Don't believe your own publicity. That was the theme of my recent Cafe article on today's gig economy practices which reported only small shifts in gig employment habits -- certainly nothing that could be called a "gig economy."
But hold on to your hats. Yes, there's a lot of talk about jobs changing to adapt to the introduction of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the workplace. But it's not just the jobs that will change, it's also who does the work.
It is reported that those with "hot" transferable skills are already starting to see a growing trend in gig work. For example, the prediction is that those working in project management and user experience may find a growing proportion of contract job deals available to them (and a shrinking number of full-time jobs).
For these two professions, the intensity of the workers' involvement in a company waxes and wanes. So why not keep a core group in house, enhanced at any time by the supplemental workers you find that you need? You can see how easily this model can expand quickly to other professional areas. Look around and you'll find that companies are already laying the groundwork for this shift through relationships with contingent talent agencies and with companies whose services are based on algorithms developed solely to onboard and evaluate a new employee.
And if CEOs worldwide have anything to do with it, most of us will be gig workers in the near future. A whopping 79% of executives worldwide expect contingent and freelance workers will substantially replace full-time employees in coming years. This prediction does vary by industry with automotives, consumer goods and life sciences at the top of the list, and healthcare and retail at the bottom.
Executives worldwide believe that the highest return on talent investment will come from redesigning jobs to better deliver value (although only 43% are currently doing it!). If you want country-specific data on future gig practices and other upcoming trends, contact Mercer to see if there is a U.S.-specific version of their great report, "Global Talent Trends in 2019," with more details on the above statistics -- and don't skip filling out the well-designed self-assessment at the end of the report.
And in case you missed recent Compensation Cafe discussions of the gig economy, check out "The Truth About Gig Workers" and "Even More about Gig Workers."
Margaret O'Hanlon, CCP brings deep expertise to discussions on employee pay, performance management, career development and communications at the Café. Her firm, re:Think Consulting, provides market pay information and designs base salary structures, incentive plans, career paths and their implementation plans. Earlier, she was a Principal at Willis Towers Watson. A former Board member for the Bay Area Compensation Association (BACA), Margaret coauthored the popular eBook, Everything You Do (in Compensation) Is Communications, a toolkit that all practitioners can find at https://gumroad.com/l/everythingiscommunication.
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