Maulik Parekh's Blog

(An excerpt from my upcoming book, “Futureproof your career and company”)

According to the “Freelancing in America” survey conducted in 2017, 50.9 percent of the US workforce will be freelancing by 2027. That’s over 25 million more people joining the freelancing bandwagon over the next decade.

The growth rate will be even steeper in developing countries. For example, India is estimated to have 15 million freelancers today. By 2030, that number is expected to grow to 60 million.

What’s fueling these freelancing forecasts? Three key reasons…

1. Technology makes it easy to freelance and to find a freelancer

Until recently, freelancing remained highly inefficient in how freelancers and clients found each other. And how they transacted. 

Just 20 years ago, if you were a freelancer, finding a client was hard work. You asked for referrals from family, friends, and existing clients. Whether you liked it or not, you had to attend industry events and gatherings. You gave out business cards and flyers to local businesses. You even sent out direct mail pieces promoting your services within your area. And there was no guarantee any of these hustles would pay off.

If you think finding clients was difficult, consider getting paid. It was more like pulling teeth.

Best case, you had to wait for months for that check.

Worst case, you had to write it off. You had almost no leverage against bigger businesses.

Thankfully, those days are behind us.

In the last two decades, technological progress coupled with ubiquitous Internet and smartphones has fueled the growth of many online freelancing platforms like Upwork, Freelancer, 99designs, and Toptal.

Just like eBay and Alibaba, these online platforms eliminate the inherent inefficiencies of a physical marketplace. Your scale is as limitless as Internet. Your reach is the entire planet.

With just a few clicks, freelancers and clients from all corners of the world can find what (and who) they are looking for.

The mutual reviews and star ratings keep everyone on their best behavior (like indulging your Uber driver in a small talk even when you are in no mood to talk. Why? Because you want that five-star rating!). 

And the best part? It’s hassle-free!

Clients get the services they are paying for and the freelancers get the money once the job is completed. Immediately! No need for follow-ups and write-offs!

2. It’s a win-win for both employers and freelancers

Employers win because freelancers – as contractual workers – afford them agility and nimbleness. Companies can better navigate through ebbs and flows in the circumstances both predictable (such as seasonality) and unpredictable (such as unexpected external events).

Employers also benefit from achieving significant cost savings.

By hiring freelancers, companies don’t have to pay for employee-related direct costs such as recruitment, payroll taxes, matching 401(k), and paid time off.

Companies also save on indirect costs such as rent or lease, utility bills, insurance, and maintenance for office buildings (not to mention the fortune spent on post-it notes and paper clips).

Freelancers win because they have freedom and flexibility to work from wherever and whenever they want.

If you believe you are most productive and most creative at 2am adorned in your pajamas sitting at the kitchen table, why not? After all, there is no alarm going off at 7am.

There is no need to get ready and commute to work.

You are your own boss!

For freelancers, this freedom also equates to savings.

Working from home means no commute and hence less car related expenses such as gas, parking, car maintenance and car insurance.

Working from home means more time with your kids and hence lower childcare costs. (but perhaps more “pulling your hair” moments!)

Working from home means no need to buy formal office wear (last time I checked, pajamas are significantly cheaper and more comfortable).

Working from home means that Starbucks on the corner is no longer tempting you daily to buy a $5 latte!

Working from home means no weekly after-work happy hours (with the people you can’t stand).

So, yes, when you add all of these up, it’s a nice chunk of savings.

In addition to these savings, probably the biggest win of being a freelancer is not having to deal with the toxic work environment. A recent survey done by Perkbox in the UK found the primary cause for work-related stress is not being over-worked. It is office politics.

Freelancers don’t have to put up with that nonsense.

No need to be paranoid about backstabbers.

No overzealous colleagues trying to outmaneuver you for a promotion. 

No bullies to fend off.

No bosses to suck up to. (How sweet!)

3. Anyone who can use the Internet can become a freelancer

The young generations – Millennials and Gen Z – are entrepreneurial and a majority of them aspire to start their own business.

Gen Z has just started to join the workforce and 53% of these young workers are freelancing. Millennials are not far behind with 40% of these workers working as freelancers.

These numbers are not surprising. After all, when we think of a freelancer, we think of a headphone-wearing, young and scrappy Gen Zer or a Millennial working away at WeWork or Starbucks.

We never think of people in their sixties hustling for gigs, but maybe we should.

