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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: 3, Insightful) by n1 on Sunday September 06 2015, @08:06PM
1) It could well be a Dice spoon-fed article, if the summary was presented differently.
We have a topic for Career & Education, sadly sticking our heads in the sand about the changing landscape of the working environment wont stop it changing. We should be paying attention, this change of attitude has a high probability of directly affecting you/me/the next guy at some point in the near future, if it hasn't already.
2) HBR is an echo chamber, and we can call them out for it right here. We should be calling them on it, because it's not just an echo chamber, it's an echo chamber for powerful and influential people who actually make the decisions. The summary contains a quote from the article, but is finished with pointing out the flaws of the article, noting that it lacks any negative perspective to illustrate potential downsides. The article itself is completely unbalanced and that should not be ignored.
3) Agreed. Part of the reason I accepted this story, and took the opportunity to use it as the 1000th story I have edited, is because I think the topic is very important and needs discussion. We can ignore the HBR and what they're trying to push, but that wont stop it happening. They dont need our consent or approval, that's why it's in the HBR not on a widely read publication.
4) Agreed again. Your comment really proves the point about why I accepted this story. The points you made are ones that needed making, and that's what it's all about, having a discussion on the article. We should be prepared to be presented with views we do not agree with, especially when they have potential to affect our lives. We should be able to have a reasonable discussion about it and not become our own echo chamber.
I agree with the article in that it's going to happen, it's already begun. I strongly disagree that it's a good thing, we're not all entrepreneurs with vision and a never ending adaptable skill-set, some people just want to live a quiet life and have a family and have some semblance of financial security for themselves and their family. Believe it or not (HBR crowd probably wont), some people actually want to spend quality time with friends and family, not just send money their way each month.
Life is not defined by our job or career. We should be actively fighting against the idea that it is, we can do that by confronting articles like this head-on and explaining to people that are unaware, "this is where we are headed," and not to be fooled by the propaganda. It will not make things better or more flexible for average Joe and Jane. The consequences will be severe for the average family, more stress, less stability, no employment benefits, less money coming in overall, more tax obligations, more forms of insurance, regulatory hurdles, the list could go on.
Tell people about this, share your opinion and perspective, don't ignore it just because you dislike the concept or where it came from.
(Score: 2) by fliptop on Monday September 07 2015, @01:30AM
It wasn't.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 07 2015, @03:49PM
If you had not stopped reading the sentence at that point, you would have noticed that it continued with: "if the summary was presented differently."
So the comment you replied to already said "it wasn't", except that it also said why it couldn't actually be.