Check it out what you will find on this article about job stability:
- Understanding the Risks of the Modern Markets
- Turning Job Stability into a Competitive Advantage
- Offering Better Job Stability to the Modern Workforce
- Remember, You’re Still Only as Good as Your Team!
As the gig-economy continues to evolve, it is becoming evident that job stability as a concept and professional preference is becoming sidelined. The modern workforce, which comprises of millennials and generation Z is mobile, savvy and prefers to work on its own terms which it affects by opting for multiple clients via free or permalancing, remote and contract working.
But sooner or later in everyone’s quest to follow their heart, set they own schedule and work from wherever, comes a feast and famine stage. Many become trapped in an endless vicious cycle where they move back and forth between having heaps of work and none at all. Indeed, for every travel blogger who is living the dream, there are countless others who wish they had never started. Ditto that for virtually every online industry.
Job stability is becoming ever more important as working with cross-border workers and clients carries ramifications that are serious to say the least. What does one do if a client refuses to pay, even if they did sign a contract? How does a client ensure their remote workers provide consistent work and what do they do if they suddenly become unavailable?
Finding ways to forge stronger, more permanent professional relationships is now more important than ever as work becomes increasingly remote. Here are a few ideas on how you can offer better job stability to your employees and make them partners in your company’s success…
Understanding the Risks of the Modern Markets
Companies today are finding themselves in an exceedingly fluid situation where disruptive changes are happening faster than ever. To survive in such an unforgiving environment, business practices such as agile work practices and devops have taken off to much acclaim. Both of them rely on cross-disciplinary teams that get together to solve a particular problem, then either move on to new projects or go back to their old roles. Independent contractors such as freelancers and permalancers play a huge part in this new work structure as they are well versed with working project to project.
While such an arrangement is indeed effective at breaking barriers and powering creativity, it also creates a lot of uncertainty where roles become less defined and professional boundaries begin to blur. In fact, 25% freelancers worry about job security, far more than regular salaried people.Their worries are justified too as unlike their salaried peers, they need to pay for their own benefits and won’t be getting a severance package if they are (suddenly) let go.
Regular, inhouse employees fare only slightly better in this new equation, unfortunately. What happens when a project is finished? Will I be reassigned, or will I be let go? If I do continue working, what capacity will I be employed in and will the new position be an improvement over the old one? Questions such as these and more are bound to crop up in the minds of people when they are pushed out of the safety of a predictable work routine. As more and more employees join the ranks of independent contractors who prefer to work with multiple businesses to make ends meet, your company needs to address their worries for want of better relationships, productivity and employee motivation.
Turning Job Stability into a Competitive Advantage
It’s easy to think of having a disposable workforce they you don’t need to pay well or look after as well as regular employees to be an advantage. But, reminding your remote or temporary workers that they are, well, temporary can backfire, too.
For starters, you risk losing valuable experience that your remote workers gain while working on your projects. Since future projects will use your existing work as a foundation, having the same people work on them can greatly increase productivity and decrease time to market.
A fast employee turnover rate can adversely affect your reputation in the market. Remote workers rely on social media and online word of mouth to decide where to look for work. And if the word around the block is that they can expect less from you, chances are experienced individuals won’t bother replying to your job ads.
But, where there’s a problem, there’s an opportunity. Most companies will probably prefer to make a quick buck off of the remote working, agile work, freelancing trends. By offering better perks and more stability to your staff(s) remote or otherwise, you can not only forge better relationships, but also earn a reputation for being a caring employer who looks after his/her team which in turn will help you attract high quality talent.
Offering Better Job Stability to the Modern Workforce
Job security goes way beyond a legally enforceable contract and begins with a good relationship. As HBR contributor Marla Gottschalk says, most people perform better when their work environment is stable. Here are a few ideas on increasing workplace satisfaction…
Always be looking for permanent workers: Sure, you can start with freelancers and temporary workers. But, what’s the point of letting really good talent slip from between your fingers? It’s best to think of your entire hiring process as one big employee retention program where you hire, test and retain the best talent that you can get. Once you do find those rare gems, you’ll want to give them every reason to continue their association with your organization.
Make an effort to be more visible: A remote workforce can only rely on their screens, headphones and the occasional meeting to understand who they are working with. As they have very little access to you, they will have a hard time understanding what to expect from you. As this can easily lead to fears taking roots in their minds, it’s best to interact with them more often and communicate your views, expectations and future projections as clearly as possible. In short, be professionally personal with your team and don’t be afraid to discuss the world in general with them.
Expect every question and answer it before it is asked: It’s already well understood that your workers are worried about job stability, why not answer them through your policy and agreements? For instance, a temporary worker can be offered a permanent role with fixed salary increments and benefits after he/she has worked on a set number of projects completing ‘x’ amount of tasks to the satisfaction of the management.
Write down the psychological contract: A psychological contract is an unwritten set of expectations between an employer and employee. It is continually evolving based on communication, expectations and actions taken by both the employer and the employee.
While a psychological contract remains unwritten and unsaid, it continues to affect relationships, often in ways unknown to either party. Since physical proximity is becoming increasingly redundant, psychological contracts will play an even more important role in the future.
Consider jotting down as many such expectations and ask your workers to do the same. Turning each of these points into measurable metrics will help both you and your workers forge stronger relationships and not let communication problems and misplaced expectations creep in.
Give your team the tools they need: Thankfully, cloud technology has become ubiquitous to the point where everyone is using it in some version or another. A huge range of productivity tools exist today that can help you create a tailored work environment. Most workers will already be familiar with cloud based productivity tools so they will require little to no training on the suite you provide them with.
Cloud based productivity tools also come with features that make issuing, tracking and overseeing work a piece of cake. Runrun.it for example allows managers to get a bird’s eye view of their projects through an intuitive dashboard, issue directives and track work every step of the process with a few clicks.
Remember, You’re Still Only as Good as Your Team!
In which case, how can a company achieve its best version if its teams are constantly being broken and remade? Good job stability simply means having a robust, dependable workforce that believes in your company’s vision and is deeply invested in its success. While the modern gig-culture may make it seem that permanent relationships are a thing of the past, we’d wager they are more important than ever before.
By providing your team-members with a good reason to continue working with you, not only can you get the best out of them, but create a stellar workforce that knows its future is secured. Not only will your colleagues know they can count on you, but will also be well aware that working together makes the company’s and their own success all the more inevitable. If that isn’t job stability, what is?
Runrun.it has helped many digital companies achieve better productivity through simple yet powerful tools. Highly secured and available on all platforms, you can track your projects from start to finish regardless of wherever you are and communicate with your team all in the same place. We have a free trial so go ahead and give it a whirl, we wager you’ll be surprised at how easy it can make running a team!
