Learn the skills you need for an in demand career and work remotely from anywhere.

As many companies are now starting to end their work from home policy after two years and require people to return to the office or have a hybrid working arrangement at best, many people will choose to leave and find a fully remote job. It has been shown in these two years that not only is it logistically possible for any job that is done online, but people are more productive, healthy and happy with more time and energy for life outside of work. Companies save money on office space and can recruit people from anywhere in their country or even anywhere in the world, which allows them to hire the best talent, not just the best in that city.

The great thing for skilled people is that they have so many options out there for remote jobs including as a freelancer. Companies who are taking away the remote working option will find it hard to retain people or to get new hires. If those same companies are also only willing to hire permanent employees, they will find it even harder to recruit talent who want a contract or freelance job. I can’t imagine working in an office ever again and as a Recruiter, I don’t want to recruit people to work in an office. I was promoting remote work for years and the shift in attitudes by so many people towards it is the best thing to come out of the last two years. People no longer need an employer for perks, but what they do want is purpose, meaningful work, learning and growth opportunities, flexible hours, unlimited time off, and to have work fit around their life. The future of work is remote and tech startups are the companies that change the status quo.

Something about the term tech startup is intriguing and we’ve all heard about billion dollar unicorn companies changing the world with their innovative products. How can you get into this fast paced, exciting, global, now mostly remote world of work with extensive career growth, endless learning, in demand jobs and ever-increasing salaries? When you know what you would like to do, it’s just a matter of learning those skills and then communicating those skills and knowledge and getting hired. I’ve worked in recruitment for over a decade with various high growth startups and I know what they need and want in a hire. Recruiters are also in demand now and companies are hiring entry level or internships for that too!

The stereotype and sometimes reality of the Silicon Valley startup with a bro culture, expected long hours, low pay and high demands of some newer startups is starting to fade. In recent years, companies know from the start that it’s a talent market with a talent shortage globally, therefore valuing diversity, flexible hours, competitive pay, unlimited vacation and remote work or at least hybrid work has become the standard. Employer branding, the interview processes and employee engagement at companies has become more important to attract, hire and retain great talent. Startups need to treat their people well or they’ll lose them, but they do have different needs than a big corporate company since they move fast and have a lot of change. While they offer a lot and it can be exciting to be on the journey with them, tech startups are not for everyone.

Bigger and more established startups will have:

• More jobs they will be hiring for
• More entry level or internship roles and therefore are often easier to get into
• The ability to train and support people in these junior roles
• More structured career paths
• Less opportunity to work across different areas

Smaller startups will have:

• Less support but more autonomy
• They will often only hire senior experienced people when the team is small
• Less structured career paths, but you have more opportunity to learn, make an impact, see your results quicker
• Ability to move up quicker and chart your own path
• Newly created roles as the company grows and internal people are the first to be considered

The soft skills that startups require are:

• Flexibility
• Curiosity
• Creativity
• Initiative
• Drive to continuously learn and improve
• Ability to thrive in ambiguity
• Adaptability to change
• Desire to make an impact and see your results
• Ability to work autonomously and be self-motivated
• Strong collaboration, teamwork and communication skills

Think about what is important to you in a company where you work and also what kind of roles you are interested in and have related experience in. Maybe you have been working for a while already in a completely different industry or job, such as a teacher, a healthcare practitioner, or working in retail, hospitality or customer service. Whatever it is, you have transferable skills and you can learn new ones online to break into the startup world and remote work.

If you’re not sure what kind of job would interest you, you can take some free short courses on Massive Online Open Learning (MOOC) platforms and learn some new skills. See what excites you. They are free to enroll and learn, and there is a fee if you want the certificate, which you can then add to your resume and LinkedIn profile.

MOOCs by various Universities

• Coursera: https://www.coursera.org
• EdX: https://www.edx.org
• Udacity: https://www.udacity.com

Other course platforms

General

• LinkedIn Learning: https://www.linkedin.com/learning/ (free one month trial)
• Upskillist, formerly Shaw Academy: https://www.upskillist.com/courses (free one month trial)
• Skillshare: https://www.skillshare.com/ (free 7 day trial)
• Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/ (cost involved but courses can be very cheap when on sale, around $10)

Marketing

• Contently: https://contently.com/contentlyu-content-marketing-courses/ (free content marketing courses and certificates)
• Digital Marketing Institute: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/ paid courses, variety of options from certificate to a Masters degree
• Google Digital Garage: https://learndigital.withgoogle.com/digitalgarage/ (free digital marketing courses, some with certificate)
• Hubspot: https://academy.hubspot.com/ (free content marketing courses and certificates)

Development and design

• TreeHouse: https://teamtreehouse.com/ coding and design, free 7 day trial, then $25 per month in your own time
• Free Code Camp: https://www.freecodecamp.org/ coding and design, all free, earn certificates

Sales

Many opportunities in tech startups are tech related and require those specialized skills. If you are not interested in those types of roles, there are many other options such as operations, customer success and sales. If you’re a people person and you have some customer service, hospitality, retail, teaching, real estate or similar experience, really anything where you enjoyed interacting with and helping people, the easiest way to break into tech startups is in a sales role. You don’t have to be an outgoing, talkative extrovert, but you do need to have great communication skills like listening and asking questions so that you can find solutions for customers, whether it’s B2C or B2B. Sales is really about helping customers and solving their problems with your offer. In tech sales, it’s usually consultative with a strong element of building relationships whether it’s a short or long term sales cycle.

The entry level sales roles are most commonly called Business Development Representative or Sales Development Representative (BDR/SDR).

Since it is now as in demand globally as developers and other tech roles and actually more so than developers as of 2021, many companies will hire fresh grads out of sales bootcamps, or even those without bootcamp experience but with the personality, motivation, drive and related customer facing work experience, including new university graduates, especially those who were athletes.

How much can you make in sales?

A starting salary for entry or junior level tech sales jobs in the US as of early 2022 is anywhere from $40–70k USD per year for a base salary and then commissions and bonuses on top, which is often a 50/50 split, so you would be looking at an OTE(on target earning) package of 80–140k. Most common is 40–50k for entry level, so 80–100k OTE which you would start earning after the 6 month ramp up period. Not bad for entry level! Base salaries in tech sales skyrocketed starting in 2021.

It’s hard work that requires a lot of energy and resilience, but for someone wanting to build a career in tech and get solid experience that can lead to so many other career paths, sales is an excellent option. It is really the base for everything else in business and life, so it’s a great skill to have. A career path after being a BDR/SDR would be to move into a lead or manager role in that, or move to a full sales cycle role as an Account Executive, or an Account Manager role managing existing customers. These opportunities for career growth can happen quickly in tech companies as they want to retain sales people once they have them.

Online tech bootcamps

Everything is out there online to learn for free but when you want to deep dive with intensive learning to get job ready with individual and group instruction, projects, building a portfolio, and to add a certification to your resume, you might want to consider tech bootcamps.

Bootcamps are intensive courses, most are now online, full time for 2–3 months usually, or part time for a longer duration so that you can take them while still working full time.

They cover the most in demand jobs that startups hire for and the bigger the startup, the more likely that they can hire someone entry level right out of these courses. Bootcamps can be more valuable than a university degree as they teach current and relevant information for specific jobs that are in high demand now and taught by people who are working in those fields. If you complete one of these bootcamps, enjoy the work and are good at it, you will have endless opportunities anywhere in the world or remotely to make a great salary while progressing quickly in your career.

Here are the main options of tech bootcamp types out there

Sales bootcamps

If you want to learn more before committing to a longer sales bootcamp or getting hired and jumping into it without knowing what to expect, read as many articles as you can, listen to sales podcasts, watch youtube videos, and try out this free one week intro course: https://salesbootcamp.com/

One week free bootcamp to train as a Marketing Development Rep, aka Sales Rep or Business Development Rep. Option to do a paid fellowship for 3 months working in a tech company, and get a guaranteed job offer after that: https://marketingbootcamp.com/

Hubspot offers a free 10 hour course for beginners on Coursera: Sales Training: Build Your Sales Career

For women and more of a personal approach including individual coaching, TalentMinded offers a 5 day course at $239.71 CAD: https://www.talentminded.ca/women-in-tech-sales-1

If you are ready for an intensive full time sales bootcamp: Flockjay https://flockjay.com/apply (10 weeks) is the one I am most familiar with and have spoken with candidates who completed it. Hard work, intensive but rewarding and worth it is the feedback I heard.

