It’s no secret.

2020 is almost solely responsible for pushing the human race into a future we didn’t even know we were ready to handle — a digital-first world. Organizations everywhere were asked to enable large parts of their workforce to work remote on short notice. The notion of distributed teams went from once being a solution used to complement a workforce strategy, to a requirement to protect employees as we all weathered the storm of the COVID-19 pandemic. And as countries around the world took a unified front in staying homeward bound, many organizations experienced a surge in closing critical skill gaps brought about by the pandemic landscape. Skill gaps ranging from adding call centers to address burst capacity, to product, marketing, and sales initiatives shifting gears to meet new customer requirements.

As a result, many companies had to accelerate visionary roadmap ideas, and bring them to the forefront. Projects that had been a priority suddenly took a back burner, and those more visionary use cases and projects quickly climbed to the No. 1 spot on priority lists.

My priority list was no exception! Our partnership with Upwork showcases the strength and agility of alliances, our focus on customer needs, and our ability together to accelerate engagement to support customers in this new reality.

Our Partnership Story

With the rise in the freelance economy and independent professionals increasingly choosing to manage their own careers and schedules, we recognized Upwork’s unique position as a market disruptor to the traditional staffing industry. Upwork offers curated, on-demand proven talent solutions, which allows organizations rapid access to top talent to quickly fill critical skill gaps. Using Upwork as a key component to benefit from the creativity of widely distributed talent around the globe, which is more important than ever in today’s competitive marketplace.

Think about it.

A pool of in-demand talent, on demand, to quickly fill your critical skills and needs right at your fingertips. While many recognized the power of Upwork as a “game changer,” some organizations faced headwinds because of antiquated procurement processes and internal policies.

And while Upwork provides curated, on-demand talent, Citrix, as the digital workspace leader, provides the proven technology infrastructure to securely and seamlessly access mission critical company applications and content from anywhere, on any device. Capabilities required for on-demand talent and teams to become a natural extension of any organization’s agile and flexible workforce strategy.

In October 2019, we had our first partnership design session centered around our goal of powering the future of the distributed workforce, and enabling customers to quickly and securely onboard, manage and offboard on-demand talent. The Upwork and Citrix partnership was a natural fit from the beginning and has evolved into a complete partnership spanning product, sales and marketing to offer innovative solutions to our customers.

“We were focused on our customers, and anticipating what they would need in the future,” said Samantha Foster, Senior Director Business Development, Citrix. “Little did we know, with the global pandemic and the more permanent shifts to remote work and managing a distributed workforces, that our use case and the vision of Citrix Workspace augmented with Upwork solutions, would become so relevant and necessary to a wide range of organizations in just a few short months.”

According to a recent Future Workforce report, 62 percent of hiring managers believe their workforce will be more remote than before the ongoing pandemic. While three in four hiring managers will maintain or increase their engagements with independent talent.

“Against a backdrop of unprecedented and rapid change in the workforce, this quickly evolving shift to remote work is accelerating the cultural workforce trend that was already in motion,” said Lars Asbjornsen, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Upwork. “Our collaboration with Citrix represents over 50 years of combined experience marshaled to help businesses and institutions further accelerate growth by removing IT barriers and enabling quick, secure onboarding and resource provisioning for on-demand remote talent. Together, we are delivering the agility and security needed for businesses to realize the potential of tomorrow’s workforce today.”

Today, we are excited to announce our newest solution. With Upwork Microapps for Citrix Workspace, Citrix customers can easily access Upwork talent within their Workspace to simplify the hiring process and enable hiring managers to focus on doing what they do best: quickly engaging the talent needed to support business innovation and growth.

  • Post new jobs
  • See details of jobs already posted
  • Review proposals, qualifications and profiles of talent who submit proposals

“Together, Citrix and Upwork are innovating new solutions that empower people to work from anywhere and help companies build more agile and productive workforces,” said Upwork President and CEO Hayden Brown. “Through this collaboration, Citrix customers can seamlessly take advantage of Upwork’s offerings to efficiently find, onboard, and work with top talent from across the globe.”

“The COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed the way we work and is forcing companies to reimagine the way things get done,” said David Henshall, President and CEO, Citrix. “Forward-thinking organizations are embracing flexible work to enhance and expand their talent pools in ways they couldn’t previously and to build and acquire the modern skills they need to not just return to where they were, but power their business forward.”

Learn more about the Upwork Micrpapps for Citrix Workspace in the Citrix Ready Marketplace, and check out this new animated use case video, which features the Upwork Microapps for Citrix Workspace in action.

Additionally, earlier this year, to address the sudden and secure remote workforce needs being amplified from the global pandemic we publicly announced our new partnership with Upwork and the Upwork Talent Solution with Citrix Workspace, a unique offering designed to deliver best-in-class secure remote infrastructure for organizations to quickly and securely onboard, manage and offboard on-demand, qualified independent professionals and distributed agencies

Enabling hiring managers across business units anywhere in the world to continue to drive their competitive edge and rapidly scale innovation by closing their most critical skill gaps with Upwork’s on-demand global talent with Citrix best-in-class, secure, remote work infrastructure.

Upwork Talent Solution with Citrix Workspace, offered by Upwork as a service by Citrix CSP and Solution Advisor A2K Partners, enables you to provide consistent and secure access to all the resources workers need to do their best work, including apps, content, and key business services.

Within the span of 12 months, moving rapidly from design to delivery, with a brand new and industry first partnership, in a COVID-19 world is testament to the power of focusing on customer outcomes, paired with the Citrix and Upwork commitment to agility and excellence.

Learn more about our partnership, and click here for more information from Citrix Ready on accessing the Upwork Microapps for Citrix Workspace.

Additionally, for more information on the Upwork Talent Solution for Citrix Workspace, offered by Citrix CSP and Solution Advisor A2K Partners as a service view the Citrix Ready solutions page, the Upwork solutions landing page, and a short animated video overview below that shows the solution in action.

If you have an idea for the next innovative, game changing partnership with Citrix, contact Ana del Valle Brown. Let’s ideate together!