Could Your Next Assignment be as a Free Agent?

When I wrote Learning to Live With Downsizing 14 years ago, I included a concept that I thought would be changing the way organizations were structured. The idea was based on the fact that since organizations were downsizing so many employees they would fill a greater percentage of future needs for workers with “temporary” workers rather than full-time employees. My thinking was that this change in employment structure would evolve in order to allow organizations to adjust more easily to fluctuations in workloads without the emotional and financial burdens of future downsizings. I stressed that this concept would become easier to manage as health care became portable.

Fast forward to 2010.  Like connecting the dots to reveal a secret picture, the elements of the marketplace seem to be aligning to provide organizations with a more responsive ‘free agent’ culture than we had in the late 1990’s.  Perhaps the time has come for the organization chart to shrink to a structure with a limited core of full-time positions that fluctuates with a stream of qualified, passionate and talented ‘free agents’ as needed.

What is a free agent?

The free agent worker is much more independent than the temporary worker we’ve experienced in the past.  According to a recent survey by Kelly Services, these individuals work with or without the support of a staffing agency. This includes independent consultants, temporary and contract employees, and entrepreneurs and business owners with or without staff.  The free agent has no expectations for the limited engagement to turn into a full time job, and in fact, probably would prefer not to work for one company; appreciating the diversity of working with several organizations at a time.

Other characteristics of the free agent include:

• Defines success in a different way than traditional workers
• Interested in doing well in their profession, acquiring more experience improving skills and being the best at what they do
• Fits their work into their lifestyle, not their lifestyle into their work
• Holds a high degree of self-confidence in their employability and skills

Could this be you?  Survey results suggest that this is the fastest growing, and likely the largest group of workers in America.  More than one-quarter of transitional employees are likely to consider working as free agents in the future.

Benefits to Employers

The free agent benefits from working on projects that are specifically engaged with requirements that are qualified for and interested in.   The work arrangements often allow a lot of flexibility of when the work is done and where the work is done, adding to the match with their quality of life goals.  So what’s in it for the employers? 

Well, in Learning To Live With Downsizing I listed the following:

• Independent workers focus more on their passion for their work, positioning them to be more engaged and motivated about the assignment
• Independent workers are less affected by ‘survivor syndrome’ 
• It’s easier to enable independent workers to take charge, especially with the explosion of “project work” assignments
• Teams are more productive with independent workers, due to their passion for the work they are engaged in
• Communication flows more freely among independent workers not paralyzed by job uncertainty 
• Performance is maximized (independent workers are more consistent with quality since their work is evaluated continuous rather than once a year)

To update these to 2010, I would also add that companies would benefit from:

• Reduced responsibilities and financial commitments for providing training, development, and benefits
• Less likelihood of union organization 
• Less government oversight for businesses with less full time staff members
• Reduced investment in work space facilities and equipment with free agents working more often from home offices rather than at company work locations

Society is also better prepared psychologically for a workplace of free agent options.  We’re seeing more articles like the March 15, 2010 piece by Jena McGregor for Fortune, How to Become an Exec-for-rent and The Corporate Crystal Ball by Carolyn Potter where she writes: 

“Athletes Aren't the Only Free Agents”

Baseball and basketball players, among others, aren't the only talented people who can be free agents. Expect more white-collar workers to follow their example. "The move to hiring temporary and contract employees, freelancers and consultants is beneficial for both companies and workers," Challenger says.

Companies, he believes, will save money and can add support on an as-needed basis while free agents enjoy flexibility in terms of when they work and types of projects they accept while also increasing their earning potential. And this prediction is already taking root, as Challenger, Gray & Christmas reveal that more than one-third of the U.S. workforce will be comprised of free agents by the year 2012 (according to market research firm EPIC-MRA).”

Have gradual changes prepared us for a paradigm shift?

Our workplaces have been gradually adjusting to changes over the years and today we find the following situations which also support a change to more ‘free agent’ positions:

• A shorter job-life cycle; impacting the justification for a full-time hire.  According to the Kelly Services survey, in today’s workforce many people are in jobs, at locations, doing tasks for projects and services that didn’t exist 5 years ago – things are changing rapidly. 
• We’re dealing with a generation of workers who prefer to work on their own and separate their social relationships from their work relationships
• More workplace acceptance to a variety of work styles vs. the traditional 9-5 scenario
• Working from a location that is not the office has become more acceptable by supervisors
• Technology advancements continue to make it easy to share information and to communicate
• There’s a rise in project work – work that has a fixed beginning and a fixed end
• Less loyalty and trust of corporations  
• 4-day work weeks and “green” transportation strategies make it more palatable for workers to be more independent
• Health care reform 
• A huge number of unemployed Americans finding it difficult to secure a position similar to the one they lost

So what do you think?   Will you be managing your own engagements in the future?  Depending on your passions and current skill sets, you may want to expand your exposure to include talents helpful in the free agent field such as:  marketing, sales, contracting, invoicing and collection, and consultative skills.  You never know what opportunities may be knocking at your door.  

Are you seeing more opportunities for free agent assignments rather than full time? What have your experiences been?