Here are some other top tech sales bootcamp options. Most people aren’t even aware that tech sales is so high in demand and that bootcamps for it even exist: https://www.coursereport.com/best-technical-sales-bootcamps

Some tech bootcamps offer a variety of different courses in Design(UX and/or UI or Visual), Product Management, Development, Data Science and Digital Marketing. They are online and you can be located anywhere. These include:

General Assembly: https://generalassemb.ly/browse (also in person in London, Sydney, New York and Singapore and I have taken a few free intro courses which were fun)

BrainStation: https://brainstation.io/ (I have personally found great graduates out of their design program and the company I was recruiting for hired two of them)

CareerFoundry: https://careerfoundry.com/

Treehouse: https://teamtreehouse.com/techdegree

Digital Product School: https://digitalproductschool.io/

Next Academy: https://www.nextacademy.com/ marketing and coding (Southeast Asia focused but global)

For other specific bootcamps

Design: UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface)

Interaction Design Foundation https://www.interaction-design.org/bootcamps is the most affordable and will show you their price comparison table with other top design bootcamps.

UX and UI will both be covered in courses usually, and some will focus on one more than the other. Here are more options: https://www.intelligent.com/best-online-courses/ux-design-courses/

Product Management

Universities like Columbia and UCLA in the US have now developed their own online bootcamps to fill in-demand tech role training needs:

https://bootcamp.cvn.columbia.edu/productmanagement/

https://bootcamp.uclaextension.edu/productmanagement/

Other non-university bootcamp options summarized:

https://theproductcompany.com/product-management-bootcamp/

https://bootcamprankings.com/best-product-management-bootcamps/

One that I am familiar with and have taken some intro courses at in person, General Assembly, is one of the original tech bootcamps: https://generalassemb.ly/education/product-management-bootcamp-remote-online/online

Development/Software Engineering

Some bootcamps even offer a pay only after and if you get a job in it making a certain salary. You would then pay a percentage of your salary over a certain number of years.

Codecademy https://www.codecademy.com/catalog where I’m taking a free html course which is fun and interactive and I plan to do CSS and then React after that. There are many other free courses if you want to try before you buy an immersive bootcamp.

Free bootcamps: https://www.coursereport.com/blog/11-actually-free-coding-bootcamps-2022-guide

Skillcrush https://learn.skillcrush.com/skillcrush-free-bootcamp/ has a free 7 day intro bootcamp

Best coding bootcamps: https://www.softwaretestinghelp.com/best-coding-bootcamps/

Top ten, Europe focused: https://shecancode.io/blog/top-ten-coding-bootcamps-in-europe

Data Science

Extensive information on different job types, terminology, and summary of the field overall: https://www.coursereport.com/blog/best-data-science-bootcamps-the-complete-guide

Best bootcamps: https://www.switchup.org/rankings/best-data-science-bootcamps

US focused bootcamps and written by a Data Scientist: https://www.discoverdatascience.org/programs/data-science-bootcamps/

Digital Marketing

Best bootcamps: https://www.coursereport.com/best-digital-marketing-bootcamps

More great options: https://www.nobledesktop.com/classes-near-me/live-online/digital-marketing/bootcamp#top-courses

https://nbtdigital.com/growth-marketing-bootcamp 6 weeks, UK and Turkey based but online

What next?

Now you will want to update your resume and LinkedIn profile with any completed relevant courses that you have gotten a certification for as well as any bootcamps you have completed and highlight your project work and/or portfolio. If you are a designer, you should have built a portfolio or are in the process of building it and if you are a developer, you likely have projects on Github. Either way and whatever track you chose to focus on, you will have had hands-on projects to share in your job search and prove your new skills.

You now have in demand skills and a world of options for your new career. If you did a bootcamp, you likely will have access to their career coaches to help you in the job search and with interview practice to make sure you communicate your experience, skills and interests effectively.

If you didn’t do a bootcamp, your course didn’t offer career coaches, you no longer have access to career coaching or you would like some additional personalized support in your tech job search, get in touch to see how I can help you. As a remote work coach, I look forward to working with you to get a job you want. You can find me on my Remote Work Coach site or on LinkedIn.

How to get a remote job in tech startups was originally published in The Future of Work on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’ve been working remotely for nearly five years now. So unlike many, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, my work environment didn’t really change much.

But like many, my remote work experience has always involved a complex web of applications and platforms:

• for communicating and collaborating with my co-workers;
• for streamlining and optimizing my work processes; and
• for tracking, managing and reporting on my tasks and projects.

Oof.

In theory, these solutions are great. They make it possible for us to collaborate with team members across borders and time zones to make this whole remote work thing work.

But how well is it actually working?

The problem with the digital work model

Allow me to start off by saying I’m a huge advocate for remote work. It gives people flexibility: to structure their days around their peak productivity; to be more intentional with their time (good-bye commute!); and to create better balance between work and life.

But, BUT, in my experience, hefty digital tech stacks can and do add up to make a digital work environment overly complex and incredibly frustrating.

Conversations happen in various apps at once. Files and working documents are stored in several different locations — some of which are not even accessible to everyone. And there are often duplicate sources of the same data in various platforms, making it tough to know which is the most accurate and up to date.

And even though you know you have a team of co-workers, it can feel like you’re working all alone on an island sometimes.

What’s everyone else working on? Where are they doing their work? And how can I find what I need to do my work without continually bothering everyone?

At times I’ve wondered if I’m the one who’s doing digital wrong. After all, our tools are only as good as how we use them. But the reality is, this problem exists far beyond my home office space.

There’s a huge lack of transparency when it comes to digital work. And this leads to some pretty bumbling teamwork efforts:

• pinging one another for answers we should be able to find on our own;
• setting up a barrage of anxiety-inducing app notifications;
• trying to manually keep the task management platform current; and
• continually having meetings and asking for status updates.

If we could see what the entire team was doing a little more clearly, things could be a whole lot easier.

Why we need to work out loud in the digital world

We share our documents and communication channels with each other all the time to streamline teamwork. And we don’t feel like it’s invasive because, well, it’s all just work stuff anyway.

So why not broaden this?

If we really want to have better operational awareness and effective asynchronous communication with our teammates — which, in my humble opinion, we desperately need — opening up the entirety of our collective work days will do wonders.

I know. This makes you uncomfortable. But bear with me. It’s thinking about work transparency in a whole new way.

Creating a shared digital team environment where everyone can see everyone’s actions and interactions throughout the work day will dramatically reduce the need for mindless messaging and meetings. And it will unblock us all to move ahead with our work as we’ll understand where projects and progress stands — without wasting so much time on status checking and updating.

What will this mean? More time for focused work, for one. We could also start to be more selective and intentional about our collaborations and interactions with one another. We could use these opportunities to really drive strategy or to just connect more with one another on a human level—and who doesn’t need more of that right now?

Additionally, fully seeing the hard effort and contributions of our teammates (and ourselves, too!) eliminates the growing problem that is productivity anxiety. We know we’re working. And we know people are contributing because we can see all the output. So now can we all just stay the heck off Slack at 9:43pm?

But how will it all work?

Of course, creating a completely open and transparent digital work environment will have to be a reciprocal endeavour. The entire team has to contribute and see the value in empowering everyone — from the manager to the newest junior hire — to better understand the collective work environment.

It’s a democratization of work data.

And the ‘creepy’ definitely has to be taken out of the equation, too. We’re not sharing our moment-to-moment online activity with the team — that IS invasive.

What I’m proposing is just sharing our activity from the places we all agree are where work gets done for our team.

There’s a lot that still needs to be worked out with this concept. But I strongly believe it takes the progress we’ve made so far toward creating a better future of work just a few steps further.

Working out loud in this way can get all of us remote and digital-first workers closer to having more ownership over our productivity so that we can truly support work flexibility. And it can get our teams working together more efficiently and effectively by eliminating the distracting parts of our interactions and enabling more time for impactful collaboration.

The possibilities are endless, but we need to start having more of these conversations about how the current digital work model just isn’t really working.

This is what I’m working on. And this is where I believe the future of work is headed.

