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from the you-can-start-tomorrow...-and-finish-next-friday dept.
Over at the Harvard Business Review there's speculation that the paradigm of people working full-time for a single employer has outlived its usefulness:
Our vision is straightforward: most people will become independent contractors who have the flexibility to work part-time for several organizations at the same time, or do a series of short full-time gigs with different companies over the course of a year. Companies will maintain only a minimal full-time staff of executives, key managers, and professionals and bring in the rest of the required talent as needed in a targeted, flexible, and deliberate way.
There are two reasons such a flexible work system is now plausible. The first is societal values. Work-life balance and family-friendly scheduling are much more important to today's workers, and companies are increasingly willing to accommodate them. The second is technology. Advances in the last five years have greatly improved the ease with which people can work and collaborate remotely and companies and contract workers can find each other.
The opinion piece goes on to list how workers, employers and society in general will benefit from this shift. What seems to be missing is speculation on the down sides, both to employers and contractors. Originally spotted on The Eponymous Pickle.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 06 2015, @02:56PM
That's strange. I've been a contract consultant, in IT, for over twenty years. Somehow I have group health insurance, and a retirement plan. How did that happen?
Me too. Made a couple of million and now I only work when I find something interesting.
And what I've learned over my 25 years in the business is that pure luck is the single largest component of my success. Not everyone, not even a majority of us, will find themselves with the right set of circumstances to grab the golden ring. Sure, it takes skill and lots of effort to hold onto the golden ring, but all of that is for naught if you aren't within arm's reach anyway.
So yeah, we are winners. Lottery winners.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday September 06 2015, @10:51PM
It's very rare to find someone with such a considered understanding of the world. So many feel that those who haven't got high paying gigs and lots of money didn't work hard enough, even if the unlucky worked harder than the rest. The "just world" view that one has worked hard enough is simply a self-justification for feeling entitled.
I guess this is my way of saying "If I had mod points...."
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday September 07 2015, @02:39AM
Some of the many parts of my pure luck, as someone doing well and with plenty of time to earn more:
- Being born to highly educated parents, including a programmer, which meant I entered college with 6-ish years of practice that a lot of my classmates didn't have.
- Being born into a family that could afford to pay for my college education, leaving my expenses about 15% lower than those who had to take on loans, which increased as I was able to buy a car without having to take on as much credit.
- Being white. That helps a lot with things that have little to do with money, like not getting shot by cops.
- Being male, which meant that when I worked as an employee I got paid approximately 20-30% more, and wasn't constantly harassed by coworkers.
- Not dying or even being injured significantly in a car accident when I easily could have several times (1 when I was young, once spinning out on a highway in bad weather).
- Living only in homes without lead paint or industrial toxins that would have poisoned me.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @06:02AM
It takes a while to figure out how to contract effectively. Of course people are going to grumble until they get their sea legs. You expect them to be happy while tripping and flopping on the deck? Grumbling is venting, and people feel better after venting. Workers of the world, vent!