As workers increasingly tout freelancing as a key to a successful work-life balance, many corporate lifers are ditching the grind of an 80-hour workweek, and clearing their schedules for more meaningful assignments through project-based contract work, AKA “gig” work.
Harvard Business Review calls them supertemps, and they make freelancing look like the new American dream. But is it?
These goals ain’t loyal
Most supertemps are corporate dropouts lookin’ for flexibility through temporary work — sans the headaches of corporate infighting, and meetings to talk about future meetings.
Studies show that employees have become less loyal and trustworthy to companies as employers have shown less loyalty and trustworthiness to their workers.
As more and more companies view talent as expendable, the corporate social contract guaranteeing job security (plus bennys) is a thing of the past — inspiring more to take their financial future into their own hands.
Easy for a freelance executive to say…
These Free-EOs don’t exactly cost pennies. As a matter of fact the pay is usually comparable to that of a salaried position, if not more (the number of freelancers who make more than $100k a year grew to around 3.3m in 2018 — up 70% from 2011).
The reality is, it’s easy to “freelance” when you have a nest egg. But, for entry to mid-level work, the freelance life is shrouded in financial uncertainty, making it harder for up-and-comers to plan for the future.