How Well Is the Remote and Digital Work Model Really Working? was originally published in The Future of Work on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I received many responses to the story and suggestions of what different people were doing in this space. Indeed that was the point of the article in the first place. I am not posing as an expert here — just another leader from a formerly on-prem culture that is trying to find the way forward to recreate the spirit that I have loved about my pre-pandemic work environment within our new reality.

Though, perhaps the one element that makes me slightly ahead of the curve is that my team has gone through a large scale transformation since the pandemic sent us all home. Some of my peers have essentially the same team as they did when everyone left the office in early 2020. While I think everyone making the on-prem to remote transition has many of the same challenges, my team’s transition has been accelerated by the large number of new team members. This has simply lead me to think about this problem deeply because:

I need solutions in order to continue to have a great culture for my team.

The Basics

Sure you need to do water coolers / team syncs / coffee time. People need time to informally chat. Create a baseline of communication. Make sure everyone is introduced.

Basic things you should be doing:

• Make sure to do team intros. I like pulling everyone together and going around with “What’s your favorite <enter theme>”. It is silly and simple. It worked to get my little league team members to bond a bit; it works for adults too.
• Now setup intros across the org / customers for new hires. In the past you might walk a new person around the building and introduce them to people, now you have to do that virtually. It’s a bit awkward; it works.
• Keep recurring informal discussions on the calendar. I predict there will be a lot of chatter for about a month, then participation will wane, and then you’ll break through to a new normal.
• Of course, if you can — try to meet in person for a coffee, lunch, drink etc.

Some Tweaks to Try

Here are some of the more interesting tweaks you may want to try on the basics.

Different ideas:

• Morning Coffee. This has been one the most successful variations for me. Start the day like you did before — grab a coffee, go to your desk, open your todos/email and see if anyone is around — only now it’s virtual. Schedule it as an optional meeting and see who shows up.
• Meeting Early Birds. This was a great suggestion. Officially start meetings 5 minutes after the hour. In general, people will love this and appreciate the brief respite. However, if anyone does show up early then they have a couple minutes to talk to others that did the same. This is just like when you happened to arrive at a conference room early and had a few moments to catchup with that colleague you hadn’t seen in months.
• Happy Hours. Consult your HR policies first but try virtual meeting at the end of the day and BYOB. I have had some of these that are more of duds and some that have lasted for hours. The spirits should help alleviate the awkwardness.
• Team Trivia Party. We had a very fun end of year party last year and we embraced the fact that we were virtual to do a game that we couldn’t have easily done previously. Team members submitted their own trivia and the rest of us got to guess who posted. It was fun; it helped team building.
• Fly-in Meetings. Another good suggestion here: In this new reality, plan for regular gatherings of staff in a single location. I know previously remote companies did this, but previously on-prem companies need to plan for this change.

There are No Gimmicks

There is no “just do this and you’ll have a great team / culture”. Ultimately people need to know their leaders care about them and they can trust their team members.

Put in the work:

• Express the same personal concern for team members who are sick or grieving or celebrating. Even though you’re not together people will appreciate the humanity.
• Give your time. Just pick up the phone and go for a walk together. Avail yourself and people will understand that you are there for them.
• Have 1:1s. People want official one-on-one time with their manager. Being remote people will have less implicit feedback than before, over-index on explicit feedback. Make it positive. Focus on their growth.
• Connect People. Beyond simply doing intros — make sure new team members have a “buddy” for the first week or two. They may not need to know the location of the bathrooms but they will have plenty of questions that may be more appropriate for a peer than a manager. After that — foster mentor/mentee relationships.
• Work together. Nothing creates a team camaraderie and lore like a very long working session. We used to have pizza and war rooms. Now we have UberEats and video conf. Either way after a 10 hour session you will have new found trust and respect across the team.

I imagine I will continue to explore this topic and would love to continue the dialogue. Please send more comments / suggestions and let’s keep it going.

Remote Culture Revisited was originally published in The Future of Work on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

There are many myths around working with freelancers: they are unreliable, have less commitment than employees, and there may be a dispute over intellectual property. In the vast majority of cases, however, these concerns are unfounded. In this article, you will find out why.

Myth #1: Freelancers Are Unreliable

The image of the unreliable freelancer who works on a whim still persists. One possible reason is related to the reservations many managers have about remote work: they feel they can’t control work performance when the person is not in the office. But the pandemic, if nothing else, has shown that this assumption is outdated and that reliable work has nothing to do with location.

In the case of freelancers, there is yet another dimension: in addition to their qualifications, reliability is the capital of freelancers. After all, who would continue to hire a freelancer if they are difficult to reach, don’t meet deadlines and deliver half-hearted work? That’s why many freelancers are even more reliable than employees. If their customers are not satisfied, the collaboration can be over quickly — in contrast, a permanent employee can often afford several slips until they have to face consequences.

Myth #2: Costs and Timeframes are Unpredictable

Many clients believe that when working with freelancers, they have no control over how much the bill will end up being. After all, fixed salaries are calculable, but freelancer invoices depend on effort and are therefore difficult to predict — right?

That’s partly true, but there are simple ways around it: Effort estimates in advance give companies a realistic idea of costs. A monthly budget cap also ensures that expenses don’t get out of hand. In addition, while salaries are stable for employees, output not necessarily is: Vacations or sick days can quickly lead to less output for the same price. More information can be found in our article on freelancer costs.

Often there is also the concern of not being able to influence when the job will be completed. After all, the company is not authorized to give instructions to the freelancer and cannot prevent him from prioritizing other assignments. However, this can be remedied by agreeing on a clear deadline. The freelancer will then do everything in their power to meet the deadline — after all, their reputation and a possible reassignment are at stake. To achieve this, they are also happy to work a weekend shift — something that cannot be demanded of an employee.

Myth #3: Freelancers Have Less Commitment

“Why should a freelancer be as enthusiastic about the job as an employee? After all, their job doesn’t depend on the company’s success. A permanent employee identifies more strongly with the company and therefore delivers better results.” This way of thinking is shared by many CEOs and HR managers, but it falls short.

Freelancers can choose their clients. They consciously choose companies they find interesting and where they can use their skills in the best possible way. This automatically ensures a high level of motivation. And precisely because their assignment is geared toward a specific goal, they are fully committed to it and show total dedication.

Myth #4: I Can Trust a Freelancer Less Than an Employee

Naturally, companies know a freelancer less well than a long-term employee. For some, this leads to a lower level of trust in the freelancer. But this is often unfounded, because freelancers cannot afford to betray the trust of their clients.

If you find the freelancer through a recommendation or a trusted platform like CodeControl, you have to worry about this issue much less anyway. A non-disclosure agreement (NDA) also obligates freelancers to keep internal information to themselves and is generally recommended.

Myth #5: There is no Knowledge Building

The knowledge an employee brings along and acquires over time remains in the company and can be passed on to colleagues. In contrast, a freelancer’s expertise disappears out of reach again when the project ends — or so the frequent assumption goes. This is particularly unfortunate because they often bring very specialized knowledge to the table.

But simply by working with the freelancer, employees can expand their knowledge and benefit from new perspectives from outside. They benefit especially if the company organizes a knowledge transfer. Surely the freelancer is willing to give a workshop on their specialty as part of their assignment.

Myth #6: Intellectual Property Can Become a Risk

Freelancers perform their services for the company, but they are not a permanent part of the staff. Therefore, there are often concerns about intellectual property: What if there is a disagreement with the freelancer about copyright or the rights to use the results at a later time? No company wants to be bothered with such issues later on.

But this risk can be minimized with a detailed contract. This gives both sides security and allows them to include all desired aspects, for example, the copyright holder or limited or comprehensive rights of use. A clear agreement benefits both sides and provides security.

Myth #7: Freelancers Work Less Transparently

Some companies believe that they have too little insight into the way freelancers work and are less able to keep up to date with the progress of projects. However, it very much depends on the framework of conditions that is agreed upon for the collaboration. Clients should clearly communicate their expectations, because they are probably not self-evident for the freelancer. They have certainly also worked for clients who only wanted to receive the results at the end.

If there is a more pronounced desire for transparency, it is, for example, no problem to ask the freelancer for regular updates or even to set recurring status meetings. This allows for work to proceed with similar transparency as with an employee. However, companies should be careful not to involve the freelancer too much in their internal processes. Under certain circumstances, there is a risk of false self-employment in Germany.

Originally published at https://codecontrol.io.

