Retaining Staff Through the “Great Resignation” and the Explosion of Gig Economy

Transcript

Karen K  

Okay. Press record on Zoom. Okay. Three, two. So we're hearing a lot at the moment about this great resignation. And this is a term used to describe the mass exodus of the workforce in the US at the moment. And one of the reasons that he's cited for this happening is that employees are actually dropping out of that mainstream workforce altogether. And they becoming freelancers or moving into the gig economy. And a recent article from Business Insider actually said that demand is highest for those who are copywriters, or graphic designers, web developers, app developers. And again, some statistics from air Tasker that actually said they had a almost 25% increase in finance and business tasks over the last 18 months. And an almost 50% increase in general business and administration tasks are people looking for those types of people on their platform. So as a business owner, I was thinking about this and I thought you know, it's great to know that there are more freelancers available for tasks to be outsourced. But at the same time, there's also risk that our employees may decide to jump ship and work for themselves. And even prior to the pandemic, there were already you know, very little barriers to entry for starting a business. And these freelancing and gig economy platforms reduced those even more by providing a platform where you can make ongoing sales, you know, you can manage the aspects of the finances, with your business in terms of receiving payments. So it's not a difficult thing to get started out. On your own. So that's what I thought we'd talk about today. And I'm wondering Lachy if you've ever considered freelancing?

Lachy Gray  

Well, I haven't. I haven't. No. It's not somebody that's interested in me really. I much prefer to be part of a team to work towards a shared goal and share all the ups and downs along the way. And this is my perception, right and assumption. Perhaps that's possible. As a freelancer. I think historically, my skill set was kind of project management and so on, and I never really fancied working on one off projects as a freelancer, but it's interesting that Business Insider article that you mentioned, they talked to uncertainty as a reason to go out on your own. In my experience, I think there's probably more uncertainty and where you can be yourself than somebody else. I mean, yeah, sure. You can choose when you work and who you work for. Where you work from, doesn't have to be a capital city, but you're also a one person business. So you're responsible not just for the functional work you do, whether that's design, development, admin consulting, but you're also the marketer, the salesperson, project manager, DMDD accountant, and that's a lot of roles to play, as I've learned over the last few years with Yana and if that works, not coming in or customers aren't paying on time. That's on you. So I certainly think it's something to go into with eyes wide open. Turn, why do you what do you think motivates people to to go freelance

Karen K  

now when I was thinking about the site, I thought about my own story, I suppose so. After I had my second child, I knew that to go back to what I was doing previously, which was a you know, sort of an organization with a couple of 1000 staff. So I was managing HR team of about 25. And although after my first child, I was able to work four days a week and then on the fifth day, I had a perfect sleep for my first time so on the fifth day, I was able to dedicate three hours in the middle of the day. My second child never slept. So I thought, well, you know, is it possible to go back part time and this is well before COVID So there was no working from home and all that sort of options available. So for me, it was really a choice between I have to work full time or I have to do something completely different. If I want to have that flexibility, because I just wouldn't have that in the role that I was in. So that's why I actually decided you know, I'm going to leave like as a mainstream workforce and and freelance and start a business. So yeah, so that's, I think, one of the key reasons why people choose it. And I think that in the environment now that flexibility is probably around. My employer is making us go work from the office that I don't want to or, you know, my employer isn't giving me the flexibility that I feel like I had through lockdown, whether it's you know, hours or you need to go into the office one day, a week, whatever it might be. So that could be driving people into account. One of my other options. I think another one is opportunities. So you know, people have been made redundant over the last 18 months and they have a look and say, well, actually I've got really good transferable skills. I'm a copywriter or I'm a designer or other administration so I can get become a VA. And so it's just kind of opening people's eyes to there's actually other opportunities around I don't have to go back into that mainstream work. And, you know, perhaps also just that need for more autonomy and ownership. I think, particularly with roles like copywriting and design, and I'm probably projecting a little bit but, you know, back in the good old days when I was a website, designer, I loved to create websites when they were my own. And when I was doing it for other people, I just sucked all the creativity out of it. And I think that I do see that with creative people that I work with now in clients is there's always that balance between, you know, I really want to be able to do my own thing. And clients are always the barrier to doing your own thing when you're a creator. And perhaps also just, you know, variety can play a part. So, you know, if I were an agency for example, you know, I might get the variety and work but I'm losing the flexibility and then if I have become an in house, copywriter that I have the flexibility, but I don't have the variety. So I think it could be you know, sort of a mix of all of those things.