Today, 29 percent of the baby boomers (currently those 55 or older) in the workforce are freelancing. And their participation rate is expected to increase over the next decade.

We intuitively know what attracts young people to freelancing. Like their familiarity with on-demand culture, their innate need for freedom and flexibility, and their proficiency in technology fueling the gig economy.

But why are the baby boomers turning to freelancing?

Aren’t they supposed to retire, walk into the sunset, spend the rest of their days golfing or playing bridge with their friends?

Aren’t they too steeped in their rigid 9-to-5 mindset?

Can they adapt to this fast-moving digital economy?

Yes, they can and adapting they are!

Why? Well, some want to. And some have to.

Some want to because they enjoy working. Others realize they don’t have the savings they need for a longer life ahead.

The life expectancy is on the rise globally and people are living longer and healthier.

In the US, 77% of workers over the age of 65 said there are no limitations in the kind of work they can do.

Imagine. You have spent 40 years of your life working hard, cultivating skills, gaining experience, garnering wisdom, building a Rolodex, and then boom! Suddenly, just because you reach some arbitrary number, you can’t work anymore!

Well, now you can, thanks to freelancing. 

And we are not talking about being a greeter at a local Walmart.

We are talking about the kind of work where you can utilize your skills and experience. Or even monetize your life-long passions you have cultivated over the years as a photographer, writer, yoga teacher or life coach.

Clearly, stars are aligned for freelancing to take off.

What does this mean for your company?

The increasing popularity of freelancing will alter the future of not just the who gets the work done but also where, when and how.

Companies are familiar with attracting, retaining, training, and developing full-time employees working predominantly from the company premises.

With freelancing on the rise, as leaders, you have to ask yourself:

How would you successfully integrate and leverage freelancers as a part of your HR strategy?

How would you optimize these remote workers?

How would you ensure they work cohesively as one team with your regular employees?

Companies will also be under increasing pressure to retain their full-time employees as freelancing becomes an attractive alternative for them. You have to ask yourselves:

How can you create a culture that promotes entrepreneurship?

How can you empower your full-time employees to design and manifest personalized career goals?

How can you offer them the freedom, flexibility, and a sense of ownership they crave for?

What does this mean for your career?

As a professional, there has never been a better time to be alive! It has never been easier for you to create and manifest your dreams.

If you feel there is a song in you, it doesn’t need to suffocate in a 9-to-5 rat race. You can sing it (and get paid for it!). 

Freelancing offers you an option to strike out on your own. Do what you love to do. Minus the noise. Minus the toxicity. Minus the drama.

But, it’s not a walk in the park either. While the entire world is your market, the whole world is also your competition. Everyone is hustling for a job or a gig that you want.

So, how do you thrive? 

By being at the top of your game. Everyday.

By committing to life-long learning.

By letting go of the past to usher in the future.

Wishing you a flourishing future,

Maulik

PS: Would you like to know more about how to futureproof your career and company in an era of AI, digital natives & the gig economy? Buy the book here . If you liked the post, please share it with others who you think may benefit from it.

(An excerpt from my upcoming book, “Futureproof Your Career and Company”)

Until recently, I served as the CEO of Inspiro, a leading BPO company with over 10,000 employees globally. For the last three years, I found myself at Ground Zero of a massive generational shift. Almost 100 percent of the people we hired during this period were Gen Z or Millennials.  

Right up close and personal, I witnessed not only how radically different these young Turks are from the old guards (like myself), but also how they have the potential to disrupt the status-quo of any company.

In particular, companies must understand these three key characteristics that set them apart and adjust their strategy accordingly

1. They want to work with the latest technology

In the last decade alone, these digital generations witnessed people upgrading their smartphones every two years.

They witnessed Siri ceaselessly evolving from a mere novelty to an intuitive and intelligent virtual assistant.

They witnessed the speed for internet connectivity increase by 20-fold.

They only know one way to exist. Upgrade. Get better. Get faster. Get smarter. Repeat.

So, it’s no surprise that they are picky when it comes to choosing their employer. They are looking for an employer who will provide them with the latest technology to work with.

In a 2018 survey conducted by Dell covering 12,000 Gen Zers from age 16 – 23 from 17 different countries, 80 percent said they want to work with cutting edge technology. And, 91 percent said the technology offered by an employer would be a factor in choosing among similar job offers.

Their penchant for working with the latest technology is also apparent in who they consider as their dream employers. According to a Glassdoor study in 2019, both Gen Z and Millennials chose Tech giants such as IBM, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon among their top ten choices.