Debunking 7 Freelancer Myths You Might Believe was originally published in The Future of Work on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Freelancers are a valuable addition to companies — and we’re not just talking capacity bottlenecks, but also permanent collaboration. However, working with freelancers is different from working with permanent employees. If companies want to get the most out of their external workforce, there are a few things to keep in mind. These 7 tips can help.

1. Define requirements and budget

Before starting the search for the right freelancer, the requirements should be clear. “I need a front-end developer” or “I need a copywriter” is not enough. Clients should know which skills the candidate should bring to the table, for example, what programming languages they should know or which topical expertise they should have. Is an experienced freelancer necessary, or are the tasks simple enough for a beginner?

The budget should also be determined early on so that there are no unpleasant surprises on either side. This can be the entire budget for one-time projects or a monthly budget for ongoing support. In this way, companies can quickly see in discussions with the respective candidates whether their hourly or daily rate is realistic or beyond the scope.

2. Choose the right freelancer

This is often easier said than done, because there are several elements to consider: Of course, the professional requirements are important, but the personal level is also a crucial basis for successful collaboration. In the initial meeting, clients should therefore also make sure that the chemistry is right and that they connect with the freelancer. This simplifies mutual understanding, for example in briefings and feedback. The working methods and the respective ideas of good collaboration should also be compatible. It is therefore worthwhile to conduct a comprehensive interview that goes beyond purely skill-related aspects.

But where can the right candidates be found? Postings on regular job boards can make the process very tedious. Instead, tips from your own network may point towards the right freelancer. If colleagues or acquaintances have already worked successfully with the person, that’s a good sign. In addition, trusted platforms like CodeControl can help to quickly find the perfect match.

3. Define the legal framework

In principle, a written contract is not mandatory for working with freelancers. However, it does provide more security and commitment on both sides. It can define aspects such as remuneration (flat rate or hourly rate), type of service and period of performance. Questions of rights to the finished product can also be clarified there to avoid later disputes. With a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), companies can contractually assure themselves that no internal information will leak out.

In Germany, there’s also the issue of false self-employment to consider from a legal perspective. The term means that a freelancer appears as a self-employed person, but is treated like an employee. The client is facing additional payments and other legal consequences. So the relationship should be set up correctly right from the start. Our false self-employment test help you identify and exclude any risks at an early stage.

4. Establish clarity with briefings and deadlines

It happens occasionally that a client is not satisfied with the result of a project. In many cases, this could have been avoided with a more precise briefing. Freelancers naturally know less about the background of the project, and details that seem self-evident can be completely unclear to them. It therefore pays to provide them with comprehensive information as early as possible and to clarify all open questions. This saves time and therefore also budget. If you already have precise ideas, you should communicate them instead of letting the freelancer get to work first and then criticizing them later.

Time schedules should also be coordinated at an early stage. Freelancers often have other clients and need to plan their capacities. Even if the final deadline of the project has been agreed on, it can make sense to set intermediate deadlines. Clear priorities for the individual parts of the project also help everyone involved. In many cases, freelancers do not work in isolation, but receive input from other departments. Or these in turn are dependent on their results in order to be able to continue working. For example, the marketing department may need early design drafts from the freelancer for their communication measures. In that case, they should communicate that in advance.

Matthew Knight runs the platform Leapers, which provides a “team for people without a team”, and aims to support the mental health of freelancers. So he knows exactly where the most common problems in collaboration lie. Quite often, it’s about communication, as he explains,

“Unclear briefs or project requirements, a lack of communication during the project or no feedback afterwards are among the most common pain points. It can even go as far as outright ghosting, where a client just doesn’t reply to emails anymore.”

In such cases, it should be clear that further collaboration is unlikely.

5. Don’t treat freelancers like employees

There are big differences between freelancers and permanent employees. For example, they often have different mentalities: Freelancers are entrepreneurs and consider themselves to be in a partnership with the client. They bring a specific expertise that they want to use to make a project successful. They like to keep adapting to new clients and topics and prefer to work independently. In contrast, employees are completely focused on their companies, they feel connected to them and accumulate inside knowledge.

“Your employees know your ways of working, and they fit within understood and clear roles in your organisation”, Matthew Knight points out. “Freelancers on the other hand have to work this out for themselves really quickly. They usually also bring a wealth of new and varied experience which you can call upon to enhance and extend your team with specialist capabilities which you don’t have on your staff. Companies should make time to help their freelancers understand their working culture. Ideally, they have someone internally who is responsible for the freelancers, and review the policies and process.”

Freelancers and employees — both types have their advantages. However, managers should always consider who they are dealing with at any given time. Demanding small-scale status updates or fixed availability times from a freelancer, for example, can be out of place and cause irritation and frustration. It is also very rewarding to be open to feedback or criticism from the freelancer. They may question existing processes or contribute ideas that go beyond the briefing. The project can thus benefit from their experience.

Apart from that, it is also important for the issue of false self-employment in Germany that freelancers and employees are not treated the same. For example, freelancers should have more freedom in the way they perform their services and should not be bound to the client’s working hours or vacation schedule.

6. Always pay invoices on time

With permanent employees, it is usually a given that they will receive their salary on time every month. Unfortunately, this is not always true for freelancers. However, if you want to keep working with good freelancers, you should always pay their invoices on time. After all, they depend on the money at least as much as your employees.

Matthew Knight says,

“Payments are the second area, along with poor communication, where many problems occur. Unfortunately, more than half of all SME invoices are paid late. It’s unacceptable to chase unpaid invoices and have to accept complex clients’ financial processes or excessively long payment terms.”

7. Create a beneficial offboarding process

In many cases, the collaboration is project-related and the freelancer leaves after a few months. Good offboarding ensures that not all knowledge about the project disappears with them. For example, detailed documentation can be part of their assignment. Or they can pass on their expertise to the employees in workshops. In this way, companies can counter their concern that the use of freelancers will lead to knowledge gaps in the long term.

It’s all about respect

Although there are many ways to make working with freelancers more successful for both sides, for Matthew Knight the most important foundation is a question of attitude. He sums it up,

“The single thing that any business can do to work well with freelancers is to treat them with respect — this means paying on time, communicating well, and recognising that you have access to a diverse network of talent, rather than just on-demand resource.”

Check out our article “Debunking 7 freelancer myths you might believe” to learn more about common misconceptions about freelancers.

Originally published at https://codecontrol.io.

Working Successfully With Freelancers: 7 Hacks was originally published in The Future of Work on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Do you have a minute? I have a quick question.”

I had 20 minutes and I needed an answer from Jerry, one of my tech leads, before my next meeting. What happened instead was an undeniable reminder that the world had changed and I needed to change how I ran my team going forward.

“How are you doing?”

“How is your wife?”

“How is your son? How old is he now?” — “Ah. It must be especially tough at that age.”

“Oh we’re doing well too, staying safe, trying to make sense of this new world and all the information.”

“What shows are you watching?” — “We’ve been binging….”

“Playing any new games?”

I never got to even ask the question I thought I needed an answer to. Instead, I realized what we both actually needed more than a step forward on the hamster wheel was human connection.

This exchange happened about a month into the pandemic.

Like most companies, WarnerMedia sent everyone home in March 2020 with instructions to take what you needed to be successful working remotely until further notice. This is still true for those of us in software development roles. We were already geographically dispersed to a large degree — Atlanta, New York, Seattle, LA and had contractors and vendors even further away — so the adjustment to simply getting the work done in a new setting was rather seamless.

Aside from the notable exceptions of real world cancelations of two of our biggest brands — NBA and March Madness — our roadmap and things that needed to get done remained unchanged. I’m proud to say that the team delivered and most folks have found that they preferred the fully-remote or mostly-remote environment.

But all was not well.

This early exchange with Jerry was an indicator. We craved interaction that was beyond emails, Slack and video calls. We missed the incidental discussions, the random chance meetings walking from place to place on campus, the post-meeting catch up walking along side teammates back to our desk, the seeing a colleague in line at lunch or the Starbucks on campus.

We missed the human part of the job.

Consistently the answer to the question “What do you miss most about WarnerMedia?” when asking a former employee — is “The People”. I’m sure this is the case with most companies too, but WarnerMedia is known for its collegiate feel and great culture. It makes sense: you spend half of your time awake with your colleagues so I hope one of your favorite things about your place of work is the people too.

And the problem gets worse.

