Future Workplace Event
Zurich, October 1, 2019

In 2020, 40% of workers in the US will be contractors, freelancers and independent creative people meeting the flow of demand rather than being fix on the payroll. This trend is spreading fast to Europe and other regions. What sounds good for the company balance sheet bears challenges too and offers a lot of opportunities for individuals and corporates alike.

This Future Workplace session explored questions like how to access, curate and engage these fluid workforces. Who is managing them, HR or procurement? And is this trend – that comes hand in hand with flexibility, yet also insecurity in terms of consistency of employment, pension and social security – a chance or a threat to women’s economic advancement?

Impact of Global Megatrends

To understand the current evolution in the world of work, we need to be aware of global megatrends. Johannes Smits, Director People and Organizations at PwC, named five in his introductory talk: 1) technological breakthroughs, 2) demographic shifts, 3) shifts in global economic power, 4) rapid urbanization, and 5) resource scarcity and climate change.
They all have an impact on how we will work in the near future. The working world can subsequently be categorized in four potential scenario’s visualized as yellow, red, green and blue below, as proposed by Johannes Smits along the axes of integration/fragmentation and collectivism/individualism.

• Corporate integration
  Big business rules all. Companies get bigger and more influential. The biggest have more influence than some nations. Brands span many business areas.

• Business fragmentation
  Small is powerful. Large businesses lose their dominance as customers seek relevance and organizations find scale a burden rather than a benefit. Social bubbles and affinity groups take on a new importance. Many could not exist without digital platforms.
• Collectivism
  Fairness and equality dominates. The common good prevails over personal preference, e.g. collective responsibility for the environment, social good and ‘fairness’ over individual interest.
• Individualism
  Where ‘me first’ rules. A focus on individual wants; a response to the infinite choices available to consumers.

All four worlds of work will co-exist.

The Skill Gap

According to Johannes Smits, 79% of CEOs are concerned about the availability of key skills. The reasons being a) demographic change and b) accelerating innovation cycles especially in the tech sector. For women, this is opening up new opportunities. Progressive tech companies such as for instance ABB have understood that they benefit from widening narrow engineer-focused job profiles to include more women in the workforce to also reflect their growing female customer base and increase the multitude of perspectives in their teams.

Characteristics of the Gig Economy

According to McKinsey*), 20-30% of the working-age population in Europe and the United States engage in some form of independent work. The largest and fastest-growing segments of the freelance economy are the knowledge-intensive industries and creative occupations. There are three main characteristics:

• Occupations are mostly independent of place and time
• Digital platforms facilitate the connections between customers and workers
• There is a lack of sense of belonging: here today, gone tomorrow

Due to their high mobility, gig workers are less likely to be loyal and high-engaged. On the other hand, they can be engaged short noticed to manage time-bound peaks or bring in highly specialized skills.

*) Independent work: Choice, necessity, and the gig economy, McKinsey, 2016

Guidelines to manage Contingent Workers

Lisa Daniells, Director People and Organizations at PwC, shared hands-on recommendations on how organizations can support contingent workers. We picked 5 to share in this article:

• Address this workforce specifically: Appoint a team in charge to manage this flow of workforce (e.g. working conditions, procedures etc.)
• Work on transparency: Draft clear policies and benefits (i.e. for the organisation and the contingent workers)
• Establish direct communication/connection: Build a talent pool of contingent workers from which you can have easily access to (e.g. shared platforms); if there are not enough resources available internally, contact a third-party supplier for a specific talent engagement (e.g. project related)
• Make sure these workers are being fully on-boarded (i.e. clarity around policies, procedures, working culture, organisational values)
• Involve the contingent workers in organisations’ initiatives, events, to make them feel part of the working culture!

Expert Panel Calls for new Policies

The expert panel, comprised of Helena Trachsel, Director Office for Gender Equality Kanton Zürich, Caroline Rogge, Head of HR at Microsoft Switzerland and Austria, and Christina Landgraf, Senior Manager Human Capital at Deloitte Consulting AG, discussed implications with a special view on what it means for women. Among the challenges for individuals are a decrease in job stability, a greater competition to successfully win a project and the risk of a lower basic income. On the other hand, this less rigid world of work offers opportunities also for women to take on leading roles inside companies or as a gig worker.

Visibility and a good network are key in this new world. In order to benefit from opportunities, women need to learn even more how to compete to win a project, how to negotiate great deals and to speak up to be heard and seen. For companies, the best attitude currently is: Stay open, flexible and embrace the new workforce.

The session ended with a call for a follow-up session to dive deeper and exchange on concrete practices and the key-insight that we urgently need new policies and regulations to handle these new workforces in the best possible way.

Time to say Thank You

A big warm thank you to PwC for hosting and co-organizing this workshop, with special thanks to Johannes Smits, Lisa Daniells and Alice Koehncke Valdes. Thank you very much also to our panelists Helena Trachsel, Caroline Rogge and Christina Landgraf. Your contribution and engagement make a difference!

Together #weadvance faster!