We Need To Work It Out, Right Now

The next stage of a massive structural shift in the job market is happening and we’re refusing to notice the bigger picture because we’re the ones it’s happening to.

Over the last year, alongside the stuff on retail, travel and business, I’ve produced (with the significant help of my team) a couple of important reports — ones that hopefully gave the readers as much personal direction as professional.

The updated Makers Manual helped people understand the amazing resources available to them to build what they want. The Future of Connected Life report is really a user-manual to help the reader live, work and play better.

Now I need to produce a Future of Work report.

Actually, it needs to be on the future of making it work. The thing is, the 2 reports I highlight above symbolize the change already taking place in the job market — we’re all rapidly becoming freelance, entrepreneurial, part-time and/or free-spirited (however you want to describe it).

We need to do a Future of Work(ing) report because there’s a massive shift taking place at the younger and older end of the workforce which is going to drive a lot of people into entrepreneurial roles. For younger professionals arriving into the market place, many of the entry-level tasks in corporations are being replaced by intuitive automated technology systems that deliver what was once the menial work of junior full time staffers.

At the older end, price pressure is driving a lot of experienced and skilled professionals out of full time jobs as corporations turn to technology and more junior staff to carry out their work.

What this means is that we will have a flexible and dynamic workforce ready for a flexible and dynamic relationships with multiple companies. This is a rapidly growing percentage of the population and these workers will be driven by the fact that there is no alternative to being entrepreneurial (For sure, most of these 40 & 50 somethings aren’t going to go back into full time whether they like it or not).

Yet, the challenge that will face this new army of workers is how to avoid becoming a micro-staffer who delivers mundane services that pays by the deliverable all the time. Yes, shared working allows many lesser-skilled people to increase the hours of employment — but there’s a creative professional class that can’t and technically shouldn’t work like this.

Here’s what I think is happening in a simplified chart:

The younger end of the educated workforce (18–25) will be driven by the possibilities (real or imagined) painted by the success of Silicon Valley and other areas of entrepreneurship. They will never work full time and while they might micro-staff, they would do so to support greater ambitions.

The older end (40+) will be driven simply by the expense of their lives which they had built up at the point of being pushed out of full time work. They will never work full time again — but they may be forced to micro-staff to cover mortgages and school fees as they figure out “what to do next.”

And from what I can witness, the impact of this structural change on women will be significantly greater than it will be on men.

Let me do that one again: And from what I can witness, the impact of this structural change on women IS significantly greater than it IS on men.

So what are the options? A study on the Future of Work(ing) report would help key parties understand the dramatic changes taking place and identify the opportunities to help the modern workforce thrive and the economy around them grow. Entrepreneurial workers will learn how to adapt and find revenue streams, companies will understand how to manage and adapt to a freelance workforce, schools and universities will get a sense of how to prepare their students for their future.

If we don’t study the Future of Working, I believe that a critical financial gap will develop in the market where highly skilled and educated people will not be able to generate the income that was expected by the economy (and their banks, partners, schools, credit card companies, retailers, corporations, government’s tax office).

As we move into a year of political rhetoric — a negative spotlight will be shone on companies like Uber and Airbnb who allow people from all sorts of backgrounds to generate income. Politicians will criticise the sharing-economy companies without realizing/admitting that those firms are simply responding to a massive economic and societal change not creating it.

The fact is that, fractional employment is developing at rapid speed, and that rather than attempt to crush it, politicians need to help create a framework in which progressive solutions can leverage this structural change.

Early next year, I will ask my team to research the topic in greater detail. If you would like to contribute — data, opinion, ideas — , act as a sponsor or offer an event or medium to talk about this, please contact me at piers@psfk.com. Together with partners, we have an opportunity to make a difference by leading the conversation around the future of making it work.