Goodbye Rung economy. Hello Gig Economy
You might live in a society where the number of people who report to you is an indicator of your social status. Therefore that will be the metric by which you will measure your career development.
The problem is that corporations, big and small, cannot make that level of commitment anymore. ‘Join us, play your cards right and we will be the only company you ever need work for’ is something that happened in a bygone era.
Most Baby Boomers have come to terms with the fact that their career will play out across more than one organisations. Gen Y on the other hand, what with their predilection for multi-tasking would consider the inevitability of one career involving a slow shimmy up a greasy pole as too depressing a thought.
Firstly there is a risk that, for circumstances beyond your control, you could fall off the pole. And secondly, like large outsourcing contracts, the payoff is in the latter half. Thus a large part of your career involves grinding away in the hope that this extended rite of passage will lead you to the Promised Land.
So the notion of a career for life has been replaced by one of a life of careers. But even the latter implies a serial approach. It is more likely that Gen Ys will want to run several careers in parallel. For example, blogger, software developer and DJ. Maybe today the software developer role provides the bulk of the income. But the aim is to shift the mix.
All of these possibilities can be broken down into tasks. Write a post. Code and test a subsystem, or play a gig. In fact they can all be managed on a gig basis. You are assigned a task, which may or may not be time and location dependent, and you get paid when the job is done.
This has given rise to the gig economy. More and more people are creating mosaic-like lives by blending gig elements of their work-life with disparate elements of their life-life. This means that if they want to spend all day consuming box sets, then they can do so, knowing that they create their best software between the hours of 2am and 6am.
If you are uncomfortable with such a fragmented life and the apparent evaporation of the traditional career, then I suggest that you come to terms with it.
The reality is that today organisations, big and small, cannot predict their people requirements. The world has become too volatile. Consumers, customers and citizens appear to have become too fickle.
Plus this gig economy has created a new type of worker. One who knows that they are only as good as their last gig. So in the digital economy, you always show up with your ‘A game’. Such people do not require managers. As more and more brand-conscious talent pervades the market, the need for management and steep hierarchies disappear.
If your career is still based on climbing the management ladder, you will soon realise that the ladder is no longer there. The rung economy, and those that depend on it, is in freefall.
