Gig
Its been more than one and half years people are working mostly from home. In the United States, now with about total 52% full vaccination rate, coporations are trying to get people back to work. But its been difficult in general. Here I am talking mostly about the white collar workers (blue collars are a completely different ball game). Why its been difficult? The particular city and the group of white collar workers that I interact on a daily basis is about 95% vaccinated, yet they are reluctant to come to work and prefer to work from home. Why? The answer is obvious. Flexibility, less commute, more family time. Also they can prove to their respective managers that they have been productive from home. While in jobs that the more individualistic that can be true, but in others it difficult to judge. This group of people are not afraid of the infection, they just want to work from home. Then the obvious question is why are they not concerned about losing their job (in the United States it is rather easy to lose a job, just requires a 2 weeks notice). The answer lies within Gig Economy.
The “gig economy involves the exchange of labour for money between individuals or companies via digital platforms that actively facilitate matching between providers and customers, on a short-term and payment-by-task basis,”
We can look at numerous info-graphic on the subject and tables of data interviewing various employees, typically flexibility will come at the top. That is nothing new. What is new in the last year and half is people did have that flexible time. They now know what works and what doesn't. They also have a trial, seen how the finances will work, they have evaluated the pros and cons. So, this time, they are ready and they are actually doing it!
I like Trevor a lot. He is smart, funny, and does an incredibly good job on quite complicated and deep subjects like this one. I travel a lot, both for business and pleasure. I have travelled all over during the pandemic and during the time (now) as we are recovering. Whereever I go, I see 'we are hiring' sign (yeah, most of them a blue collar jobs, but there is an uptick in white collar jobs as well).
In the video you will see a lady saying, "yeah, why can't I do it now?" Yeah it is a very valid question where majority of your work is computer based, it should be possible to you to do it from home. But that said, when there is a oil well blowout, you probably won't be able to deal with it from home, you probably will need John Wayne, eh? :)
Oh, you say you don't need oil to drive your car. Okay no problem, that Coltan mine in DRC that mines all the Columbite and Tantalite for the chips in your Tesla can't be mined from home. Nah, that Lithium from that open cast mine in Bolivia, can't be done either. Also all that Cobalt that you need in your Tesla batteries comes also from DRC (yeah, that IS Democratic Republic of Congo, and I assure you it is not very democratic over there!). Oh by the way, I haven't calculated the carbon footprint of any of these things. If you like to try, be my guest! :)
No, this is not an environmental rant. This is just some scientific facts that you can look up if you are interested. I was mostly making the point following Trevor that we can all work from home, but we do need to visit the dentist sometimes. Also Phil over there in Canada do need to visit a proctologist when in need :)
I have an older co-worker, who got divorced about 4 years back, and just before the start of the pandemic got re-married to a french lady. Since the summer of 2020, he is 'working from home' from South of France! He has 26 years with the company and care less. His boss now is trying to get him to come back to office in Houston, but being rather unsuccessful. In confidence my co-worker says, his goal is to lie low as long as he possibly can. He won't quit, they will have to fire him :) Excellent strategy I say!
Incentive
That little story about South of France brings me to incentives. Our older dude has every incentive to stay in South of France. Come on! Its nice there. All he does these days is email, he can get it done from there and sport a 7 figures salary with bonuses. He won't quit, company need to fire him. Companies are touchy-feely these days to fire older (read 'experienced') people. However, recently another company I know in Dallas, had a strong guidance to their employees that they now must get vaccinated and return to work physically. Most people did, but a few smart and qualified engineers decided to quit and look for other opportunities. They did find them. Therefore, that company lost two good engineers and hired two new greeenhorns (they may be competent in due time, but they are not competent now). I am not making a judgement here, as there is no right or wrong answer. I am only saying, that I am seeing a trend that we are losing a lot of smart people from the workforce as they have better incentives to work for themselves, as they are smart and now figured out what to do with their lives. What is getting left at the workforce is more incompetent people or people who just want to 'lie-low' with minimum amount of work!
