In the current economic climate, I suspect that the old work paradigm is going to fail a lot more people.  We already know that the promise of a “job for life” has gone – that’s been the case for a long time now, probably since the 1980’s at least.  So any hope of leaving education and settling into a comfortable career that will last you to retirement is long gone.

Who's most at risk …

With specialisation it has become increasingly difficult for experts to find alternative companies that can employ them – because only the largest need somebody full-time doing what they do.  So when the downturn pushes vulnerable companies into “rightsizing”, these experts are the hardest to re-deploy – either inside the company, or via outplacement.  Of course, there are plenty of smaller companies who need their skills, but they can’t afford to take on a full-timer to provide them.  And the paradigm is that the secure way to go on is to have a full-time position.

So at best the experts find themselves in a job where they do their specialism for some of the time and something else (possibly allied, possibly not) for the rest of the working week.  I think that’s a bit of a waste – of the expert’s talent, and of their enthusiasm for their specialism.

I’m an expert in (and an enthusiast about) Key Account Management (it’s one application of my core skills: analysis, prioritisation and focus).  Since coming out of corporate life, I’ve been offering my skills to smaller companies on a “fractional” basis – they hire me for a proportion of my time, to look after their Key Accounts for them.  I’m currently working for two widely different businesses, neither of which is ready for a full-time account manager.  And the rest of my time is spent doing consultancy and developing other ways to use my skills – Key Accounts Strategy, opportunity (or portfolio) prioritisation, helping entrepreneurs get focused.  So clients are getting the level of expertise they need, and I can stick to what I do well.

And the great thing is, my overall income is actually safer than if I’d been in a corporate job.  I can seize opportunities much more easily – in order to take on another client, I don’t have to weigh up their offer against what I’ve already got, I can do both.  When I reach capacity, I can replace the lower-earning (or less fun) contracts with new ones as they come up, or bring in associates, and take a margin.  And if one of my “employers” does get into difficulty and can’t afford to keep me on, it’s not the end of the world for my bank balance.  I might lose maybe 20% of my income, but I won’t lose it all, which is what would happen (has happened to me) if I lost a full-time job.