The traditional 9-to-5, full-time employment model is no longer the only way forward. Enter the blended workforce: a mix of full-time employees, freelancers, contractors, and outsourced teams that gives organizations the agility they need to compete and grow. In this episode of the Blended Workforce podcast, Karan Ferrell-Rhodes, Podcast Host, Organizational Effectiveness Expert & CEO of Shockingly Different Leadership, speaks with Frontline Performance Group, CEO, Geoffrey Toffetti to unpack how leaders can strategically build and manage these flexible teams.
Blended workforces offer undeniable advantages for scaling quickly, operating across borders and filling specialized roles. Whether you’re a startup founder, a global HR strategist, or a team lead navigating a hybrid model, this conversation sheds light on what works, what breaks and how to do it better.
Karan Ferrell-Rhodes: If you don’t mind, I’d love you to share some career milestones and how you landed as the CEO of FPG.
Geoffrey Toffetti: I started as a valet and front desk agent in a hotel and worked up to Director of Guest Services. Then I left the industry, moved to Orlando and joined a startup called ZeroChaos. I was the third employee. When I left, we had over 600.
I came in with some management experience—I’d managed 30 or 40 people at a hotel—but I started over as an individual contributor and helped build the organization. I followed the opportunities, did all kinds of things, as you do in a startup. I didn’t specialize much, except in product development and problem-solving. I became the go-to critical thinker, and that helped me. I rose to Vice President, reported to the CEO, and we eventually sold the company. Being employee number three, I had a lot of stock options—though not much salary—so once that matured, I could finally think about opportunities outside the company for the first time in a decade.
Right then, I met the founder of FPG. I’d spent 10–11 years helping the Fortune 500 save money. What FPG does is help companies make money. That sounded like a breath of fresh air—helping companies make more money through their workforce sounded amazing.
So I joined as a partner, stayed in that role for about eight years, then was appointed CEO during COVID. Great time to become CEO, in the worst economic disaster in history, especially for hospitality and travel. But we were transitioning from an on-site consulting/training company to a tech-first SaaS model, which was more my background than the founder’s, so it made sense for me to lead the shift.
Pre-COVID, our model hit every aspect of this podcast’s message. We were a vendor embedded in the client organization, helping manage and train their teams, decentralized, all over the world. In some geographies, you can’t employ someone without having a corporation, and that’s expensive for one person. So we used contractors.
We had a blended workforce supporting a distributed client base and acting as a kind of staff-aug function. It was a really interesting evolution, how a small or mid-sized company can support global Fortune 500s.
Karan Ferrell-Rhodes: What was the impetus for transforming your business model toward SaaS? Was it because technology was hot at the time, or did you see a market need?
Geoffrey Toffetti: I’d say it was three things—two within our control, one not.
We had already started building tech to make our team more efficient, deliver digital training, track results, and manage incentives. As a training or consulting firm, clients eventually want to do it themselves, so we saw an opportunity to leave behind technology for longer-term revenue.
We were about 70% of the way to a SaaS platform when COVID hit. Suddenly, we couldn’t go on site for two years. In March 2020, we lost 85% of our revenue in one week. Like many others, we went from soaring to survival mode.
Shifting to SaaS helped us stay connected to clients and support their revenue generation.
The third driver was scalability. Consulting and training can be profitable, but they’re not easy to scale. People are complex—especially across 40 languages and four continents. With SaaS, we could support 10x the clients with the same size company.
Pre-COVID, we had about 400 hotel customers. Now we’re over 2,500—with no increase in headcount. So from a scalability standpoint, it just made sense.
Karan Ferrell-Rhodes: Got you—so more of a support service than the main driver. Is it that when someone subscribes, they get a certain amount of support?
Geoffrey Toffetti: Exactly. The same people who used to work on site with front desk agents and managers now support hotels remotely. There's a lot of built-in knowledge and experience. Subscribers get access to a Customer Success Consultant to assist them. For an additional fee, we have a small team that can still do on-site consulting and training.
Karan Ferrell-Rhodes: That makes a lot of sense. As a researcher on blended workforces, I’ve found that—on paper—leveraging full-time staff, external support, and technology looks ideal. But the devil’s in the details. So, before we go deep: where do you see the strengths in using blended workforces? And where are the blind spots?
Geoffrey Toffetti: Great question. The benefits are what you mentioned—it lets you manage peaks and troughs. You maintain a fixed cost base with full-timers but can scale up without permanent hires if you’re seasonal or cyclical. It also helps with legal and tax challenges in some regions. Hiring just a few people often doesn’t justify the cost of setting up a local entity. Contractors give you flexibility to expand without overextending.
Also, in tech development, using vendors across time zones lets you avoid hiring directly while holding them more accountable—“one neck to grab,” as they say. That level of vendor accountability can be valuable.