So, there you have it. This is what you are up against.

Now, granted, not every company can be a Google or Amazon.

But, every company can ensure its technology meets the demands of its customers and employees of tomorrow.

Every company can provide the technology that promotes a fluid and personalized work environment where one can work from anywhere, and at any time.

The one that simplifies and automates employee-facing processes to match “there is an app for that” mind-set of young generations.

The one that adapts to humans, unlike the frustrating “take it or leave it” legacy systems.

The one that leverages tools such as Slack, Trello or Asana to unleash the collaborative spirit of young generations.

2. They are entrepreneurial

Do you know Charli D’Amelio, Baby Ariel, or Jacob Sartorius? If not, you are not alone. I had to Google them myself.

They are outrageously popular celebrities. And perhaps the reason you haven’t heard of them is that they found their stardom not in movies or TV series but on relatively new platforms like TikTok and musical.ly.

But don’t let that discount their star power. Charli alone has over 86 million followers on TikTok and growing by the day.

And guess what? All three of them were born after 2000.

What’s even more impressive is that, like true entrepreneurs, they have turned their enviable following on social media into a lucrative business. They are signing sponsorship deals, releasing their music albums, and landing prominent roles in popular TV series and movies (and even appearing in super bowl commercials).

They are not alone. Countless others pursuing their passion. Making money by doing what they love to do. Their motto (in Gen Z speak): “You do you.”

Many of them, like Charli, followed the path of music and entertainment through TikTok, musical.ly and YouTube.

But many others launched their businesses by creating an app, or running an online creative agency, or even buying and selling sneakers online.

Why are young people more likely to become an entrepreneur today? Because it is much easier for them to start a business than any other generation in their youth.

What do you need to start most businesses today? Of course, an amazing idea. But what else? A smartphone and internet connectivity. Talk about almost no barrier to entry.

This easy access has influenced how young generations envision living their lives. A recent study found 72 percent of the high schoolers want to start their own business someday, and 61 percent of college students would rather be entrepreneurs than employees.

So, if you are an employer trying to hire these young people, you are competing with not only other employers but also their desire to be the masters of their own destiny.

Even if you are lucky to hire them, retaining them is equally difficult.

They won’t survive too long in companies where the bosses at the top make the decisions and micromanage the rest to carry them out.

Where new ideas are met with “this is how we have always done it”.

Where they are asked to fit their square peg in a round hole.

Where management is obsessed with employees putting in their hours rather than their heart and soul.

3. They are purpose-driven

Yes, they have gained their notoriety for being an avocado toast loving, soy latte-drinking, TikTok-ing, snap chatting generation. But if you look beyond this narrow and myopic stereotype, you realize these digital generations are the most woke and inspired generations to tackle the urgent social and environmental issues facing the world today.

According to a 2019 study conducted by Porter Novelli/Cone, 88 percent of Gen Zers feel their generation has the power to transform the world for the better. And it’s not because they are naïve. But because they have seen young people their age making a difference on a global scale.

They have proudly witnessed Malala Yousafzai (a fellow Gen Zer and the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize) continue to fight for women’s and children’s rights. Despite receiving the death threats from the Taliban. 

Then, there is the “Greta effect.” In Greta Thunberg, they see their own limitless power and potential. Yes, it’s uplifting when your teacher or a parent reminds you that “you have the power to change the world.”

But nothing inspires you more than seeing someone just like you, someone your age, someone as vulnerable as you are, take on the world for a cause she believes in. It emboldens, empowers, and energizes you.

They have also come to recognize that they can’t wait for grown-ups to fix the issues near and dear to their heart.

This was evident after the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida. The surviving students took matters in their own hands and made an impassioned plea to the world to protest against gun violence.

And people of all ages listened. Nearly 800,000 people from all across the country turned up in Washington DC to participate in the March For Our Lives (800 similar marches were organized in cities around the world).

These young generations know they have the muscle to morph mobile messages into movements.

So, what does this mean for you as an employer?

It’s simple.

Young people are looking for employers equally engaged in and committed to solving social and environmental issues near and dear to their hearts. Just consider these numbers:

Eighty-three percent of the Gen Zers believe the company’s purpose is a core consideration in deciding where to work. 

Seventy-five percent of the millennials would take a pay cut to work for a socially responsible company.