Hive
For a while, there has been a talk about taking rewards away from the layer one. It has been a difficult subject, and it is very difficult to reach a consensus. I was primarily against that. Meaning I supported the model as we have it now. But with recent success of Splinterlands, it is giving me second thoughts. Splinterlands is a play-to-earn gaming model that is highly incentive driven, and it just works. Curation driven economy that we have currently on layer 1 is subjective and leads to the age old debate on what is quality and what is not. Who should get the rewards and why.... these are subjective topics with no real consensus answer. The only answer we can provide at this point is staked based. We are doing it as effectively as we can at the moment but the debate rages on. Hopefully we can have some topical sessions during the hive fest to discuss that.
This reminded me of a decision a company here made at the GFC. They decided to fire a lot of people and then hire them back through a fresh interview process. Two of the people are highly specialized and there is pretty much no one in the country that can do their job - let alone with years of experience under the belt. They knew their worth, they knew the conditions, they went out and started their own business. Five days later, the company called them and said, "btw, good news, you guys can come back to work without the interview!"
No thanks.
They are now contractors earning magnitudes more than they were, doing exactly what they were doing before, often sitting at the same desks they had before, when they aren't doing work for competitors too.
Yeah, the story repeats in all industries in virtually all countries. I know a lot about the energy sector and it’s notoriously cyclical. We fire good people at the bottom of oil prices and then hire greenhorns out of school at the top. And we repeat, thinking “this time it will be different” :)
Thanks you. I love your information
You do? How can I tell? :)
lolz
It's like an old story. The company I work for isn't laying anyone off right now, but they're certainly not hiring anyone either. In the age of affordability, some industries like Nuclear have to do more with less and those companies are noticing. It's difficult to defend a stance against hiring and knowledge transfer when you're just meeting those regulatory requirements.
It’s quite similar at my workplace
That's unfortunate, but not unexpected. I hope things improve where you work.
14% feel their job environment is too toxic or hate their boss enough to be willing to leave. That's brutal, still, the rather small part compared to the big chunk of people who'd rather work more independently. That's really something! Maybe we humans aren't lost, after all, most are still longing for that extra freedom more than hating their working schedule.
Mani! Good to hear from you after a while :)
Yes, the job market here is strange at the moment. There are a lot of low paid jobs, but nobody willing to do it. There are many reasons of course. But imagine if they knew they can earn a living by playing Splinterlands what will happen :)
Too bad most of the stuff I do can’t be brought home (or do I want to) and I’m stuck with greenies who may or may not last a year here.
I love to physically go to work. So I am doing great. I don't mind the empty office anymore, now I am used to it.
There are perks to an empty office I suppose.
I do miss the hallway chats. I do miss eating out in some small places in downtown which is now shutdown for years and probably will never open.
That is a sad thought.
It is the same here with working from home. Lots of us always wanted it. Now we know we can do it we are reluctant to give it up!
I mean, if you can, I don't see why not.
But in many jobs you can't. In other maybe you can, but it ain't fun!
It would be from if your wanted to but couldn't. They are being clever though and putting restrictions on it in my place. Making sure you call still commute in is one of the preconditions. I presume to avoid an outflow to the Spanish Islands!!
LOL you said it. We had an engineer that worked in our department when the remote work from home directives were sent out. So, what did she do? She drove back to her home in Tennessee from California to do her job. She wasn't at the company for long.
The Taste of Gig Economy has just approved during lockdown and it won't going to fail . People want fleaxible work culture and this thing has been started . Gig Economy will be welcoming by content creators who can decide about their next move not like old days where worker has to be puppet and follower of their boss and company.
I am not sure about that. There are pros and cons
What a wonderful theme you have chosen!
The same thing has happened in my country
Even my father goes to work less and I'm surprised ... I think he enjoys being with his family more!
And among the reasons you mentioned, travel was less appealing to me
Working from home can be done in many fields of work but not in all, there should be a balance to increase the pay for the presencial works, and realease all non necesary presencial jobs to their homes, most companys now days have more employees in a white collar office than on a mine, event with mining companys XD
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Greetings, good perspective yours; I appreciate you shared it. Sapere aude.
Hello @azircon… I have chosen your post about “-Incentive and Gig Economy-” for my daily initiative to re-blog - vote and comment…
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