Fractional Work
-
Upload
leon-benjamin -
Category
Career
-
view
4.315 -
download
1
description
Transcript of Fractional Work
Fractional WorkThe Next Small Thing?
London, 22nd October 20035th October 2009
The unit of work is no longer a whole job
An opportunity. Not a threat.
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
What is Fractional Work?
> Research. There is none.• Officially it doesn’t exist• Temporary work research only tells part of the story
> OECD, ILO• There’s a hidden GDP that is not accounted for anywhere
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
The Emergence of 21st Century Labour Models: Fractional Work
> The emergence of fractional, ‘on-demand’ models of labour
• Why is this important?> Potential for full employment but comprised of multiple fractional
sources of work> Competitive with offshore pricing> Big business in on the action
• Profound implications for education & training policy
> The perfect labour storm• There is a tectonic shift taking place in the structure and nature
of work
> Government legislation is causing incalculable damage to its widespread adoption
• Legislation with unintentional consequences• How to enable and accelerate fractional work
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
A Perfect Labour Storm> Provenance
• Recent US research (cf Prof Alan Binder) estimates 30-40 million ‘high end’ white collar jobs could be lost within the next generation
> On that basis the comparable number in the UK could be as much as eight million
• Estimates of 16 million PhD students in Asia by 2015> In 2007 Indian IT services company receives 4m job applications
in one year> 2 billion people internet connected
• 31% of UK workforce retiring in the next 5 years> In the US one-fifth of the country's large, established companies
will lose 40 percent or more of their top level talent in the next five years
• Unretirement trends & ‘grey ceilings’> The impact of the credit crisis on pension values
• In Japan, 30% of the adult work force is made up of temporary workers
> If current government policy prevails only 1 in 2 (yes, one in two) people will be employed in Japan in the year 2050
> 10 years of ‘steady state economy’ and zero percent interest rates
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
A Perfect Labour Storm> Provenance
• The under-employment of older people is costing the UK 12-30 billion a year
> A lot of spare capacity in other UK home worker based networks• Anecdotal evidence to suggest that SMEs are the biggest buyers of
offshore labour> Particularly in the creative industries
• The OECD reports that, from the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year to the end of 2010, 25 million more people will be unemployed in the developed world
> Temporary work on the rise• Short-term work contracts have increased as a proportion of total
employment;> From 12.7 to 18.3 percent in the Netherlands, > 8.5 to 14 percent in Italy> 11 to 12.3 percent OECD-wide over the past decade> UK currently 25%
> Fractional Work• An Opportunity. Not a threat.
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
Sources of Fractional Work
100,000 instant access to 100,000 rated and tested professionals who offer technical, marketing and business expertiseRevenues of $200m pa
7,500 distributed home-based agents fastest-growing company (Deloitte & Touche Fast 500)Summer 2009 announced the creation of 500 posts in NY & 100 in Wyoming(Estimated) that more
than 1 million people in Canada and the US make at least part of their living buying and selling on Ebay
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
Sources of Fractional Work
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
Platforms
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
More examples
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
Legislation is ‘arresting’ its development
> IR35• A scheme to reclaim NI from freelance contractors
> Predicated on full time employee basis• Just made it harder to operate as a freelancer• Recent FOI request: IR35 generated just £1m in 10 years!
> Adding insult to injury• 2007:The Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed new legislation limiting
the ability of contractors to operate through the medium of limited companies and umbrella companies
> 160,000 contractors• Majority of on low pay scales; security guards, nurses, cleaners,
and supply teachers.
> Temporary Workers• Aug 2009: The controversial Agency Workers' Directive confirmed by
Gordon Brown would be implemented in UK law in the next few months. • The EU-inspired Directive is aimed at protecting vulnerable agency
workers by giving them similar rights to employees. • Gives freelancers rights they do not want and which will make them less
attractive to the market
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
Conclusions
> The future of work• The unit of work is no longer a whole job and the traditional career, as an
institution, is in unavoidable decline. • Unfortunately public policy is still based on the assumption that careers
are the most desirable form of employment, and that they can be offered to more and more of us.
• Fractional work> Credible alternative to job/no-job – a new Full Time Equivalent?
• Is there a hidden GDP that is not accounted for anywhere?
> Government action – create an eBay for work> Don’t punish. Enable.
• Introduce new legislation that rewards people and companies for this mode of work. Tax it, fairly.
• Create ‘new types of workplace/labour exchange’ – aggregate, regulate
• Place government (knowledge) work on these platforms> Educate our children for change in the nature of work
> Opportunities – doing better with less• Fractional workers have low carbon footprints• Economically active• Off the unemployment register • Make use of spare capacity
> Economically inactive (disabled, incapacity benefit claimants)
Accelerating Product Acquisition & DistributionFractional Work – The Next Small Thing?
Contact
> Leon Benjamin• Twitter: http://twitter.com/ixtlan• Blog: http://winningbysharing.typepad.com/• Email: [email protected]