Yesterday, I was talking to a start-up founder about how “gig economy” was probably not an accurate description of the changes he sees coming to the traditional company/employee relationship structure. It has a fleeting connotation, whereas we were discussing a time in the not-too-distant future where employers would look for more precise and specialized workforce solutions to handle both ongoing and project-based business requirements. He asked, “Why can’t I just contract with a specialist to provide me with .3 FTE (full-time equivilant) to handle my digital marketing, and .2 FTE to handle my payroll?” was how he put it. On the flip side, he thought he would pay a much higher rate for someone who was excellent (and efficient) in these specific functions, rather than how he would compensate someone who was good at digital marketing, and could take on a few other things (adequately).
Good talk, but we never figured out the right words for this set-up. Then, the universe answered this morning in the form of this article in Entrepeuneur, Declaration of Independents: Thinking Beyond the Gig Economy…The “fluid economy”. Not sure I love the ring of that, but getting warmer.
As an enterpeuneur, he is trying to figure out how to configure all the necessary expertise he needs to get his business going and keep it going. At Equity Point, we are working from the opposite side, helping our clients understand the benefits of the “fluid economy” as we guide them towards alternatives to how they manage their stock plans, compensation functions, payroll, and more through dedicated independent relationships, outsourcing, or hybrid models.
It is crazy to see these job postings where a company is looking for stock administrator/payroll anlayst/accounting manager, when each of those “jobs” require distinct expertise. Let’s get to a place where the right people (or vendor) can be “hired” for each role, with the company getting (and paying for) exactly the amount of expertise they need, and the specialist (or specialized firm) serving the needs of multiple clients (and building their talent stack everyday).
Seems obvious to us, and we look forward to doing our part to help the world get there.