And no, they won’t take your word for your CSR. They are a skeptical bunch. They want to know if you are putting your money where your values are.

So, if your CSR program is an after-thought, if it doesn’t permeate throughout the entire company, if it’s relegated to a person or a team, if it comes to life only in a paragraph of your annual report, it won’t survive the sniff test.

People won’t commit to your brand until you commit to your social responsibility.

In the world we live in, companies should not have a CSR strategy.

CSR should be the strategy.

In 1970, Milton Friedman, a renowned economist, wrote an essay in New York Times magazine titled, “The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” He argued that a company has no social responsibility to the public or society, and its only responsibility is to shareholders.

Needless to say, he hadn’t met the Millennials and Gen Z yet.

Wishing you a flourishing future,

Maulik

PS: Would you like to know more about how to futureproof your career and company in an era of AI, digital natives & the gig economy? Buy the book here . If you liked the post, please share it with others who may find it relevant.

(An excerpt from my upcoming book, “Futureproof your career and company”)

What is the future of your work? Will AI take your job?

Most of us don’t think about this urgent and important question. Why? Not because we ignore it but because AI is sneaky. It’s tiptoeing into our jobs so stealthily that we don’t even realize the threat that it may pose for our careers.

Mark Weiser, a computer pioneer, once famously said “The most profound technologies are those that disappear. They weave themselves into the fabric of everyday life until they are indistinguishable from it.”

AI is profound.

Just like electricity, it permeates throughout our lives and it’s so deeply embedded that we don’t even notice it.

What’s our relationship status with this profound technology? It’s complicated.

It’s a love-hate relationship.

As consumers, we love the endless manifestations of AI enriching every part of our lives.

For example, we love the fact that AI unlocks our smartphone using Face ID, curates “recommended for you” movies on Netflix, choreographs our commute to work with recommended route and travel time, blocks our credit cards to prevent fraud, categorizes our Gmail box and provides us with smart and contextual replies, just to name a few.

But, as employees and employers, we hate the very thought that AI can potentially make us irrelevant. We become uneasy and anxious about the very thought that it has the potential to significantly alter or completely eliminate our jobs.

The recent media headlines are adding to this anxiety by featuring multiple studies about how AI will impact our jobs in years to come.

The interest about this topic peaked with a study published in 2013 by researchers at Oxford University. It estimated that around 47% of the total US employment had a high risk of automation over the following two decades.

In 2017, McKinsey came out with its own forecast with a twist. It predicted that 50% of current work activities (not jobs) are technically automatable by adapting currently demonstrated technologies.

In 2019, Brookings Institution published a study which analyzed an overlap between more than 16,000 AI related patents and more than 800 job descriptions. It was the first study that concluded that highly educated, well paid workers may be heavily affected by the spread of AI. This was in direct contrast with almost all other studies that predicted that AI will impact the low wage, low skilled workers the most.

Each of these studies used a different methodology and came to a different conclusion as to how many jobs will be impacted, what kinds of jobs will be impacted and by when the jobs will be impacted.

But they all pointed to the same common-sense insight.

Where AI shines…

If any task you do as a part of your job is routine, boring and predictable, AI can do it.

If it has a well-defined objective and there is a large set of historical data to train AI with, AI can do it.

If it involves basic cognitive functions such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and predicting, AI can do it.

Over the years, as we witnessed increased use of robotics in manufacturing plants, we accepted the fact that AI and robotics can excel at replacing our hands and our bodies eliminating thousands of blue-collar jobs.

But, with advances in various AI disciplines such as deep learning and computer vision in the recent past, AI has started to replace not just our hands and bodies but also our heads.

AI is color blind.
It doesn’t discriminate against blue collar or white-collar jobs. It infiltrates any-collar job where it can do it better, faster, smarter and cheaper than we can.

One of the best ways to illustrate and expand on this important point is by reviewing real-life examples of how AI is currently impacting the jobs and activities we do in a variety of industries.

Food industry

In 2019, McDonald’s acquired two companies. Two AI startups!

Apprente offers a speech based AI that converts “speech into meaning” versus “speech into text”. Why did McDonald buy this company? To capture your drive-through order. We all know how annoying it is to have to repeat our order. Well, now we have one less thing to be annoyed about. Apprente accurately captures your order the very first time regardless of your accent and background noise.

Dynamic Yield provides Amazon-style personalized experience in a drive-thru setting. It tailors the digital drive thru menu to weather, current restaurant traffic, and trending items. It also recommends additional items based on what you have already chosen. A little more sophisticated than “Would you like fries with that?”.

