and accommodating the needs of these workers, firms can encourage part-time employees to take on more hours—and help ease the talent shortage as well as raise productivity.