Lachy Gray  

Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? I think I think I've seen that creative challenge or I guess you could call it even a curse for creative people. I mean, I think anytime you're in a kind of customer supplier relationship, and they're paying you, you've got some constraints, don't you? You're working with somebody unless you're a really well known artist and you're being paid for your, your brand and your expression. Perhaps there's not too many people at that echelon. But it seems to me the flexibility one is interesting because I've seen people go freelance in my career and it's often copywriters and designers because they're already doing it on the side and then they decide to do it full time. But often, one of the main motivators was that they didn't need to commute. So they could live well, wherever they wanted to really but what's interesting now is for those businesses who have gone hybrid or fully remote, has that leveled the playing field, the playing field on flexibility. So does that change things from a freelancing perspective? If you can find somewhere that yeah, gives you some hope gives you the autonomy in ownership that you're after? Does that change the conversation around freelance? I don't know. I mean, from the stats doesn't sound like it based on that article, but that's just got to be something interesting to watch over the next couple of years, I think.

Karen K  

Yeah. Could you think it would, wouldn't you like if you can get that autonomy and flexibility but you're working for an employer and in terms of ongoing income and certainty, it's much better than freelancing, but perhaps we just think that because we run a business the grass isn't always greener, you know. And, and what you said before, it's something that people call my side gig, you know, you hear this from people they'll talk about having a side gig, so he's the job that I'm doing to pay the mortgage. But my side gig over here is my passion. So yeah, perhaps it's just people in those roles where there's really transferable skills can do the side gig and then they get to a point that actually the side gig is more work than the real job. So that's when they they make the big jump. So why don't I could ask you the opposite. Lachy and what are some of the reasons why people wouldn't want to freelance?

Lachy Gray  

Yeah, I guess. From my perspective, I think job security would be a biggie depending on your stage of life. If you have a mortgage and a young family costs are high and you might not have the energy to invest in putting yourself out there. If you have a one, one child that doesn't sleep you're dead to the world. And it is uncertain. Sure, it might go really well. It might take 12 months to get there. So how are you going to feel in the 12 month period when you get one job a week? You left your full time role. And your family needs you to be earning a certain amount of money you might have some cash reserves there the state of dwindle. That could be applying a lot of pressure. I think the social connection part I guess feeling like you belong somewhere and contributing to something greater than yourself. Now, I think freelancing comes in all shapes and sizes, doesn't it? So sure. There might be some people who, who just sort of project based and they never go in to the clients office. And that there might be some that actually do and they might embed in there for months on end. So that's quite different as well. And I'm speaking broad generalizations, I guess. I think you can recreate that connection to a degree by working from co working space or joining a site like flying solo. That's a support network for micro businesses. And interestingly, two copywriters that I used to work with in the digital agency, both freelance one moved to Port Macquarie and the other is a founding member of flying solo. So it's really interesting. And he's been doing that, I think, freelance for 15 years or something. And when I was a salaried employee, I was thinking, wow, like, I don't know if I could ever do that. So that probably speaks more to my personality than anything else. What do you think?

Karen K  

Yeah, I agree around the financial stability obligations, particularly if people have a mortgage in a capital city. It's very difficult to have that belief they keep paying the mortgage if you're going out freelancing, because as you say, it can take some time for people to create a wage equivalent to what they were getting in the real world. And they definitely personality types and some people are just not interested in in taking the lead. And if you're freelancing, or you're going into the gig economy, you're not just a copywriter, all of a sudden you have to market yourself and you have to be a salesperson. And, you know, to some degree, you have to be your own it, support it. I mean, like, so you've actually got to take on a lot of different roles, and that doesn't suit everybody. And I think there's also imposter syndrome. So, you know, most of us have this at some point or another, just not wanting to put ourselves out there. Like we might be quite confident in our design skills, but to actually go out and go, Yeah, I think I can design that create something great for you. Like, that's a huge leap to take versus being internally you know, just getting that immediate feedback from people it doesn't feel, I guess Quite so. Enormous is actually going out and having someone pay you to do that in the big wide world.

Lachy Gray  

Yeah, there's no account manager you know, you're running interference. Yeah. Well, you and the creative people that I know find that clients incredibly draining because yeah, I mean, it's it's a very personal when you create something and then to have it pulled apart and criticized, is extremely challenging. So, but I guess on the flip side, there's an opportunity to embrace that isn't there and you never know if you don't try so I do, I kind of support I do support that side as well. Just to just a note on a mortgage. It's really hard. In my experience to get a mortgage when you're self employed.

Karen K  

Yeah, that's true, too. You kind of have one day Yeah.

Lachy Gray  

And so I didn't realize this. We had one. And when I started piano, and then we went for another one, and it's really hard. So that's something to consider as well. If you don't have a mortgage you're thinking about self and being self employed. They essentially look outside for my business now. They look at the business's performance. I don't care about my salary, because I could pay myself whatever I want. Yeah, theory. It's like no, show us the business for two years. Yeah. Certainly a consideration.