AI is even helping with basic food preparations. For example, Flippy, an AI powered kitchen assistant from Miso Robotics is already flipping burgers and frying French fries at a number of burger joints in the US. Unlike a traditional robot, it’s connected to Miso AI cloud platform and continuously improves its performance and skills over time.

The best part about Flippy? 100,000 hours of continuous uptime. (Yup, goodluck getting your photo on the “Employee of the Month” board!)

Hotel industry

It’s touted as “The Hotel of the Future”. When you arrive at the FlyZoo hotel in Hangzhou, China, you hardly see any staff in the lobby. Or even during your entire stay. 

The hotel allows you to make reservations and settle bills using a mobile app. When you arrive at the hotel, you check in using self-service kiosks and enter your room using face recognition technology.

Once in the room, a voice activated assistant is at your service. It will change room temperature, close the curtains, adjust the lighting and order room service. And guess who delivers your food to your room? A robot.

If you had a long travel day and head to the lobby bar to have a drink, there is no bartender to chitchat with. A robot behind the counter is mixing your cocktails.

Customer Service industry

The omnipresent Chatbots! But they are just a very small part of how AI is revolutionizing the industry.

Companies like Avaamo offer conversational IVR which not only understands the words the customer is saying but also the meaning, nuance and the intent behind the question.

There is no need for you to press any button during your IVR experience, as the natural language processing algorithm automatically understands what you are saying and responds accordingly. During the call, it offers additional information to customers via digital channels such as SMS or mobile web hoping to resolve the customer issue in lower cost and more interactive channels. The goal is to resolve as many customer issues without having to engage a live agent.

But even when a call ends up with a live agent, AI plays a significant role by augmenting the agent’s performance by updating customer records, by providing highly relevant data points in real time so agents can answer customer queries and by providing personalized solutions to the customer based on their purchase history and past support requests.

Legal industry

If you think highly specialized fields such as law would be immune to AI, you are in for a surprise.

Companies like LawGeex are developing an AI driven process that can review proposed legal contracts, analyze them using natural language processing and determine which portions of the contracts are acceptable or not.

Legal research is arguably the most cumbersome and time-consuming part of a law firm. Companies like Casetext are automating this process. They deploy natural language processing to truly understand the legal opinion’s actual meaning. They are significantly reducing the need for junior lawyers or paralegals. Over 4500 US law firms are already using this service.

There are plenty of other examples. But you get the drift.

To summarize, if any of your activity you do as a part of your job that is boring, repetitive and predictable (such as flipping burgers, checking in guests at hotel, answering basic customer queries, and stocking shelves), AI can do it.

If it has a well-defined objective and there is a large set of historical data to train AI with (such as reading Mammograms, taking drive-through orders), AI can do it.

If it involves basic cognitive functions such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and predicting (such as offering a personalized drive-thru menu, virtual nurse assistant providing real-time alerts to a doctor, and conducting legal contract reviews), AI can do it.

Where we shine…

So then, what about us?

What jobs would be left for us to do?
The better question to ask is what tasks (that you do within your job) will be left for you to do?

The good news is (at least for the next 10 years), there are a plenty of tasks where we will have an inherent advantage against AI.

AI can match our body (and to a degree our minds). But we have the advantage of having a heart and a conscience.

Both humans and machines can be goal driven. But, only humans know how to lead and inspire others to collectively achieve the goal.

Both humans and machines can diagnose diseases. But only humans know how to break the news to the patient with empathy.

Both humans and machines know how to excel in predictable, repetitive environment.

But only humans know how to navigate through unexpected, unprecedented, unpredictable situations (such as COVID-19).

Both humans and machines can follow well-defined, rule-based environment to make a product. But only human can create something completely new, something original in an unstructured, undefined environment.

So, will AI take your job over the next 10 years?

Not if you use your creativity, your intuition, your ability to think and act strategically and holistically, your ability to be resourceful and adaptable in unexpected situations, your ability to connect and influence, your ability to lead and inspire others, your ability to empathize and to feel others’ pain or joy, and your ability to manifest love.

Wishing you a flourishing future,

Maulik

PS: Would like to know more about how to futureproof your career and company in an era of AI, digital natives, and the gig economy? Buy the book here . If you liked the blog, please share it with your friends you think should read it as well. I’d appreciate it.