The pitfalls arise when there’s no clear framework for expectations across all groups, and when internal teams don’t oversee what the external ones are doing. External folks, no matter how committed, won’t be fully aligned with your culture. You need your culture to guide the outcomes.
The only way I’ve found that works is pairing internal employees closely with contractors or vendors.
Karan Ferrell-Rhodes: I completely agree. One of the biggest challenges we see is the lack of onboarding, collaboration and integration between full-time employees, external talent and technology.
Full-timers hold institutional knowledge and don’t always realize what others don’t know. That’s where mistakes and rework happen.
It’s critical for internal staff to lead external teams and create communication bridges—without violating legal boundaries, especially for multinational companies. Do you see that too?
Geoffrey Toffetti: Absolutely. I lean toward transparent communication.
Too often, companies overprotect information from vendors, even when it’s not sensitive. But if they’re supposed to help you operate, you have to share.
As long as there’s a contract in place, treat them as partners. An internal employee is just as likely to share something accidentally—so don’t single out vendors. Unless it’s highly proprietary, don’t be afraid to involve them.
Get vendors and internal teams talking regularly. Maintain a cadence of communication, and ensure employees know vendors are there to support them.
Another big misconception is fear. People worry vendors are here to take their jobs. But more often, jobs are lost due to underperformance, not because a vendor showed up.
Vendors that improve company performance help secure everyone’s role. Leaders need to reinforce that—especially for middle managers. Vendors are here to help, not replace.
Case Study on Blended Workforces: IBM & Liquid Picasso
Karan Ferrell-Rhodes: You’ve worked on frameworks for enterprise-level blended workforces. Can you share a case study you mentioned previously?
Geoffrey Toffetti: Absolutely. One of my favorite examples is IBM. They were one of our largest customers, operating across dozens of countries. We managed their vendors and also payrolled independent contractors they recruited internally.
At one point, we helped them build a revolutionary program—initially called Liquid Picasso, later known as Liquid Blue. The idea was to break down technical specs into micro work and allow independent contractors around the globe to bid on tasks. They’d submit samples, and accepted work would be stitched together by a core team to build software. This process accelerated development by 30–50%.
Our role was to onboard and vet these contractors, ensuring compliance—especially crucial at a time when 1099 classification lawsuits were rampant. IBM relied on us as their legal and operational safety net. It was a groundbreaking moment, pre-gig economy, and in many ways a precursor to platforms like Fiverr and GitHub.
We created the environment for these contractors to work, get vetted, and get paid. It worked because IBM had the demand, and we had the platform to manage the workforce. Together, we pulled it off.
Karan Ferrell-Rhodes: Vendor fatigue is real—what sets great vendors apart for you as a CEO?
Geoffrey Toffetti: Great question. Actually, I often think about how we avoid becoming one of those unwanted vendors.
For us, it’s always come down to relationships. Cold calling is fine for awareness, but getting into the room with decision-makers? That’s still a relationship game. The most effective vendors come via word of mouth. A simple email that says “You should meet Geoff. He does good work,” will outperform any flashy pitch.
We also live by the “land and expand” principle. Instead of aiming for the big whale right away, get a toehold. Land one hotel, one location, prove your value, then build from there. When you deliver results and build trust, people will advocate for you internally and externally.
Our team is trained to be the breath of fresh air in every customer interaction. That’s how you rise above the noise.
Karan Ferrell-Rhodes: From our leadership research, you resonated most with intrapreneurship. Why that one?
Geoffrey Toffetti: It was close—strategic thinking was right up there too—but I took time to reflect on how I'd been successful. I never went to college, so I had to be opportunistic. I’d jump into tasks others found boring or unclear just to build my skill set. Intrapreneurship is about identifying and solving problems no one else sees—and I’ve done that throughout my career.
A current example: We’re entering the food & beverage space. We’ve eyed it for 5–6 years, and now we’re ready. I personally met with restaurants, asked questions, gathered insights, helped design the UI. Because someone has to want to solve the problem. What's the most fun about being in business, in my mind, is creating new products, innovating what you're doing to be more flexible, adapting to AI quickly, and bringing it into the business. That gets me really fired up and I think that intrepreneurship taps directly into that.
Karan Ferrell-Rhodes: Well, thank you so much for the gift of your time and sharing the insights with our audience. We could have easily gone another hour or so, but especially loved your case study of sharing of how companies and businesses kind of think about best ways to get their work done. We really appreciate you.
Related Reading: Pre-Arrival vs On-Arrival: Which Upsell Wins?Case Study: How New World Hoiana Beach Resort Achieved a 60% Upsell Revenue IncreaseHotel Front Desk Training: How Role Play Boosts Confidence and Sales
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