Karen K  

Yeah, absolutely. And every time this further I guess I would look at where we're seeing this at the moment in businesses and for business owners. So in terms of that great resignation, you know, we talked about what your what want to, to freelance, but as a business owner, you know, what can we do to make your appointment with us are attractive than the freelancing and you know, the back of what we've been saying, I think, sounds like definitely flexibility and flexibility and hours, location days, is probably going to be a huge driver, don't you think?

Lachy Gray  

On a percent? Yeah, I think it's under understanding the motivations for for why freelancing might be attractive. And if you've had somebody leave to freelancing, an exit survey, I guess it's an opportunity to understand why what did they feel that they weren't getting? That they think they are, hopefully we'll get freelancing and then really, really speak to that. So I, I do think the cultural element as always, you now on this podcast, I do really think it comes back to culture. You know, if the culture is healthy, positive, it's it's sticky, right? People want to be part of it. It's exciting. They want to come to work, be part of something greater than themselves. And if the culture isn't those things, then this could be a powerful motivator to change.

Karen K  

Yeah, and I think flexibility has always been important, you know, across any of the research I've ever looked at, it was always up the top in terms of the reasons people stayed in a job or looked for another job. That particularly at the moment I'm seeing it again, and again, the top benefits that employees value, the reasons why they're starting new jobs. You know, it is number one in Australia, and other countries like the US it's different in the US it's money, interestingly enough, is the number one. Yeah, yeah. Whereas in Australia, money comes down to about number five, in terms of those top things, so and, you know, some people love working in the office. I was in a client's office yesterday, and you know, there are people there they're like, Oh, my goodness, thank God we have the office back because I don't have the space in my home or I just, you know, I don't like working from hiring or whatever it might be. So I think it is flexibility as I'm not just talking about remote work here is it's about the flexibility of choosing. You know what my hours are the location and the days I think is really important. But likewise, another thing that is often cited and this is a huge driver of engagement as well as that ownership and autonomy over the role. And you know, being able to provide that to people. Like you said before, if you have that in your in your job in your real job with an employer. Is there a reason to freelance?

Lachy Gray  

Absolutely. And I was just thinking, I mean, what do you think about young young people to commerce because we're so old, but yeah, coming through where perhaps they're just not inspired to work for businesses, as a full time employee. Different things are important to them like social impact, environmental impacts, really important to them. What's that business doing to improve the global community? And if you can't find those things where you are you more encouraged to go out and do your own thing?

Karen K  

Yeah, that's a great point. Social impact has become more and more important. And yet we call them young people, but you know, millennials are in their 30s

Lachy Gray  

I think I'm a millennial. So

Karen K  

you, you're one of the older young people. But it's definitely you know, it's becoming more and more important to people that I'm working for an organization that has a bigger role to play in the global stage. You know, for our planet. So, you know, to actually be doing good things. We're not just running a business because we want to make more money. You know, that was a very kind of late 1980s kind of mindset, wasn't it? It's definitely shifted a lot from there. And, and I think you're kind of related to that is be able to have a say and feeling that your voice is valued in the business. So we actually are able to shape how the business runs to a certain extent. And the types of different social, or your charities that we're supporting. And we're all able to actually have input into that. We're not just worker bees, we are actually, you know, a working team together even though you know, there's an owner for the business but it's being able to be heard. I think it's very important

Lachy Gray  

or great. Yeah, yeah, it's something that we've talked about a lot at Yana. Mark, and I always wanted to have, you know, purpose and impact, I guess, you know, greater than ourselves and, you know, our team and our customers and suppliers. And we have a social impact committee who are really interested in pushing this forward. I gotta say it's really hard. Like, especially this year, it kind of got pushed to the back of the queue a bit because we're so focused on navigating and writing out COVID And everything that came with it. And that's one of the things that, that mark, my business partner talking about is how do we really incorporate that into our day to day? Yeah. So it's not something that we don't do social impact when we reach a certain level of profit, or when we have time it's like, no, no. How do we build that into our day to day so it's just something that we do. That requires energy. And we wanted to come up with from Mark and I rise from from anyone who's interested in that in the business requires time and energy. And I appreciate that. Not everyone is willing to put to put that in or can feel that they can do that. Yeah. Especially they got so much going on outside in their personal life. Yeah, that's

