The death of the Corporation

The freelance economy now accounts for over one in three people in the working population. That’s over a trillion dollars in the UK and US markets alone.  Over $1bn per annum is spent today online in hiring and paying for freelancers a figure which is projected to grow to $5bn within the next 3-5 years according to Industry analysts.

Most people associate the move to this new way of working as a drive to cut costs and be more flexible. All of which is true. However, I believe the biggest benefit of this new way of working is not in cost cutting, and I make the case here by drawing on our own experience at PeoplePerHour of eating our own cooking. The biggest benefits of freelance working  – if implemented correctly – are a drastic increase in productivity.  I argue here that what drives that in turn are two things: 1) hyperspecilization ie breaking traditional more generalist jobs down to smaller ones and hiring people who are experts and super focuses on those jobs, anywhere in the world, to execute them , and 2) accountability.  Which comes from transforming the traditional employer- employee relationship to one of  service provider – client.continue reading »