The coming White Collar gig economy

Today in my state of Victoria we have just come out of our third lock-down. Putting aside our politics, I'm curious about the affect this is having on company culture, the relationship between employers and employees, how the office will change, and what the longer term implications are for staff.

In Victoria we've been told office workers must wear a mask in the office and having talked to office workers, they would much rather work freely from home than in the office with only 10% of their colleagues there, and have to wear a mask for 8 hours.

My question is if culture within a company is built on collaboration, what happens to a company's culture when there is very little face to face interaction and we are all resigned to online conference calling?

If your staff were in the office and understood the company culture, interacted each day with others who were also excited by that belief, how diluted is their awareness of this today. It's logical to say the further companies drift from the tight bonds of old, the less they feel united in their efforts, and the more their day job becomes simply a means to an end.

Today people may have concluded family is more important. Others may have struggled with loneliness or depression and not been able to tell others for fear of consequences.

If you're not saturated, you're diluted.

If you aren't bingeing it's easy to lose interest and 9-5 becomes a way to simply pay the bills... in your pajamas.

The balls in their court

Let's be logical about this. The two most expensive costs in a business are wages and rent. Every business owner is constantly looking at ways to minimise those costs and there are a number of ways to do this. The most brutal would be to simply sack people and move to less expensive dwellings. A more subtle process is to minimise these costs as an overall percentage of expenditure by increasing productivity, increasing revenue or both.

The bottom 10%

As we move away from JobKeeper, business owners will be assessing the productivity of their staff. The criteria they keep or let go of people may be based on the following.

• Works autonomously v Needs supervision
• Team builders v Enthusiasm drainers
• Achieves deadlines v Works minimal hours

In 2020 employees were given a lot of leeway but this will quickly come to an end and the bottom 10% or more may be let go. Some of those people will seek in office appointments while others, wanting the best of both worlds, will come to the harsh realisation that you are no longer relevant.

The 4 day work week

I'm a strong believer that power and money are the great drivers of the world. At this time the power sits with the employee.

In the past the power sat squarely with the employer which is why at your interview the company told you about all the extra's you would benefit from, like table tennis, gourmet lunches, free beer Fridays and even a cafe quality coffee machine.

Ask yourself how much these goodies swayed you to accept an offer.

Today companies are openly talking about or operating on a 4 day work week (eg.Unilever NZ experiment). Ask anyone if they would like to work only 4 days for 5 days pay and they'll take it. This is a great opportunity for those people who may chose to live regionally, on the looser 2 days in, 2 days out arrangement.

With less people coming into the office, (by law or by individual preference) company's will reduce rent costs by downsizing or moving to another location. They may redesign their offices, reducing open plan spaces and incorporating more conference rooms for team building, or subleasing their office out.

To reduce wage cost they've already sacked the bottom 10% and because the power is with the employee they've moved everyone to a 4 day work week. This would seem like a happy place for everyone concerned... until next time.

The coming white collar gig economy

In the late 1980's there was a downturn and interest rates were at 17%, in 2000 we had the DotCom bust. In 2008 we had the Global Financial Crisis and in 2020 the you know what came out of the you know where. Every 10 years of so the apple cart gets flipped.

When global circumstances change companies ask different questions. In 2020 nothing was off the table, in 2021 most things are still a point of discussion.

Give it a few years and companies will convert its employees to contractors. This already happens in low risk, process driven functions such as Virtual Assistants. But one day soon the highest paid company appointments will receive virtual applicants from Denmark, Canada, UK and France.

The white collar worker will fold into the gig economy. They may live regionally and work globally in short term contract roles. They will hold an ABN and be afforded all the benefits that brings, but your resume will sit in a pile of 200 applicants from 16 different countries.

For some this is a big group hug, all fluffy and inclusive. In reality the increased competition will lower your marketable value and you'll need to consider the downtime between contracts to support your lifestyle.

In Conclusion

The meaning of value and the value of meaning

This picture is simply one of cause and effect. With 11 months of our world being out of our control we have come to realise other things are more important than work. This affects our attitudes to previously held tenants. For example - was I believing a lie when they told me about their benefits and company culture.

Companies want to reduce costs and 2020 has given them that opportunity. This is the first step of many they'll take. If employees see less value in the organisation and its culture because of the distance we must adhere to, the same will be so for employers valuing their staff.

If 2020 has given us anything, it's the time to collect our thought and realise who our dependencies are. Is it your family or is it money? If they're both, to what degree? Remember there's always going to be more work to do when you're dead and gone.