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By Priya E. Abraham Note: This is a 3-part series about the opportunities and challenges digital nomads have in the Future of Work. This post is an introduction.  When I first saw Deloitte’s Millennial Survey for 2017 about millennials’ struggle for job security and flexibility, I thought about how much the job market has changed since the dawn of the Internet Revolution. As an early adopter of digital technology, I received my first email address in the early 90s at university. I needed approval from the head of the department – which was tricky as this senior professor didn’t really understand what an email address was. Only a year later, I had my own domain and a mobile phone, albeit that brick-size mobile phone was a far cry from the slender sleek ones we see today on the market. As digital technology evolves, so too, do the traditional business models. These business models are even in many cases, failing, leaving digital nomads (workers who are mobile because of their ability to work online) the opportunity to reap the rewards. These opportunities aren’t limited to full-time digital nomads either. Thanks to greater internet access and speed, co-working spaces, and a host of other tools available, traditional employees are able to enjoy a higher degree of flexibility in their working arrangement than ever before. Of millennials who are traditional full-time employees, 39% report having a highly flexible working environment, according to Deloitte. It might seem counter-intuitive, but this highly flexible working environment has been shown to be the key to greater productivity.  Although employees might feel that greater flexibility could lead to reduced performance, studies have shown that the opposite is true: Employees with greater flexibility have more accountability, which in turn leads them to being offered even more opportunities. In exchange for receiving more flexibility of their hours, employees tend to have more company loyalty: 45% said they were less likely to leave the organisation in the next two to five years. Last but perhaps most important, these employees reported better job performance due to higher levels of well-being, health and happiness (possibly due to higher levels of self-awareness and as a result of having more time to sleep and exercise).  Over 2/3 of millennials (both traditional and freelance) report a flexible working environment Source: Deloitte Millennial Survey 2017 One of the biggest changes in the workforce in the last 10 years, according to Deloitte, is the acceleration of automation in many industries. Many roles such as receptionists, mail carriers, data entry, and tellers, for example, have already seen a significant decrease in the workforce due to their highly mechanical nature as well as the ability to automate these roles. As a result, employment in these sectors has decreased in general as well as in the alternative workforce. Freelancers and digital nomads in the alternative workforce, or gig economy, are more likely to be in specific industries in which they can continue to improve on their talents and specialise, namely, the arts, maintenance and construction. In addition, alternative workers can also be found in administrative roles, professional services, manufacturing, and project management. While 40% of workers see automation as a threat to their jobs, others feel that it provides increased opportunities for creativity and learning new skills. Those with a more optimistic outlook even see automation as a way of gaining more influence within an organisation rather than less. Many even see automation as a way to increase productivity, economic growth, and create more jobs on the way to doing so.  There’s no doubt that the new gig economy is reshaping employee loyalty and commitment to organisations, which is in turn reshaping business models. But it’s also reshaping traditionally entrenched societal models, too. Pieter Thiels, a digital nomad expert and startup entrepreneur, estimates that there will be 1 billion digital nomads by 2035. That’s one in every 8 people. He predicts that with the growth of these digital nomads, there will be a big decline in marriage, home ownership, and ownership of almost any possessions besides a laptop and good travel bag. As more and more workers contemplate the digital nomadic lifestyle, there are serious questions the digital nomad must ask:
These are the challenges we will address in our digital nomad series in the months ahead. Note: This is a 3-part series about the opportunities and challenges digital nomads have in the Future of Work. This post is an introduction. Sources:
https://www2.deloitte.com/insights/us/en/focus/technology-and-the-future-of-work/millennials-in-the-gig-economy.html?id=us:2sm:3tw:4di4569:5awa:6di:20180526:fow:DeloitteInsight&linkId=52174428 https://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennial-survey-freelance-flexibility.html https://levels.io/future-of-digital-nomads/ http://www.digitalistmag.com/future-of-work/2017/06/21/digital-nomads-reshaping-business-05147032 |
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January 2021
P.E. AbrahamDigital transformation strategist | Privacy advisor | Cyber anthropologist | Author Categories
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