Today’s big news in England – The public sector streamlining element of the UK’s debt-reduction measures is causing a higher rate of public sector job-losses than anticipated. The government has now voiced concerns about the counter productive effects this may have on the economy.
The UK is not unique in this; similar issues have been raised from the USA to Europe and beyond.
As an evangelist of the opportunities of portfolio work-life-style I do not see this as entirely bad news. While Expert Alumni would never belittle the serious, sometimes tragic, effects job loss and change of work mode can have on people, we focus on the positive good that can come from the emerging new way that work is being done. We are fired up about the idea of portfolio work-life-style, spreading the good news at every opportunity: jobs are gone, long live extended work-life! The king is dead; long live the king!
Like many expert alumni, my passion for portfolio life is a passion for freedom, and the chance, hard-earned during many years in ‘jobs’, to do what I like when I like with and for whom I like!
The influx of a wave of new portfolio workers from the public sector is significant for us all. As those accustomed to public sector work-culture join the pool of those accustomed to private sector work-culture a new and shared work-culture will emerge.
What might such a new work-culture look like? My own experience may offer some clues to some of the key elements.
For me it means the freedom to work with children, students and accomplished professionals. It means freedom to work in the private sector with businesses and with private schools, and in the public sector with NGOs, community organisations, government offices and state schools. It means the chance to develop all my skills and pursue all my interests, from teaching, training, mentoring, coaching and project management to storytelling, drama, poetry, music and writing (creative, academic, essays, presentations and blogs). And it allows me to mix and match these activities in various measures for pay, purpose and pleasure.
There’s no job in the world that allows a person to develop their whole self as much as portfolio work-life-style, from boardroom to classroom to recording studio to study to stage, all in a week’s work, no wonder my vision of the future is fresh and full of hope.
So, my experience indicates that we can expect flexibility and variety to be key features of the emerging new work culture – all good for keeping the many boomers among us trim and creative. And one day I’ll work for free for a charity, the next day for £500 an hour for a business – just because I can. So we can expect a person’s income to range from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Portfolio work-life-style helps to enable wellbeing individually and globally, and builds faith in the mission of human progress. It does so by enabling us to fulfill and develop all parts of ourselves, and by widening the scope for increasing the general sum and influence of social responsibility. This is underpinned by the security that grows as we are weaned off safe-jobs, and learn to feed ourselves on the plentiful, rich and varied diet of portfolio work.
Portfolio life also makes an important contribution to improving professional standards and enhancing economic effectiveness by bringing together experience from all professional sectors, and, as Expert Alumni continues to grow, by engaging all stakeholders in a platform of experience networks. As more ex-public sector professionals come out of mourning and join us a new cry will resound to let freedom ring: the king is dead; long live the king!