Karen K  

right. Well, if I can, I'll give a plug to be one G one.com. Because that's who we use to tie our business activities to charitable giving. So it's certainly not going to the point of you know, having a social impact meeting and we are really delving in but it's something that we do to make sure that you know, every time someone pays an invoice on time, every time someone connects with me on LinkedIn every time someone gives feedback to a workshop, etc. And we actually collect all that data every month and then we have different projects with different charities across the world that we give money to based on on those activities. And that's been quite good for us because it means that our team was able to input into the different projects that actually really resonated with us and the countries that we really wanted to focus on and and then we look at it every month and go, Okay, well, what have we done this month? What does that look like? It's kind of interesting because it gives you that that lift in terms of okay, what we've been doing is actually helped others, but at the same time, we're actually able to see month by month pay where we're actually doing more of these things as well, which is great. So that's helpful as well. But anyway, I won't spend the episode talking about day One day one, but it's an option out there. And I think going back to what can make our employment more attractive than freelancing. The last point that I was thinking about was just providing those social outlets so just having a bit of fun, a bit of social connection, or working on your art can be incredibly isolating and the other reason why there are so many network groups available for business owners. So I think when you are in a larger group of people, you have that better opportunity to really get that that sense of fun and connection.

Lachy Gray  

Yeah, I agree with you. Something that I've learned this year especially is the importance of checking in with each other. Especially at work, especially when we are isolated socially. We don't see each other in person. And I do wonder, is it the same? You know, if you're a freelancer, you might never go into the client's office. You might not even ever see them, right? Because you've just been through at work or air Tasker. He now who's checking in with you? And I think that side of it is so so important and is probably one that we might not think about so much. We think about all the positives. And it's hard, I guess to quantify what my mental well being looked like. But perhaps one way to do it is to we call it a pre pre mortem. We say Okay, so I'm freelancing, it's 12 months in and things haven't worked out worked out as expected. What are some reasons why. Just to run through that thought process to ensure that we're setting ourselves up for success to be try and make those things that we think could be bad not happen or minimize them if they do, but also think about a support network. So if we, who are we going to talk to if things are hard we do we want to be downloading on our partner. And that's, that might not be the best solution for anybody. So who's it going to be we'll do our friends understand, do they care? So, again, who's it going to be is there a counselor we can talk to someone that we really trust? I think that side of it is really important as well, at least going through the process of thinking about it. And also speaking with people who have done it to understand what did they think going in and what's the reality actually been like? And what do they recommend?

Karen K  

Yeah, and I think that their way of looking at that your sense of connection is one of the drivers of engagement that you have a friend at work. So, you know as a business owner, although it can seem a bit frivolous and it doesn't really matter if we have a social outlet for our staff, you know, it doesn't really matter if we have an employee assistance program. You know, these are key things, aren't they? They can really help people to want to stay with you because they don't get that necessarily very easily out freelancing or in that gig economy.

Lachy Gray  

Yeah. All right. Great.

Karen K  

So in terms of takeaways for today, for me, it's really every tension has to be on the agenda right now. And, look, there's lots of arguments about whether the great resignation will hit Australia whether it is just a US thing, although we have st talk about it in Europe at the moment. But whichever way you look at it, the New Year is always a more time and more active time sorry, in the employment market. So and we've just come out of really long lockdowns across a lot of the eastern seaboard. So it makes sense to me that next year, there will be a lot of people looking for other options. So I think it's really around you know, what can you do over the next couple of months to really look at what you're offering to your employees, or what programs do you have? What benefits have you got that you can help retain the great people that you have at the moment?

Lachy Gray  

Oh, great. Yeah, I think, Luke it's an opportunity and probably a catalyst to have those conversations, whether that's in one on ones or whatever space feels most suitable. How are they going? And is this something that they've considered? And if that question fills you with dread, and take Aeolus never asked that. Perhaps we could ask what changes would you put in place to improve your working experience? Or if you were a leader in our business, what changes would you put in place? It could be quite interesting. And I do think it's an opportunity right? People are always looking and this year. Yeah. Could be a very strong catalyst. onshore is to get to look at tying with the new year. It's summer in Australia, says that sense of change. So I think there's an opportunity to get in front of it, and acknowledge that it's going to happen. So it's an opportunity to improve how we do things. Have some models conversations and make some changes and they might not feel very good at the time. But in the long run, yes. People are our greatest asset, don't they? So let's let's work towards that.

Karen K  

Advice. So links to anything we've discussed, including that article from Business Insider, we'll be over on our website. So you can go to yahoo.com.au or amplify hr.com.au and follow the links to the podcast section. And if you receive value from this episode, we'd love it if you could leave a rating or review over at Apple podcasts.

Lachy Gray  

Yeah, and coming up in the next episode, we discuss returning to COVID normal, whatever that looks like, and what that means for the workplace

Karen K  

Fraida. So that's coming up in two weeks from now. So click the subscribe button and you'll be notified when it's available. Any final thoughts Lachy?

Lachy Gray  

Well, I think I need to take my advice and have some conversations with our team and just check in and see how they're going.

Karen K  

Yeah, great idea. Thank you so much for joining us and we will see you next time on the makeup work podcast. Okay,

Lachy Gray  

good.