In late 2020, we went through some restructuring that ended with some members leaving the team to work on other strategic initiatives but also more coming into the team from other areas. We had a new CEO, a new CTO, and a new directive to hire. So we began hiring in 2021 and hiring a lot. Over the last 12 months, we have almost an entirely new team.

If the human connection was hard for a team of folks that had been together for 10+ years in some cases, how could a new team build the culture we wanted in a fully remote world? We crave all of the things we loved about this team and company pre-pandemic — the trust, the friends, the togetherness, the shared sense of purpose and accountability.

One more bit of context on the problem statement.

We have fully embraced remote work. With our restructuring and pandemic moves and changes, our team became even more dispersed than it was before. Add to that hiring from all over the country and now our daily scrums feature folks from every domestic US timezone and 8 states.

Just getting a beer together will require A LOT of travel.

The question is what do we do about it?

How do we build team culture in a fully remote world?

I would love to start a dialogue. I can tell you what we’re doing and what’s working for us. I want to hear from you — what have you tried and how are you solving these problems. I know that some teams / companies solved these problems pre-pandemic so please share. There are some good articles out there about working remote generally (looking at you Linus) but I want to hear about culture.

I’m in the mode of fully embracing remote. Our team will never “simply come back to the office” because we can’t. We are too distributed. We need to create new interactions, new ways of working and relating.

The Water Cooler

Analog: running into team members at the water cooler / breakroom.

A few things I’ve found work best here:

• Keep it Small. You’re trying to build connection not reach the masses. Less is more and people are more willing to participate and share. (One of the best pandemic connections I’ve had was when a developer that I had not previously met and I went to a meeting a little late only to find we were the only two people there because it was canceled. We ended up just staying around and talking for an hour.)
• Frequent. I’m sure this will vary but I suggest more frequent vs less. My team has a morning session every MWF. I think weekly or bi-weekly actually seems harder and more forced because it’s less natural.
• Keep it Light. This probably goes without saying but you likely have enough touch points for actual work agendas. We talk movies, video games, sports, new tech, hobbies, pets, whatever comes up. That said a quick work question is also natural — “Hey can we chat later?”, “Who is covering that XYZ meeting?” seem appropriate to me.
• Optional. Make it so people can show up when they want and chat but this is not required. If you have something everyone needs to hear — schedule a separate team meeting just like you would have in-person.

Morning Coffee

Analog: Sitting at your desk having a coffee before work really starts.

This is technically a meeting on the calendar for a few people to join but no real agenda. I plan this every day at 8:30am and generally miss about once a week due to errands or other life interruptions.

I’ve played with the invitee list but right now it’s just the me and the people managers under me. This seems to be a good replacement for the pre-pandemic habit of “settling in” before the first meetings started.

Meet for a Meal

While I believe that all serious work should be done remote — planning sessions, team meetings, actual software development — I also suggest being together informally for coffee, lunch or a beer whenever you can.

Whenever I’m in the town of one of the team members, I’ll contact them to see if we can meet for a meal. A couple of times this was the first time I had a met someone that we had hired during pandemic.

I’ve also driven a couple hours on a Saturday just to have breakfast with a long time colleague that was visiting family nearby. I’ve driven a few hours to hand deliver a laptop to a new employee more than once.

Because we don’t get to see folks in person every day any more, I’m taking every chance I can to meet and just ask how life is going.

What has worked for you?

What do you think we should try?

How are your teams doing mentally and culturally with the adjustment to full remote?

Building Remote Culture was originally published in The Future of Work on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Many companies are giving their employees the freedom to choose where they work from after the pandemic. That means they introduce hybrid work. However, this poses a number of challenges for space planning in the office. Who is going to sit at which desk and when? Are there always enough desks for everyone? And is there enough space for concentrated work or video conferences? A flexible office concept and efficient planning are needed to design and successfully use the future workplace.

The Future of Work is hybrid

Looking at a study by Microsoft, hybrid work seems inevitable. For the “2021 Work Trend Index” the company surveyed more than 31,000 employees and freelancers in 31 countries and found that 73 percent would like to be able to work remotely on a permanent basis. At the same time, 67 percent also want more personal contact and direct collaboration with their colleagues post-pandemic. It’s no surprise, then, that 66 percent of the executives said their company was considering redesigning its office space for hybrid work.

There are significant benefits to this model. It can increase employee satisfaction and productivity because the ability to work remotely often improves work-life balance. Companies can save on rent and energy costs by using a flexible office concept in a smaller space. A hybrid workplace also boosts employee-centricity. It gives employees flexible places to use that fit their needs exactly: open areas for communication, soundproof booths for focus, and collaborative spaces where teams can meet and work on their projects together.

Hybrid work means more collaborative and technologically enhanced spaces

Obviously, hybrid work can hardly be implemented in the old office space concept. Companies who stick with it are faced with rows of empty desks, while at the same time meeting rooms are inadequate and colleagues do video calls in the hallway so as not to disturb anyone. Hybrid work often means a remote-first model to keep all employees involved, regardless of their current work location.

This leads to a significantly higher amount of video calls. During the pandemic, video conferencing software Zoom saw a 2,900 percent increase in meeting participants, increasing their 2020 revenue by 317 percent compared to the year before. According to a Fortune Business Insights Report, the global video conferencing market is to grow significantly over the next few years and reach $12.99 billion in 2028.

To face this evolution to hybrid communication, meeting rooms need the appropriate technical equipment to make video calls possible for larger groups of people. 180-degree cameras with automatic zoom on the speaker, adequate monitors and audio equipment, even hybrid whiteboard tools all upgrade the hybrid group conferencing experience. Soundproof telephone boxes are an ideal solution for individuals, so they don’t have to disturb colleagues with their calls and do not occupy valuable larger-sized collaboration spaces.

The office is being transformed from a general workspace into a space for on-site meetings and collaboration. Teams will arrange to meet in the office for brainstorming and strategy development, but they will do the focused preparation for the meetings at home. Most likely, this will result in a need for more meeting rooms and fewer workstations.

If desk sharing is the rule and employees often work from home or from anywhere, this also means that fixed PCs will become a thing of the past and laptops will be needed instead. Hybrid working therefore also has an impact on hardware requirements.

Company (hybrid) culture, key determinant and goal of space planning

There’s a wide spectrum of what hybrid work can mean. For example, companies could have a mix of remote-only and office-only employees, but they could also have fixed in-office days for all teams, or they might give the employees a free choice about how many days a week they want to work from home — and even let them decide spontaneously.

The decision about the hybrid work model a company wants to use is an important one. It’s not only about the wishes of the employees, though they should be considered in the process. A very important factor is the company culture, which should be reflected in the hybrid workspace.

If flexibility is one of the main values, complete freedom of choice for the teams could be a consequence. On the other hand, if a company wants to create a culture based on belonging and personal contact, the office should be designed accordingly and employees should be incentivized to go there and meet in person. Artists’ online marketplace Etsy provides great examples of offices that reflect the company’s mission and values. Their stylish and cozy offices have many relaxed collaborative spaces decorated with crafting materials and showcase items made by Etsy sellers.

Companies should define their goals for their office spaces and come up with a concept. The shift towards hybrid work is a great opportunity to rethink the purpose of the office and to create a beneficial set-up for everyone.

Determining occupancy and matching space planning

When the philosophy behind the office is clear, the next steps are more practical and related to the actual space planning. The first question is how many days employees will spend in the office on average. If there is no rule from the company side, it makes sense to conduct a survey that shows the wishes of the workforce. Based on this, it is already possible to determine the approximate occupancy and thus the need for workstations. This will naturally be higher with four office days per week than with two.

Roughly speaking, there are two options for the day-to-day organization: fixed rules or intelligent planning. With the first option, the company sets up a schedule of who comes to the office when. The teams must adhere to this and can only swap with colleagues on rare occasions. However, this option is rather rigid and does not fit in with the Future of Work and its flexible, autonomous employees.

Software solutions for seamless planning

With the second option, employees can decide more or less spontaneously when they want to come into the office. Workstations and meeting rooms are booked digitally. Very small teams can probably get by without a specialized tool and use an online calendar or spreadsheet instead. However, with around ten employees or more, this becomes too confusing.

Larger teams can use specialized software to book desks and meeting rooms. In the tool, employees can see directly whether a desk is still free on the desired day and reserve it with one click. If necessary, this also allows teams to meet in a specific area. If no more desks or conference rooms are available, they simply have to choose another day.

