The future of work is one of the hottest topics on the Internet. From McKinsey to Forbes, everyone has an opinion on the future of work and what it means for the working population. Before we delve deeply into the future of work, though, let’s talk about what it is.
Is the future of work the rise of freelancing and the gig economy or, as McKinsey suggests, where technologies like automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence are shaping how we work, where we work, and the skills we need to work?
If you answered both, you’re right! The future of work, its implications for the gig economy, and its potential impact on software development are big. Whether you’re a developer or an employer, you should be interested in what the gig economy and technologies like artificial intelligence as the future of work might mean for you.
As an employer, are you ready to embrace the future or work — if not, how should you prepare? As a developer, how can you be competitive in the gig economy? Whether you believe the future of work is coming, already here, or just hype, read on to see what you should do to be able to capitalize on it.
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What Does The Future of Work Mean for Employers?
Are You Ready to Embrace the Future of Work?
For employers, the future of work can potentially look like this: companies mostly working as remote or distributed teams, an on-site team that hires remote developers as extra labor for a big project or launch, or a combination of the two, among other possible configurations.
If you’re a company that is used to operating with all hands on-site, the idea of remote or distributed teams may seem far-fetched and unnecessarily complicated. However, in the future of work, a growing number of employers will embrace remote work.
While the gig economy widens the talent pool and is a great opportunity for employers to find employees who can fill a temporary labor shortage at a great price, it also presents some unique challenges to how things traditionally run.
The gig economy gives employers access to a greater number of candidates and hiring flexibility, but makes building a cohesive team challenging. In addition, maintaining company culture can be harder when employees are here only for the short term and not at all on-site.
Toggl CEO Alari Aho says, regarding culture, “You need to actively work on defining the culture. It is a constant effort, and should not be left self-organizing. It’s so important to keep people communicating, making sure they talk about their plans, achievements, and also problems. It’s also very important to work on building trust and a safe environment for taking risks.”
Read More: Good vs Great Developers: How to Tell the Difference & Hire the Best
How Should You Prepare?
One way employers and companies can prepare for the future of work is to examine their own approaches to work. For example: is it necessary for your employees to be on-site every day? What role can automation in the workplace play when it comes to streamlining your employees’ tasks? Would it be possible to hire contract or freelance labor if you can’t find a permanent employee to fill a role?
If you’ve already thought about your work approach and decided that it’s conducive to the gig economy, then it’s time to build the groundwork to make hiring, onboarding, and working go smoothly for both employer and employee. One important part of building the groundwork is establishing strong SOPs.
By laying a strong foundation early on, you can avoid cultural problems down the road. Before hiring, determine what your culture will be once you add remote team members. What kind of personality do you want to hire that would be a strong cultural fit and can work independently? How will the hiring process go? Help Scout, for example, has suggested a longer hiring process making remote part of your brand, and investing in remote team culture.
Once you’ve established standard hiring procedures, you will have to decide how to make onboarding and actually working together go smoothly. How will your team communicate? Are you going to work synchronously or asynchronously? Will the working structure be flat or hierarchical?
In thinking through your priorities and procedures before you hire, you can become well prepared to take advantage of the gig economy and hopefully avoid growing pains and discontent along the way. While the process is not a cakewalk, it can be immensely rewarding in the long run.
Read More: Developer Retention: How to Keep Your Software Developers Happy
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What Does The Future of Work Mean for Developers?
What Does the Future of Work Look Like For You?
The gig economy represents an opportunity for developers — the opportunity to learn new technologies, the opportunity to earn extra cash, and, potentially, the possibility of becoming a digital nomad. Improvements to technology have potentially made life easier and created new and exciting fields for you to explore. The question is: what will you do with it?
With automation, artificial intelligence, and technologies like blockchain making a splash, the gig economy gives you a chance to potentially branch into a different field of development by providing freelance opportunities to support yourself while you refine your skills. You can learn new tech, take on projects to hone your skills, and use the gig economy to build your portfolio.
For developers, the gig economy can a window of opportunity. If you’re unhappy with your current income and would like to earn something extra on the side, you can take on freelance projects online. Freelance platforms and the rise of the gig economy means that there are networks already built to match you with clients who need your expertise and are willing to pay top dollar for it.
Finally, if you’ve been seeking a change of pace/scenery and want to move, but your job requires you to be on-site, the future of work has you potentially covered. With the rise of remote and distributed teams, if you have the skills, you could potentially live and work anywhere in the world with a working internet connection.
Victor Gerard Temprano, a freelance developer, says, “Don’t stick to only what you know. Freelancing is a great way to take on jobs a bit outside your skillset. Overall, I make about $50k-$70k a year freelancing — it can fluctuate quite a bit depending on how much I travel. For that, on average I probably work 20-30 hours a week, whenever and wherever I want… For me, that’s enough money to save, live life comfortably, eat well, and feel happy.”
In fact, the gig economy has given rise to companies that assist employed professionals in traveling the world while working, as well as websites that host job boards for digital nomads. Companies like Remote Year, for example, help currently employed people who want to work remotely do so by arranging travel, accommodations, and logistics for either four months or an entire year.
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How Should You Prepare?
