#78: Hiring Freeze Effective Immediately, Unilever Unlocks FTE Freelancers, TaskRabbit Goes Fully Remote
How can you build when layoffs and hiring freezes are the norm? You do what 90% of leaders are already doing...prioritizing elastic contract talent.
🚨 Managers - Effective immediately, hiring freeze, you can no longer hire any full time employees.
💩 Did you get pulled into one of these management meetings this week?
You’re not alone. It’s happening across the economy whether big tech or startups.
Yet the work isn’t going away. The Great Resignation isn’t going away.
So what in the world do you do before your team quits and you miss your metrics?
Contractors in the Human Cloud.
🤔 In the words of one leadership call, “We will make budgetary exceptions if you can prove you’re reducing cost without requiring FTE spend”.
🙌 Equal Parts Angry and Blessed
This past weekend a dog attacked our Luca in public, then the owners fled. Luca was left with 3 stitches, a cone, and 14 day recovery with us monitoring him by the minute.
While angry beyond belief, I’m blessed for remote work and freelancing since I can be there for Luca and keep working.
Remote gives me the opportunity to work with him right next to me.
Freelancing gives me the opportunity to work on a milestone basis rather than needing to be in meetings all day. This week, that means working while he sleeps rather than on a set cadence.
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💩 Inflation, Layoffs & Looming Recession
According to Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan CEO, “That hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way. We don’t know if it’s a minor one or Superstorm Sandy. You better brace yourself.”
More than 1 in 3 Americans earning at least $250,000 are living paycheck to paycheck according to Bloomberg Wealth.
Dubai-based ride sharing firm Swvl cuts workforce by 32%.
We’ve heard from 10+ leaders about layoffs and hiring freezes this week alone. One was a top 5 most valuable company in the world.
WTBFD 1: Leaders, the work still needs to get done (in fact, this is when opportunity is most readily available). BUT you need to think creative about talent and think beyond traditional hiring.
WTBFD 2: Individuals, be ready to freelance, if you’re wondering how to get started 👇👇👇
💻 Remote
TaskRabbit (over 1,000 employees) goes fully remote.
WTBFD: Add to the data of companies that get it.
Elon Musk not a fan…
🤯 Traditional Roles Model Freelancing
Unilever launches their U-Work employment model. In their words:
"U-Work gives employees the freedom and flexibility associated with contract roles with the security and benefits typically linked to permanent roles. People in U-Work don’t have a fixed role. They work on varying assignments, and between assignments are free to do other things that are important to them. They get a monthly retainer and specially designed suite of benefits whether they’re working on an assignment or not. They can design work patterns that suit them – anything from a few days a week for a few months, to short, concentrated bursts of full-time with breaks in-between. And they get paid for each assignment when they’re working."
WTBFD: This is honestly nuts. Not because it’s a bad idea…rather because it’s incredible how far our industry has come in the past 2 years.
1: If Unilever can do it, why can’t you?
2: As individuals, we all need a freelancing muscle. Start flexing yours with our Value Prop template HERE.
🚀 How to be ready for a ‘freelancing internal workforce’?
Launch an internal marketplace. Here’s how Gloat describes it:
“the internal talent marketplace is a two-sided platform that harnesses the power of AI to align employees (and their skills) to projects, gigs, mentorships, and full-time roles within their organization.”
🤦♀️ Legislation - Can we cut the 💩 with prioritizing the past and prioritize talent choosing to adapt to today’s digital talent economy.
WTBFD: There’s no stopping the freelance economy. The question is just how much layers of complexity does government want to add to what talents and clients are choosing.
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Don’t feel like paying? Start the free trial, download the templates, then cancel. As a freelancer that’s what we do with most of these freelancer productivity solutions anyway lol
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