Julius Urban is the co-founder and CEO of Pult, a tool for managing the hybrid workspace. He says,

“The purpose of the office has changed, it is primarily used by most employees as a place to collaborate and get together, not to work there 9-to-5. Through software, the team can see who is in the office and who is working remotely. It makes it easier to decide whether it’s worth going to the office on a given day.”

Staying flexible with modular solutions

When determining the number of desks needed, the employee survey can be used as a basis. But what about conference rooms? Here, too, companies can ask their employees about their needs and analyze the previous meeting frequency. However, it is often difficult to predict how many face-to-face meetings will actually take place after the switch to a hybrid workspace.

So it’s best for companies to keep a certain amount of flexibility. For example, sliding doors can turn one large room into several. And for short brainstorming sessions with just a few people, a lounge area or high table is also a good option. There may also be a courtyard or rooftop terrace that can become a meeting place when needed.

Meeting boxes and telephone booths are a great way to make the most of unused space. They can be easily set up or even moved if they make more sense in another location. This quickly creates a cost-effective alternative to a conference room. How many telephone boxes a company needs depends, of course, on the volume of calls. HUUS, a start-up that provides soundproof booths for office spaces, recommends a ratio of one box for ten employees when talking about single boxes for concentration. When adding booths for small meetings of up to four people, the meeting frequency of the company is a deciding factor.

Build, measure, adapt

Finally, when flexibility is a key value, continuous evaluation, iteration and optimization cycles are inevitable success factors to the hybrid workspace. It can mean to run surveys with teams on a regular basis (monthly, quarterly or yearly) or use software to evaluate office usage over time, adapting to evolving needs of teams. It shows particularly intensive days of the week or phases of the month and can be a basis for adapting the space planning even better to the company’s and employees’ needs. Julius Urban explains,

“Software can help companies understand the utilization of their office space(s). This enables them to draw conclusions about whether it makes sense to expand or downsize them, for example.”

And HUUS founder Justina Clemens says,

“After the pandemic, we will have to rethink the office. The Hybrid Workspace will become a reality in many companies. It offers many opportunities to focus on employee wellbeing while using space more efficiently. Adaptability is the key here: The office of the future is flexible. We will need to constantly evaluate and iterate to create the best solution for the current requirements, and space needs to become as modular and flexible as possible”

Originally published at https://en.huus.io on October 6, 2021.

How to Manage Office Space Planning in the Hybrid Workspace was originally published in The Future of Work on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An increasing number of highly qualified professionals are choosing to be freelancers. Upwork’s Freelance Forward Report 2020, for instance, shows a continuous increase in the share of freelancers in the U.S. in recent years. Currently, 36% of working people are already freelancers on a full-time or part-time basis, up from 34% in 2014. This way of working seems to be particularly attractive to younger people: among Millennials, the proportion is 44%, and in Generation Z it’s as high as 50%. But why is that so?

Growing desire for self-determination

In many cases, the desire for more autonomy is a key factor. Top talents in particular want to choose their own clients and projects, because that way they can ensure they can make the best use of their skills. React developer David Leuliette from the CodeControl community says: “In my job as an employee, I was often given tasks that I didn’t feel like doing and that didn’t fit my field of expertise. Now as a freelancer, I don’t have to accept such project requests.”

And backend developer David Schuld sums up his motivation for the decision, “I wanted to choose the projects I work on, decide by myself how many hours I work, and not having to report to anyone. Being my own boss, basically. “

Flexibility is becoming increasingly important

For many new freelancers, greater flexibility in terms of space and time is also a decisive factor in their choice, whether they want to travel as digital nomads or simply have more time for their families. The pandemic has also seen some changes in terms of flexibilityfor employees. More companies than before allow remote work, even on a long-term basis.

But this is by no means the case everywhere, or at least it’s often limited to a part of the week. Working hours are also usually fixed, and vacations often have to be applied for in annoying processes. As a freelancer, all of this is eliminated; the place of work and working hours are usually flexible.

For David Schuld, precisely this was a motivation for setting off as a freelancer. “I wanted the possibility to work remotely, at least for a limited period of time,” he says. “I don’t see myself as a digital nomad, because I need a stable place to work from. But I’ve used the flexibility to work while travelling several times, each time between one week and one month. I’ve been to five different countries so far, and in some cases I visited family members who live abroad.”

Variety, upskilling and a higher income

David Leuliette is happy about the great variety in his everyday life, even apart from the diverse projects: “I give courses for other developers, and I’m even writing a book. With a full-time job, that would be difficult.” This versatility provides precisely the enthusiasm and motivation that employees often lack after a few years on the job.

Freelancers learn a lot through the different projects and have the opportunity to constantly challenge and expand their skills. They are also more likely to take advantage of opportunities for advanced training than employees. The Freelance Forward Report shows that 59 percent of freelancers had participated in a skill-related training in the six months prior to the survey — compared to only 36 percent of employees.

In addition to the soft factors such as variety, motivation and flexibility, there is often a very tangible reason: as a freelancer, many top talents can earn a higher income. According to the Freelance Forward Report, 60 percent of freelancers earn the same or more than they did as employees. David Schuld can confirm this. “In my case, freelance work is financially more lucrative than a permanent position,” he says.

Job dissatisfaction can be a driving force

Even though the importance of employee satisfaction is widely acknowledged, many employees are unhappy. Monotonous tasks, excessive or insufficient demands, too little appreciation, low flexibility, problems with managers or a lack of identification with the company — there are many possible triggers. Instead of a job change, freelancing can also be an attractive option for people who are no longer satisfied with their employer.

For David Leuliette, for example, the many limitations and regulations in his old job were frustrating: “The company’s hardware didn’t meet my requirements, but I wasn’t allowed to choose it myself. Plus, there were always annoying rounds of approval whenever I wanted to purchase a new tool or attend a conference. Now I buy my own equipment I can work with best, and decide by myself which investments will advance my skills.”

But are these talents then permanently lost to the job market? David Schuld says, “I can imagine myself in a permanent position again at some point in the future, if I find a task that is really exciting and fulfilling for me. But even then, only if I still have the same benefits I have now as a freelancer, especially the possibility to work from anywhere I want.”

Multiple reasons and paths

When it comes to freelancing, there are multiple paths possible. Whether by chance or as a conscious decision, whether with a part-time start or with a clear cut from one day to the next, whether out of frustration at work or the desire for more self-determination — the result is often the same.

For David Leuliette, for example, the path led through part-time freelancing. He says, “I was afraid of customer acquisition at first, I didn’t want to be a sales guy. That’s why I was a part-time freelancer at first. But when external circumstances made me a full-time freelancer, I picked up these skills quickly.” After all, that’s what makes this path so interesting for many top talents: always learning something new and using it by your own rules for your own success.

In our article “Working Successfully With Freelancers: 7 Hacks” we show how companies can get the most out of working with external talent.

Originally published at https://codecontrol.io.

Why More And More Top Talents Become Freelancers was originally published in The Future of Work on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You’ve probably been hearing about this trend called the Great Resignation happening across the US, unprecedented levels of people are voluntarily leaving their jobs in response to COVID-19. This trend is happening in the UK and it’s also predicted to play out in Australia, in March 2022. Surprisingly I’m already starting to see the seeds of this first-hand in Australia and it has left me wondering, how will this shape the future of work.

Why are people suddenly quitting? One general theory is that we’re living through a fundamental shift in the relationship between employees and bosses that could have profound implications for the future of work. Employers and employees have had to be extremely flexible during the pandemic. This has allowed for new realities that used to be unthinkable. That flexibility and freedom are being seized upon by employees who have seen the light and have decided that flexible working is for them. They’re willing to quit their jobs if they can’t get it.

The Great Resignation sparks optimism for workers. Derek Thompson, writer for The Atlantic writes “The Great Resignation, is literally, great. For workers, that is.” For working professionals, there is optimism and hope for the future as they’ll have a lot more options and negotiating power. However, it’s not so great news for businesses as resignations lead to high turnover costs and business disruptions. Businesses will need to be quick enough to snap up talent and strategic enough to retain their most valued people.