One way to prepare for the gig economy is to make sure that your portfolios and repositories are up to date so that potential freelance clients know what you’re capable of. Without an up-to-date portfolio or active GitHub, you can’t show potential employers the awesome things you can do, which makes it much harder to be hired even if you have years of experience.
Another important aspect of preparing for the gig economy is making sure you can maintain a work-life balance. While making extra cash is fantastic, if your performance for both your full-time and part-time jobs suffers because you’re tired, or your family no longer sees you anymore, then you’ve got a problem that no amount of debugging can fix.
Just because automation and technology have made it possible to work 24/7 doesn’t mean you must do so.
If you’re interested in leveraging new technologies to make a career change, you can use the gig economy by working on freelance jobs and open source projects to build up your portfolio to make you more attractive to employers.
If you’re starting out in a new technology, don’t be afraid to put your rates a little lower as an investment for the future. After all, everyone has to pay their dues.
Finally, in the future of work, make sure that you’re constantly on top of your game and keeping up with the latest in your current (or future) fields of interest.
Whether you want to continue to be an on-site developer, transition to a freelance developer, or become a digital nomad, employers want experienced and capable developers to work for them. If you can’t show them that you know your stuff, the future of work may leave you in the past.
Read More: Are Personal User Manuals Useful for Managing Remote Teams?
Is The Future of Work Just Hype?
The future of work has been on the radar for the last decade or so. Every couple of months, you read articles on the future of work, the gig economy, the job market, and jobs. However, you might be wondering: is it all just hype? We’re going to present two arguments for and against the future of work as just hype, and we’ll let you be the judge.
The Future of Work is Hype
There are several reasons for why future of work is just hype. One, not all jobs can be done remotely — though contract labor is an option. Two, gig economy jobs lack basic benefits and safety nets, which means that not everybody is eager to enter the gig economy immediately. Finally, the gig economy won’t replace full-time, on-site employment.
While software engineering jobs are conducive to the gig economy, jobs that involve physical labor won’t be replaced in the near future by remote workers (for obvious reasons). Jobs that require intense specialization also aren’t suitable for export to remote workers, who may lack the expertise to do it, or require too much accountability and responsibility to entrust to non-permanent employees.
Gig economy jobs, at least when it comes to the freelance space and excluding remote and distributed teams, lack a safety net. While a freelancer may earn parity with their on-site peers in a given month, their next month may not net as much revenue. Coupled with a lack of healthcare benefits and insurance, freelancers may face uncertainty compared to a full-time employee, which creates a barrier to entering the gig economy for some.
While the gig economy is making strides, it will have a hard time replacing full-time, on-site employment in the near future. Although in the next decade it will continue growing, bigger corporations aren’t built to easily accommodate fully remote teams right off the bat. In order for remote teams to be accepted across the board, paradigm shifts are necessary, which means that these changes won’t happen overnight.
Read More: 10+ Senior Software Engineer Interview Questions to Ask Your Candidates
The Future of Work is Real
The future of work isn’t just hype for some — it’s already here. They argue that we are already living in the gig economy with Uber, Lyft, and other services that rely on freelance paid labor to reach an audience and profit.
In the startup space, remote and distributed teams are becoming an increasingly viable model. Zapier, Hotjar, Basecamp, and other remote and distributed teams are making a name for themselves as such while traditional companies are allowing employees to work remotely, with initiatives to allow remote work one day a week to start.
In our professional lives, many companies already use automation, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and other innovations to increase productivity, decrease the number of employees needed for the company to function, and leave time to do more meaningful work once the basics are taken care of with technology.
Another argument in favor of the future of work already existing is the prevalence of freelance platforms that help freelancers with entering and participating in the gig economy.
Arc, for example, matches established mentors with clients who want to hire for larger projects, and the newly announced Dev Protocol seeks to help developers and clients pay one another in an even more convenient and cost-effective way.
For the reasons above, the future of work isn’t something we’re waiting for, it’s already the reality we’re living in. In fact, the gig economy will only expand further, so if luck favors the prepared, then you should start preparing stat.
Read More: Here’s How to Best Motivate and Reward Your Remote Engineering Team
Conclusion
The future of work (and where that’s heading) will affect both employers and employees. Employers might need to invest in infrastructure that allows remote work while employees might have to adjust to a different way of working.
Employees might face a transition from on-site employment to remote employment or working more than one job in the gig economy if automation becomes widespread. They may also need to leverage skills that machines can’t replace — essentially, the human touch.
The rise of the gig economy and the prevalence of technology in the future of work also means that technology can improve the current workplace (remote or on-site), increase efficiency, and pave the way for shorter workweeks and universal basic income (for those who choose not to pursue a first, or second, job) — for those who are prepared.
Technological improvements can also create new jobs — fifty years ago, it might have been hard to imagine that computers would create thousands of jobs. Thus, the future of work represents a myriad of potential opportunities for employers, developers, and society for those who take the leap.
What do you think the future of work is or will be? Let us know in the comments!
You can also try Arc, your shortcut to the world’s best remote talent:
⚡️ Access 350,000 top developers, designers, and marketers
⚡️ Vetted and ready to interview
⚡️ Freelance or full-time
