From the Atlanta Business Chronicle:

A new trend in corporate recruiting is gaining popularity, giving workers flexibility and better work-life balance.

Blended staffing is a hiring strategy that enables companies to expand their workforce as needed by maintaining a core group of permanent employees complemented by senior-level interim professionals possessing specific skills.

Many workers seeking blended staffing are women. A recent Harvard Business Review article said nearly four in 10 highly qualified women have left work voluntarily at some point in their careers.

"Many women leave the workforce to have children, but that is just one of the reasons that women are off-ramping," said Carolyn O'Brien-Moncrieff, who started Atlanta-based Tag Team Marketing Resources LLC to provide interim executive-level marketing experts for startups to Fortune 1000 companies.

She began the business after leaving a senior marketing position at The Coca-Cola Co. to care for her ailing father. But she still had a mortgage to pay and the desire to work. She just needed a more flexible schedule. Turns out she wasn't alone.

"Contracting and consulting at Coca-Cola allowed me the flexibility to take care of my father and still work," she said. Now Coca-Cola is her biggest client.

More than 30 million workers, nearly a fourth of the American workforce, are "free agents," according to Daniel Pink, author of "Free Agent Nation." Veritude Workforce Insights reports there will be a shortfall of 10 million skilled/trained workers by 2010, as baby boomers retire, Gen Y rejects corporate constraints and Gen X makes a mass exodus from corporate America.

Tag Team Marketing Resources has more than 135 professionals in its database, 100 of which are in Atlanta. A majority have consulting experience, a MBA and more than 15 years of experience.

This concept works well for all ages. Baby boomers can go ahead with retirement plans but still provide their expertise to the corporate world. Generation Xers can raise families and earn an income without the full-time work commitment, and Generation Y can utilize their skills while building their career résumé.

"We provide the right talent for the right job for only as long as you need it," O'Brien-Moncrieff said.

Diane Wallace, group director of shopper insights and marketing for large retail at The Coca-Cola Co., is a believer.

"I think as the workforce continues to diversify and as people get into new life stages, it will become a critical component in the way we staff our organization," she said. "It is not a fad, it is a trend and I see it as a long-term trend."

Monique Dearth left her position with General Electric Corp. after her father passed away, her mother needed help and she had a small child to care for.

"It was too much. I wanted flexibility," she said. So she began Incite Strategies Inc. in 1999 to do human resources consulting work. After getting calls for consulting services that her team didn't provide, she began a network of HR professionals through HR OptIn last fall to broaden her menu of services.

Now she has a database of 500 HR executives that she places on flexible human resources project management assignments.

"The company can hire a specific expert instead of a jack-of-all-trades, while our workers enjoy flexibility, choices and options," Dearth said.

Other companies providing interim executives include Tatum LLC, which provides chief financial officers, chief information officers, controllers and other financial and technology leaders, while Philadelphia-based Flex-Time Lawyers LLC places interim attorneys nationwide, including Atlanta.

"There is a business need behind this type of staffing and it is filling a niche for women looking for re-entry into the marketplace. It has to be a financial win-win for the both the employer and the attorney," said Deborah Epstein Henry, president of Flex-Time Lawyers.

Even though Randy Hain, managing partner at Bell Oaks Executive Search, is responsible for placing permanent employees, he supports finding new staffing solutions.

"Blended staffing, the use of part-timers and any unique approach to staffing is the future," Hain said. "With the baby boomers retiring and a shortage of workers, companies are going to have to go to this approach to be competitive."

Plus, it is working for him. At Bell Oaks he uses part-time executives and job-sharers.

"If we don't become sensitive to people's desire for flexibility and adapt to it, we will be left behind," he said.

Benefits of using interim staffing experts

For the company:

1. Long-term financial savings in terms of salary and benefits, overhead, recruitment, retention, training and productivity.

2. Companies get the right talent for the right project at the right time for as long as they need it so they are optimizing their human capital.

3. Companies get top talent professionals who have worked with Fortune 100 companies that have the ability to come in and get up to speed quickly.

For the worker:

1. Work-life balance through flexible scheduling.

2. An opportunity to utilize talents, knowledge and capabilities in an environment where they can add value without having a full-time commitment.

3. The ability to make a living and earn a paycheck.

4. Variety. Interim experts get to work on so many different aspects of projects while constantly moving on to new things and bringing their knowledge to new endeavors.