In the spirit of holiday optimism, I’d like to offer you my view on how and why women will improve the future of work. I’ve even included a few #nerdcharts I lovingly made to illustrate where we’ve been and where we can go.
1. Over the last 15–20 years, more women are graduating from top universities and reaching family age. Women MIT alumni, for example, are no different:
2. When they start families, these educated, mid-career women face essentially 2 choices — lean in or drop out. Unfortunately, neither is ideal because it forces women to choose between the two extremes with no middle ground — go all in or get out of the game. For generations, highly skilled and experienced women have had to view their professional aspirations and their family lives as a zero sum game. Simply put, there must be a better option for them (see “A New Playbook for Working Women”). Fortunately, with more women facing this situation (see #1), they are getting louder and demanding better.
3. Meanwhile, with increasing automation efforts, freelancer marketplaces, and new thinking in organizational design, “Future of Work” is already happening. Accenture, for example, predicted that the “Liquid Workforce” will allow for a Fortune 2000 company with only a full-time C-suite in 10 years. Corporate structures (and mentality!) are starting to feel malleable enough for women to shape it to meet their needs. Nice timing. Bring on the hammers!
4. Before the liquid workforce is fully embraced, however, there needs to be a better “glue” between companies and the freelancer economy. As it is currently structured, it is a lot of work for corporations to hire and manage ad hoc project teams of freelancers, which disincentivizes corporations from taking advantage of the available and qualified pool of freelancers. This is precisely the software/human platform that FlexTeam is developing. We will accelerate this transition by simplifying the process for both sides and essentially unbundling the middle management level for companies.
5. As more companies rely on the liquid workforce to execute projects through the “glue,” the more we will learn how to further break down the traditional 9-to-5. If work currently done by fixed headcount can be executed as a series of smaller projects by the liquid workforce without loss of quality, we can further examine the components of these projects to automate what we can (software!), which leaves just true value-added “human” work (e.g. vision, creativity, synthesis, etc.) to the workforce. With that shift, each project can be done with less “human” hours. If companies can attribute a similar value to the outputs as before, then each “human” hour is valued at a higher per hour rate. Additionally, less “human” input required means there is even more flexibility for freelancers during the day and over longer periods of time.
6. There is a group of people on the bench who are best suited and most need this unbundled “human” work (hint: see #2) — mid-career women. When these strong, smart women are brought together to solve an issue for their collective selves, magic happens. At FlexTeam, for example, our teammates not only over-perform on their individual projects, but also work together and support one another with advice, expertise, and connections in distinctively womanly ways. These women are organically creating a “Hive Network” of teammates that has a feminine touch of care and support, which feels like a better way to work. By doing so, they are replacing some of the intangible corporate “benefits” (e.g. colleagues, mentoring, personal development) that are missing from current freelancer marketplaces. It is amazing to witness the collective creative power on the “supply” side.
7. In this new system, each person now has a spectrum of working options that exist between the leaning in and dropping out extremes. Furthermore, the new range of choices are available to these women throughout their careers since they can continually and fluidly choose to move throughout and across the spectrum as needed without a hit on their skills, connections, or expertise. And the working world does not completely lose these highly skilled contributors! They stay engaged. Better options created! Achievement unlocked.
8. This new working world, shaped in response to working women’s needs, not only helps women, but also offers immeasurable benefits to businesses. Companies can be more agile and optimize project by project for time, money, and skills — i.e. more efficiency and $. Individuals, beyond just women, can customize their careers to optimize for their skills and desires while meeting their individual priorities as they change over time. Current choices still exist but new ones are also available. Everyone can make their best choices that makes them the happiest. This is balance. This is what I call achieving “derivative equals zero.”
As we head into the new year, I hope you take some time to reflect on your priorities and consider if your work is working for you. If you, too, believe that a better working world can be created, join us. We are always looking to partner with innovative leaders who want to support us as customers, investors, experts, and teammates. I look forward to hearing from you (saujin@flexteam.co).
Happy Holidays, everyone! Here’s to a flexible, productive, happy new year!
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About FlexTeam
FlexTeam delivers high-end, on-demand project management, research, and analysis to executives, founders/CEOs and financial firms (VC, PE). Customers simply chat with a dedicated FlexTeam project manager and then later get back quality work product done by a team of 100+ MIT alumni women who are choosing flexible freelance work to balance family but still want to be in the game and on team with other strong women. We differentiate through our “full stack” approach, which takes the burden of freelancer selection and management off of our customers. We are @ Twitter | Facebook | Email. #newplayingfield