However, some believe that the “Great Resignation is Greatly Exaggerated,” as stated in Forbes by Jack Kelly. Matthew Taylor, a British former political strategist and current Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, also shares this opinion. Taylor alluded that this may be overblown, in his interview hosted by RSA (Royal Society of Arts). In the interview, Taylor mentions there have always been debates about work. Those debates generally shift and having watched these debates over the years, they all tend to be overblown.

For several years, there was this whole debate about automation and job loss. For a while, it was the talk of the town in conferences and there was an influx of books related to this topic. It was common thought that work was likely to dry up because of robotics and AI. However, we know now that technology has an effect on work but there’s absolutely no reason that it would lead to less work.

Then there was this kind of flurry of interest in precarious work, work which is poorly paid, unprotected, and insecure. It was thought that this was the nature of things in the future. However, it turns out that yes there has been a growth in certain forms of precarious work but not in all forms of precarious work. It’s not quite as we expected.

This phenomenon of the Great Resignation could just be another one of these things that are overblown. Although, in those other instances, it didn’t include a global pandemic. Whether or not you believe this phenomenon is a great exaggeration, you can’t deny that something is happening on a deeper level. The pandemic, on a global level, has given people the opportunity to reflect on what’s important to them. It has sparked workers’ hunger for greater flexibility and meaning in their jobs. It has shone a light on just how much of the economy runs on a cycle of dissatisfying driving ambition, driving consumption, which leads to disastrous results for human happiness and also to the biosphere. Pandemics reshape society at fundamental levels and there’s a fundamental shift that’s happening in the nature of work. What does this mean for the future of work? Perhaps to answer this, it would help to understand what work means to us and where does that meaning stems from historically.

What does work mean to us and where does that meaning stem from?

In a sense when we talk about work today, we tend to assume we’re talking about paid employment or self-employment. However, there are different meanings to work.

We see work as a means to provide for human basic needs. Prehistorically in the earliest stages of human civilisation, work was confined to simple tasks involving the most basic of human needs, food, child care, and shelter. A division of labour likely resulted when some individuals showed proficiency in particular tasks, such as hunting animals or gathering plants for food.

Fundamentally the concept of work emerges in the classical world as describing the things that we have to do to subsist. It’s not about paid employment. It’s generally associated with the rich and powerful wanting to avoid having to do certain tasks and that’s why they had slaves to do that work necessary for subsistence. In the ancient world, there was a large-scale systematic organisation of work, the emergence of social classes, and widespread specialisation. With these distinct economic and social classes, members of each class occupied a certain place in the organisation of work. This is possibly why we draw connections with our work to our social status, to our identity.

Then you have the concept that has grown since industrialisation, in particular around this kind of paid employment. From the 16th to the 18th century was the proliferation of industry, it was the genesis of the factory system. The organisation of commerce also changed rapidly during this period. New instruments in the fields of banking, insurance, and export marketing offered an efficient means of making capital available for investment in industrial enterprises.

We also have this idea of life’s work. This can be traced back to religious themes which are to do with work as a sense of vocation, a sense of how we impact the world, and the difference we want to make. Then we have this idea of work as a kind of fulfillment of how we express ourselves. It’s an important ideal as we spend a third of our adult life at work. Wouldn’t we want it to be part of who we are as human beings, wouldn’t we want it to be a place of self-expression? That sense of meaning and notions of autonomy and growth are all part of that.

What does this mean for the future of work?

The Great Resignation hails a new golden age for worker power and more and more people are demanding ‘good work’.

What is ‘good work’? Good work entails a lot of those intrinsic meanings that were mentioned before.

• It provides a sense of fulfillment, meaning, and purpose
• It allows an element of autonomy and control over one’s work
• It encourages and supports good health, including a work-life balance with genuine flexibility
• It provides realistic scope for growth with a prospect of getting better
• It provides the ability to fulfill human basic needs
• It balances that power between workers and employers, giving that sense of feeling valued and respected
• It’s fair and decent with safe working conditions

What stops us from achieving ‘good work’? Former political strategist, Matthew Taylor believes the reason is associated with what he calls the three C’s; Consumerism, Control, and Competition.

Consumerism
Consumerism is part of the reason we don’t aspire to good work because we have come to believe that our identity is much more fully expressed as a consumer than as a producer. Henry Ford is a critical figure because we associate him with the idea of intense control on the conveyor belt or the assembly line. Ford is significant because the deal he does with his workers is you will work in a pretty intensive way, you’ll be very tightly managed, you won’t have much autonomy but hey I’m going to pay you twice as much as my competitors pay you and by the way my car is so cheap you can buy it. This is where we forfeit quality of work and autonomy. This is the consumerist deal we make which is hey work sucks but at least you can buy stuff. That’s not a great deal, and it’s an even worse deal for people who get so badly paid they can’t even afford human basic needs.

Control
The other c is ‘control’, most work is premised on the idea that the deal is I pay you and you get told what to do. It involves the treatment by other people in those hierarchical situations. It denies people dignity, self-expression, and autonomy.

Competition
Then the final c is ‘competition’. Competition is the maximisation of profit, the maximisation of market share. Nobody lies on their deathbed saying at least I maximised shareholder value. Competition is another reason why we don’t enjoy our work because we’re told what matters is competitive success and actually, that doesn’t matter to people. That’s not something we’re going to lie on our deathbed worrying about. There needs to be a stronger motivation than getting better than your competitor or slightly boosting your market share.

What we might see in the future is a rocky road for organisations. The Great Resignation will pressure organisations to provide good quality work to their employees in order to ride out this wave of resignations. To tackle this fundamental shift in the relationship between employees and bosses they’ll need to address those 3 core issues. It will be a struggle for some organisations as some are held together by control. Some leaders are strongly animated by competition and some people think work is something you suffer in order to be able to consume.

There will need to be a shift away from how we view our identity as a consumerist. There will need to be less of this command and control, less of a hierarchical structure to give people autonomy. Organisations will need to be clear about their purpose and not just their competitive success. On a deeper societal level, this unending economic growth shouldn’t be a defining feature of what it is to be human. We need to diminish our unsustainable preoccupation with economic growth and replace it with something more intrinsically meaningful.

As Thompson nicely puts it, ‘making predictions is hard, not only because the future is hard to see, but also because the present is hard to grasp’. Maybe the Great Resignation is just a statistical fluke that won’t make much of an impact. Or perhaps it has exposed something fundamentally broken in the system and it’s leading a profound shift for the future of work.

The Great Resignation: What does this mean for the future of work? was originally published in The Future of Work on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Remote work is a great way to see the world while working. Especially in winter, digital nomads and people from Northern or Central Europe try to find a warm place. In the past, this place has often been somewhere in Asia or Mexico, but since the start of the pandemic, travelers have to or prefer to stay closer to home. But where to go in Europe to find great weather and the right conditions?

In this article we are bringing you the top 5 locations for remote work during winter in Europe. You’ll learn about the weather, transportation, cost of living, co-working spaces, gyms and daycare in each city. Of course, the cities we have chosen are some of the warmest in Europe during November, December and January. In terms of transportation, we researched flight connections with Germany (Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich), as well as transportation to and from the closest airport. The cost of living includes the price of everyday things in comparison to Berlin, average salary of the citizens compared to Berlin, average cost of living per family, and the average long-term Airbnb rental and buy price per square meter.

Seville, Spain

Seville is located in the south of Spain. It has roughly 688,000 inhabitants, which makes it the biggest city on our list. The lively capital of Andalusia will give you lots of opportunity to enjoy culture and great food. The only downside is, you have to drive about one hour to get to the seaside.

Weather

You can expect warm temperatures and a relatively low number of rainy days in Seville during winter.

• November: Highs at 2⁰⁰C, lows around 1⁰⁰C, 6 rainy days and 180 hours of sunshine on average
• December: Highs at 1⁷⁰C, lows around ⁷⁰C, 8 rainy days and 155 hours of sunshine on average
• January: Highs at 1⁶⁰C, lows around ⁶⁰C, 6 rainy days and 185 hours of sunshine on average

Transportation

You can get one-stop flights under 7 hours to Germany every day of the week from Seville, but direct flights are a bit sparse. The airport is 10 km from the city center, and you can use a bus to reach it. The duration of the trip to and from the airport is anywhere between 15 and 20 minutes.

