The Future of Full-Time Jobs in the Age of Freelancers
Buzzwords like “digital nomad,” or “remote worker,” are indicative of something bigger. Currently, freelancers are estimated to account for 34% of the workforce. By 2020, that number is set to reach 43%. Freelancing and gig economy work is often painted as the job of last resort, but people are voting with their feet: freelancing is growing rapidly while 6.6 million traditional jobs remain unfilled, an all-time high.
Employers looking to hire full-time employees are no longer competing with other full-time offers but with the flexibility, freedom, and accountability offered by freelancing and gig economy work . If you’re looking to retain more of your full-time staff and team members, here are three elements of the freelance and gig economy that you can adopt to keep your team happy:
Give Employees Freedom and Autonomy Through Remote Work
The freedom and autonomy that comes with working remotely are huge benefits of the gig economy. 50 percent of U.S jobs are compatible with remote work and 80 percent of workers say they would like to work remotely sometimes.
Despite this, only 7 percent percent of employers make this working arrangement possible to most employees. If employers want to keep up with the freedom and flexibility of freelancing, which is often remote work, they need to realize the benefits of this and embrace it to provide the freedom their full-time workers will want.
Leverage the Work-Life Blur to Their Benefit
Gone are the days of “Office Space” and spending 9–5 in the cubicle farm. A new trend has emerged as the inevitable byproduct of email and technologies that connect us — the blending of work and personal life. This can take the form of bringing your life to the office, or office to your life.
You can see how companies such as Google and Facebook help you bring your life to the office and embrace this blending by offering personal services at the office such as daycare, dry cleaning, hair salons and more, and have even gone as far as to offer their own housing close to work. These offices are designed as carefully as their products.
The opposite is also taking place, where people work from wherever they want and fit their jobs around their lifestyles. For example, they can work either in the comfort of their own home or while they travel without using any of their vacation days.
Both approaches recognize that the blending of work and personal life is a large part of the changing workforce. We either play where we work (Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, etc.), or we work where we play (Skillshare, Upwork, Basecamp, and many other companies encouraging remote work).
The freedom to choose when and how to work best is a benefit the gig economy offers that businesses can easily aim to emulate, with great potential outcomes.
Instill Ownership in Employees, and Train Them Accordingly
A big perk of the gig economy is the sense of ownership that comes with controlling your own employment. When you talk to many solopreneurs, they are most excited about the ownership and accountability that comes with running any small business. At Skillshare, we aim to instill that same sense of ownership through transparency in our financials and operations, and the training to make sure our employees understand what drives our business. Like many startups, we grant options to all of our employees, but with this level of access and understanding we can ensure our employees think and feel like owners.
Many small companies offer transparency, but it is the training that ensures they understand the company. For example, we provide employees with seminars on how to read financial statements so they can understand how we’re spending our money — thus, enhancing the responsibility and accountability within the company. Our goal is to have 60 employees who can think like CFOs and understand how their everyday decisions influence the well-being of the business.
This way of including employees is a shift from the traditional owner vs. staff mindset where only the higher-ups know the underlying health of the company. Transparency instead elevates employees and gives them the excitement that comes along with running-the-show, similar to what the freelance economy offers.
Final Thoughts
People choose to be a part of the growing gig economy because of the alluring lifestyle it offers. But there are still advantages to full-time work, and companies who embrace the benefits of the freelance lifestyle can create a model that is the best of both worlds.
In order for your company to attract and keep the best employees, you need to meet the new demands of the workforce and their standards of freedom, integration of business and personal, and cultivate a culture of ownership. The economy is changing, but employers don’t need to fear losing their workforce as long as they are able to change with it.
I’m Matt, the CEO at Skillshare. If you’re interested in making skills available for anyone willing to learn them, join the Skillshare team.
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 328,729+ people.
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