As mentioned in my previous blog career patterns are changing at an even quicker pace…
Why??? It’s all about TECHNOLOGY!
Tech is strongly impacting careers because:
- Companies that were the most popular employers (even for a 100+ years) no longer are. They have difficulties following the pace of change caused by technology.
- The new major tech companies (Google, Facebook…) offer their employees the ability to be part of a strongly growing and exciting story. They offer entrepreneurship, non-traditional working conditions, flexibility….
- There’s an entire new population of start- and scale-ups that pop up every day to take over the world of business, and youngsters are more excited to be part of these businesses rather than in building a career at the more traditional companies.
- People have much more access to information through social media, online news…. This does not only give them much better visibility on their options, but also has an impact on their attention span (that became much shorter) and as result the need to stay triggered.
- Especially in the western world youngster are reflecting more about the future of the planet, and think about their social responsibility.
As a result of the above trends the search for stability and the traditional career ladder has made room for entrepreneurship, adventure, life-long learning, flexibility, adaptability and (ideally) an organisation with strong values. Especially youngsters leave behind the ‘vertical growth in hierarchy’ career for a horizontal career where they can take on ownership quickly.
As the change in this direction will only accelerate we do see a number of possible (future) trends:
- Job-sharing -> some jobs may be better executed by two people in a co-working context. Especially as we are moving towards becoming hyper-specialists, having two people share their brains, perspectives and knowledge will allow for more-out-of-the-box thinking and better results. Two are stronger than one, and together they create better ideas. Also, for youngsters at the start of their career having two different interesting jobs helps them grow their skills and knowledge even faster. And remember…… ‘sharing is caring!’
- People sharing -> many companies, especially smaller ones, cannot afford a full-time employee to do a specific role but they do need someone to take on certain tasks. Nor do they have the means to hire a freelance consultant, and finding the right part-timer may be more difficult as most employees need to have a full-time job. Wouldn’t it be nice if two (or more) companies can have the same person on their payroll doing similar tasks. For the employee it’s extremely beneficial to get different perspectives on their tasks and stay open-minded, whereas the employer’s benefits combine lower costs (since it’s part-time) with a fresh look at the role.
- Office sharing -> if there’s one thing that we have learned from our current situation is that there’s an ideal mix between home- and office work. Only working from home is far from ideal because it isolates us too much, whilst working full-time at an office gives us the feeling that we’re less flexible. At M18 Executive Search we visit our neighbours for a chat, but we could take this further and also share our office space. Especially if more people work from home, why not share our facilities with other firms. This goes further than renting an office at a full-service building. It’s really about mixing the teams, letting them work on the same landscape, have them share ideas during a coffee (latte/green tea/diet coke…) and let them help each other with their jobs.
- Lifelong learning by hopping back and forth -> companies used to be very reluctant about hiring back a former employee, but no longer. I myself even tried to win back one of my golden nuggets, and almost succeeded. Help your employees move on when there’s nothing more that they can learn, rent them out temporarily or help them find their next employer. If you do this and keep in touch it may help you bring them back one day with tons of knowledge. And there’s no reason why this process cannot be repeated several times during someone’s career, as long as there’s mutual trust and respect everything is possible.
All these trends give people the ability to be at the steering wheel of their career, and even more important: of their lives. Especially for young parents that may slow down their career when kids arrive, the above will allow them to continue to build their career in attractive roles whilst profiting more from the home front. And finally, it increases the recruitment and development flexibility of companies which in turn may create room for new jobs.
Always interested to hear/read your views.
Stay safe and healthy!
