A 2016 article in Quartz projected that 94 percent of net job growth in the past decade was in the alternative-work category, with more than 60 percent being due to the rise of independent contractors, freelancers, and contract company workers. This growing change is known as the Gig Economy or the future as contractual work. […]
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A 2016 article in Quartz projected that 94 percent of net job growth in the past decade was in the alternative-work category, with more than 60 percent being due to the rise of independent contractors, freelancers, and contract company workers.
This growing change is known as the Gig Economy or the future as contractual work. Many businesses will look to reap the many benefits of this new economy and labor force, but will need to alter their long-held beliefs and structures to be successful. Workers that assemble quickly, collaborate, and disperse will have different needs (and wants) than those in the traditional long-term employee category that we have seen slowly dry up. Gig or contractual means:
- No long-term commitment by either employee or employer beyond the job.
- No courting of employees with perks or creative packages.
- No company concerns around engagement nor expectation of it by workers.
- Workers are motivated by the task; they expect good pay, aim to build skills, and move on.
The biggest change is the least tangible — trust. At the heart of any working relationships is trust, but as work changes to more temporary and contractual, the definition of trust itself changes. This is not new, but its expansion provides an opportunity to look closer at the work of Debra Meyerson. In the 1990s, she explored the idea of “Swift Trust” typically found in projects and teams.
This form of relation is one where trust is assumed by workers from the start and verified and adjusted over a short time together. A good example of this can be found in the present-day movie industry. Here teams of talented independents cooperate to create a film, then they disassemble, joining the next opportunity and often never working together again.
This type of swarming approach flies in the face of how we understand talent recruitment, teaming, and development today as well as how we see the foundation of our organizations. Swift Trust requires much less formality, eliminating all the process and procedure that built today’s talent-management departments and roles. It begs the question then — what will become of all the “sub-institutions” around HR such as leadership development, management systems, communication protocols, HRS and ERP systems, engagement programs, recruitment approaches, and training departments? Each of these have historically served to develop and guide employees through long journeys. If they become relics of a bygone era, then their loss could be a company’s gain.
For example, according to the 2016 Association for Talent Development State of the Industry Report, U.S. Companies spent $1,273 per employee annually on direct-learning expenditure, with the number of formal learning hours averaging 34.1 hours per employee. A move to greater contractual or gig labor means a company of 100 workers could have $127,300 and 3,410 hours back to reallocate accordingly. This leads to some important questions.
If you’re not directly developing workers, how then do you best ensure accuracy, quality, and productivity? Workers who come ready to produce won’t need nor have time for training. Rather, they will need rapid access to systems, quick connection to team-members, and the tools to do the job.
What happens to learning and development? Learning will be happening in the work itself not outside of it. The gig economy creates new rules as the workforce will require experts not only in their craft, but also experts in how to own their learning. Enterprise collaborative technology (i.e., Yammer, Slack, Workplace, etc.) can be leveraged to enable rapid and seamless expertise sharing to ensure consistency and accuracy.
What about culture, which is highly touted today as being critical for business success? The only workplace culture that businesses will desire will be one that embraces agility and is change tolerant.
What will be the role of management? Managers will not need to focus on traditional tasks of motivation, rewards, and the monitoring of expectation. Rather, they’ll serve as coaches and connectors to bring people up to speed in the workflow and ensure they are finding and connecting with the right people and information.
As the future of work creeps closer, change in how work is done and who does the work is imminent. However, more than technology or change management, any level of success will first require a new mindset and acceptance that different agreements will need to exist between employer and employee, organizations will need to redesign, and change will be the only constant.
Mark Britz is a workforce-performance strategist who has launched ThruWork (ThruWork.com), a talent-development consultancy for small to mid-sized businesses. The company specializes in solving organizational performance problems and focuses on non-training approaches to scale employee performance. Contact Britz at (315) 552-0538 or email: mark@thruwork.com
