Founder of Werkling, Michelle Fotheringham, says the future of work is changing rapidly as professionals seek purpose over pay. She joined editors Cec Busby and Adam Bub on the First Act podcast to share how businesses can embrace this brave new world and make the most of the professional gig economy.
As a self-proclaimed ‘corporate escapee’, Michelle Fotheringham is on a mission to help talented professionals find a better work-life balance by putting their skills to use less traditionally than the usual nine-to-five working week.
“I became interested in what this future of work could look like when I was freelancing myself,” says Michelle. “In my network, I could see more and more people opting out of traditional in-house employment and wanting to go out on their own. It wasn’t the ordinary people – they were high performers and top talent. That got me curious about the type of people opting out of traditional employment, and whether there was a better way to enable people to do more purpose-led work.”
Enter Werkling, the on-demand talent platform Michelle founded, which matches experienced professionals with businesses seeking their specific skill sets.
Michelle Fotheringham, co-founder of Werkling
Corporate escapism
Recent times have revealed a growing shift in qualified employees wanting to step back from the traditional ‘rat race’ and make time for more purpose in their daily lives – a phenomenon Michelle calls ‘corporate escapism’.
“‘Corporate escapism’ is a term that I love,” she says. “On the back of COVID, people want to design their life and work differently. Corporate escapees don’t want to be owned by an organisation; they don’t want a traditional job. Instead, they’re looking at doing work that is project-based and outcome-based, that plays to their strengths and allows them to follow their purpose.
“There are many fabulous things about working inside an organisation, but it’s not for everyone – more and more, we are seeing people opting for different work styles. Research from Upwork last year suggested that 20 per cent of people are considering freelance work in the future. Other research indicates that by 2028, more people will be working in a gig capacity than in traditional employment models. In a recent talent survey within the Werkling community, 90 per cent said they have no intention of returning to traditional employment.
“A growing number of people are choosing to work in this way – it’s a cohort of people who do not want a ‘job’. So it’s quite an intentional decision that people are making.”
Listen to Michelle Fotheringham on the First Act podcast:
‘Talent exclusivity’ is outdated
Michelle says businesses can benefit from letting go of the outdated ‘job for life’ model and might be missing out on significant opportunities if they don’t.
“For businesses, it’s about letting go of the idea of talent exclusivity,” says Michelle. “Organisations right now are taking a binary view towards talent; you’re either an internal employee and part of this organisation, or external – a supplier or vendor. But there’s something amazing to be explored in that middle area. It’s not ‘us and them’ or ‘internal and external’. There’s a real shift around letting go of that idea of exclusivity.
“There’s a huge opportunity for organisations to reimagine how they can design work into some jobs for the core functions of a business, but also projects where you can pull from this amazing cohort of freelance and on-demand talent to deliver different outcomes.”
Work vs life – a changing landscape
Michelle says that some key trends are standing out when it comes to this shifting employer/employee relationship.
“The perception of job security will change in the future,” Michelle says. “People have seen what can happen when you are reliant on one stream of income. For so long, we’ve seen the permanent full-time job as the most secure type of employment, but there’s a lot of people who lost their jobs through 2020 and 21 who would disagree with that.
“I know someone who started up her own side hustle in marketing because she’d been stood down by her organisation during the pandemic,” Michelle recalls. “She said to me, ‘I won’t find myself in this situation again, where I’m reliant on one employer. I will always have something else going on now’.
“COVID proved that businesses need to be nimble; they need to be able to augment their workforce more. There’s going to be this moment of realisation, this grand epiphany, that there is a true place for freelancers in these future work models,” Michelle predicts.
“The other thing to come out of the last couple of years is people wanting purposeful work; to design their life and work in a different way and play to their strengths. That leads more and more towards this idea of freelance and on-demand work and controlling your own destiny.”
Societal changes
Michelle says that beyond just what the future of work can look like, there’s some societal problems that can be solved through the Werkling mission as well.
“Part of what we are doing here is a solution to reduce burnout and work-related mental health issues, and make more ‘well’ organisations,” says Michelle. “The broader societal piece is workforce participation.
“We’ve got a number of ‘Werklings’ who have children starting primary school, or with additional needs, who can only work school hours. We all know that the school system and the work system just do not work together, so they’ve turned their freelance business into a new career path. There’s a real workforce participation impact here, particularly for women with school-aged children – but for both genders – that traditional ways of working have never solved. There’s continued opportunity to look at how we increase diversity into gig and freelance-based work.
“When we surveyed our community recently around what their drivers were for working on-demand, flexibility around family certainly did come through strongly,” Michelle reveals, “but there was also quite a flavour around purpose and your own personal wellbeing and living your best life.
“All of the research around what is driving people is showing an increased focus on being purpose-led. Our community want to play to their strengths; they just want to come in and do a great job – a job that they love and which fills their buckets.
“My view of the future of work is there’s still going to be jobs for those who want jobs, but there’s going to be a tipping point where more and more people want to work in this different way. And we need some organisational structures and systems to be able to tap into them.”
Michelle shared so many great insights into the future of the professional ‘gig’ economy in this First Act episode, we simply couldn’t fit them all in here. Listen to the full podcast now!
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