Flexibility and the Future of work

Imagine this. You are your own boss. You are a trained as a management consultant in a top tier firm. You refined your skills as you made your way up the corporate ladder. Then one day, you decided you had enough. You were sick of the politics; you were definitely sick of the long hours, so you put your profile up on a trusted digital freelance platform.

You invested time, energy and discovered how to best describe yourself “you mastered the art of your personal brand.” You learnt how to articulate your value and know your worth. You started with small localised projects but now pick and chose from a variety of projects from across the world.

You are having the time of your life, an opportunity to work on really exciting and interesting projects which capture your interest. You are connecting with experts from across the world. You work in the ultimate version of freedom and flexibility. You have the ability to design your own career while honouring the life you chose to have.

You belong to a group of multigenerational individuals across both genders who have embraced this way of living.

You are agile talent.

Agile talent is highly skilled individuals, who have chosen to work away from traditional employment model. They have opted to freelance, where they focus on projects rather than jobs.

They are brought into businesses to deliver strategic work instead of the traditional contingency model, where it is brought in to cover the work of a permanent person.

They bring a breath of diversity. Agile talent will have worked across a variety of projects, industries and geographical locations. Talent will have developed such a depth of expertise by practising in a specialised area.

It’s a major shift refocusing how we see work. Its moving the focus of our careers from jobs to projects.

Benefits for you.
This is flexibility at its finest. It gives you the freedom and autonomy to design how you work. You bid and chose projects that align to who you are. It opens up the opportunity to explore work on a global level.

This model allows you to deepen your expertise and become a specialist in your area. You are developing skills that your traditional colleagues are unlikely to gain exposure too.

It also provides you financial security through multiple revenue streams instead all your salary through one traditional employer.

Benefits to businesses
It’s a dynamic and fluid approach to human capital. It gives business the opportunity and ability to scale up or down and respond quickly to changes in the market.

It opens the door to a global talent pool where you suddenly have access to a whole new range of talent. Talent isn’t restricted to the geographical location it once knew.

It brings fresh new ideas; it injects a diversity into the business.

It brings greater productivity. We move away from hiring one generalist who touches on everything, accountable for a number of tasks. To hiring a specialist, hired for the sole purpose to deliver in a specific area.

Agile talent and leaking female talent pipeline

For years, society has struggled with the leaking female talent pipeline. Ambitious, highly talented women, opting out of traditional careers. It’s one of the reasons why there is so little female representation in key leadership roles, globally.

Could agile talent be one of the solutions to this? Where ambitious, highly talented women remain an integral part of the workforce? Allowing us to deepen our expertise and skills, providing us freedom and flexibility all while developing our careers?

I’m excited to see what the future of work holds. One where disruption, technology, and flexibility intersect with humanity.

Phebe Cho is the founder of Accelus, a new voice in the workplace. We are launching our teachable platform to help support the career development of agile talent. Join the Accelus movement and be the first to gain access plus have free career changing content delivered straight to your inbox.