Cost of living

The cost of living is around 25% lower than in Berlin, and the average salary is 53.79% lower. A family of four would need €2,225 each month, including rent. An average long-term rental price in Seville is anywhere between €9.92 and €12.37 per square meter, depending on the part of the city you’d like to stay in. If you want to buy an apartment, it will cost you €2,121 on average per square meter.

Co-working, gyms and daycare services

There are 20 co-working spaces available in Seville, and 18 public gyms with a rating of 4 and over. There are also 6 international daycare centers, one of which is in German.

Lisbon, Portugal

Lisbon, the capital of Portugal, is located in the eastern part of the country, on the river Tagus, close to the Atlantic Ocean. It has 504,000 inhabitants, so expect a very lively city. The narrow streets and typical yellow trams are as famous as the small Pastel de Nata cakes, which can be found at every corner.

Weather

The weather in Lisbon is the coolest of all five cities, but because of the city itself, we decided it should make the list anyway. After all, it’s still warmer than the middle or north of Europe.

• November: Highs at 1⁸⁰C, lows around 1²⁰C, 9 rainy days and 150 hours of sunshine on average
• December: Highs at 1⁵⁰C, lows around 1⁰⁰C, 11 rainy days and 155 hours of sunshine on average
• January: Highs at 1⁵⁰C, lows around ⁸⁰C, 10 rainy days and 155 hours of sunshine on average

Transportation

Lisbon has the best flight connections with Germany, with more than 20 direct flights every day. The airport is only 6 km outside the city, and there are many means of transportation, including bus, shuttle, metro and train. However, you can always get a taxi. It will take you 20 minutes by bus, but keep in mind that your baggage might be a problem when travelling by bus. If you travel light, you don’t have to worry about that. The metro will take you about 16 minutes, while the shuttle and a car are the fastest, only 9 minutes.

Cost of living

Compared to Berlin, the cost of living in Lisbon is about 15% lower, while the monthly salary is 64.20% lower. A family of four would need €2,530 per month, including rent. To rent an apartment, you would need anywhere between €14.30 and €20.10 per square meter, depending on whether you want to be in the center or a bit further out. To buy a property, you’d need about €5,355 per square meter. Considering all the numbers, Lisbon is the most expensive city on our list.

Co-working, gyms and daycare services

Lisbon seems to be an amazing place for remote work, as with their 92 co-working spaces, you have a lot to choose from. There are 15 public gyms available with a rating of 4.5 and over. There are also 4 daycare centers for children from the age of 2, while a German one takes children that are at least 3 years old.

Málaga, Spain

Málaga, which has around 569,000 inhabitants, is a city in Spain, fairly close to Sevilla. It is located in the south, very close to Gibraltar, on the Alboran Sea. That means you can enjoy the Andalusian lifestyle and wine, with beaches close by.

Weather

The weather in Málaga during winter is warm. You will find a low number of rainy days and many hours of sunshine.

• November: Highs at 2⁰⁰C, lows around 1¹⁰C, 5 rainy days and 170 hours of sunshine on average
• December: Highs at 1⁷⁰C, lows around ⁹⁰C, 5 rainy days and 160 hours of sunshine on average
• January: Highs at 1⁷⁰C, lows around ⁸⁰C, 5 rainy days and 180 hours of sunshine on average

Transportation

Málaga is very well-connected with German airports, with at least one flight to one of the German airports every day of the week. The best connections are with Frankfurt and Berlin. When you travel from the airport to the city, there are several options to consider. Of course, getting a taxi is always an option, but you can also get a train, which takes 13 minutes to reach the city, and a bus which takes about 30 minutes. If you get a taxi, or decide to rent a car, it will take you about 20 minutes to reach the city. The distance between the airport and the city is 9km.

Cost of living

The cost of living in Málaga is 27% lower than in Berlin, considering food, utilities, transportation, accommodation and other month-to-month expenses. For a family of four, you would need €2,358 per month, while the monthly salary is on average 52.34% lower than in Berlin. For long-term rental, you would spend anywhere from €11.81 to €14.68 per square meter, while buying an apartment would cost you €2,486 per square meter.

Co-working, gyms and daycare services

If you don’t want to work from home, there are 17 co-working spaces available in Málaga. You can choose between more than 20 gyms with ratings of 4.5 and more, and there are international daycare services. There are a few in English, but only one offers daycare in German.

Palermo, Italy

Palermo is the capital of the Italian island of Sicily, located in the north of it, on the Tyrrhenian Sea. It has 673,000 inhabitants. The city itself has a port, but no beaches. After exploring the pretty streets and places, you can enjoy delicious pasta or pizza.

Weather

Temperatures in Palermo are relatively cozy from November to January, but the number of rainy days is higher than in the Spanish cities on our list.

• November: Highs at 2⁰⁰C, lows around 1⁴⁰C, 8 rainy days and 180 hours of sunshine on average
• December: Highs at 1⁶⁰C, lows around 1¹⁰C, 9 rainy days and 125 hours of sunshine on average
• January: Highs at 1⁵⁰C, lows around 1⁰⁰C, 8 rainy days and 155 hours of sunshine on average

Transportation

Palermo is not connected to Germany as well as the other cities we’ve looked at, but there are still direct, or one-stop flights most days of the week. The one-stop flights we checked are all under 5 hours. The distance between the airport and the city is 33 km, and you can use a train, a bus or a shuttle to reach the city. The bus takes the longest, 50 minutes, followed by a train which takes 47 minutes. The fastest means of transportation are a shuttle (25 minutes) and a car (19 minutes).

Cost of living

If we compare Palermo to Berlin, the cost of living is 22% lower, while the average salary is 58.33% lower. A family of four would need €2,323 a month on average, including rent. If you’re looking for a long-term rent in Palermo, the prices go from €7.99 to €8.95 per square meter. The average buy price is €1,290 per square meter, which makes it the cheapest city in terms of accommodation on our list.

Co-working, gyms and daycare services

If you need an office, there are 25 co-working spaces at your disposal, as well as more than 20 public gyms for those that need a good workout. There are also some international daycare services available, but you should check if they accept newcomers.

Corralejo, Spain

Corralejo is a city located in the northeast of the Canary Island Fuerteventura on the Atlantic Ocean. It has around 15,000 inhabitants, making it the smallest city on our list. A former fishing village, it now offers a good amount of bars and restaurants. But Corralejo is also famous for its nature reserve with several miles of sand dunes.

Weather

The greatest thing about Corralejo is the extremely low number of rainy days, which also means you will get a lot of sunshine and high temperatures there.

• November: Highs at 2⁴⁰C, lows around 1⁸⁰C, 1 rainy day and 230 hours of sunshine on average
• December: Highs at 2²⁰C, lows around 1⁶⁰C, 2 rainy days and 240 hours of sunshine on average
• January: Highs at 2¹⁰C, lows around 1⁵⁰C, 2 rainy days and 260 hours of sunshine on average

Transportation

There are direct flights from the Fuerteventura island to Germany most days, but not on Mondays. There are more one-stop flights, though. The airports we researched were the Fuerteventura one and one in Arrecife on the island of Lanzarote. The distance from Corralejo to the Fuerteventura airport is 31 km, and it is possible to use a bus or a shuttle to get to and from the airport. It takes a little over 30 minutes to reach the city using all means of transportation, including a car. The Arrecife airport is 51 km from Corralejo, and it takes over 2 hours to reach the city using a bus and a ferry.

Cost of living

The average salary in Corralejo is 51.72% lower than in Berlin, and a family of four would need €2,179 a month including rent. The average long-term rent price is €15.32 per square meter, while to buy a property you would need €2,155 per square meter.

Co-working, gyms and daycare services

Since Corralejo is located on an island and is a smaller city, the possibilities are somewhat limited. However, there are 8 co-working spaces available, as well as 7 public gyms with rating of 4 and over. Moreover, you can ask around and enrol in one of the surf schools on the island. Unfortunately, there are no international daycares available here.

Which location is best for you? It depends on your preferences. If you want a lively city, you should probably go for Lisbon or Seville. If you want to go to the beach and enjoy the warmest weather, Corralejo or Málaga are right for you. And if you prefer the Italian lifestyle, you should give Palermo a go. No matter which of these cities you end up choosing, we are confident your winter working as a digital nomad will not be dull, or cold.

Note: For more consistency, the cost of living numbers have been converted to numbers in euros. The originally researched amount were provided in USD.

The Top 5 Remote Work Locations This Winter in Europe was originally published in The Future of Work on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.