Serendipity35

I have been seeing the abbreviation "WFH" used more lately. It stands for “work from home” which is work being done remotely, instead of at an office. Although many organizations transitioned their employees from the office to WFH during the Coronavirus pandemic, the WFH idea has not gone away. Both workers and employers saw advantages to remote work.

In my reading, I have come across studies that show productivity while working remotely from home is as good or better than working in an office setting. One article states that those who work from home spend 10 minutes less a day being unproductive, work one more day a week, and are 47% more productive.

Surveys of workers seem to indicate that from that point of view, the plusses to WFH include: 

• the ability to flex work hours (but not decrease them in most cases)
• gives a better work-life balance 
• eliminates the cost and inconvenience of a commute 
• no office politics 
• less need for childcare (though not every parent can care for children and work)

In these same surveys, it seems that many of the minuses fall into two levels. Workers either feel something is missing entirely, partially or just not as effective as when they are in the office.

• less or less effective or no collaboration
• less or less effective or no mentoring
• Let's face it, despite office politics, the office is also a part of many workers' social life. I met my wife at work and many of my friends too. Online TGIF happy hour just isn't the same.
• It is harder to understand the "corporate culture" and feel like part of an organization when you are at a distance. Some people feel "disconnected" from their employer and fellow employees.

These are broad answers and every job has its own unique plusses and minuses. A salesperson who is used to making in-person contact with customers and potential customers might actually miss commuting to meet them and might find that sales are better in a face-to-face meeting. Not everyone has the equipment they need to do their work from home. The people we labeled as 'essential workers" during the pandemic's worst days probably have no option to work from home now.

According to the 2021 State of Remote Work Report from Owl Labs, 2021 was the year the world stayed remote, and 90% of the 2,050 full-time remote workers surveyed said they were as productive or more productive working remotely, compared to when they toiled in the office. A Forbes article is headlined "Remote Work Is Here To Stay And Will Increase Into 2023, Experts Say."  

In education, a NY Times article is similarly headlined "Online Schools Are Here to Stay, Even After the Pandemic," though the sub-heading is "Some families have come to prefer stand-alone virtual schools and districts are rushing to accommodate them — though questions about remote learning persist." I know colleges that are still offering more online sections than before the pandemic. Partially, it may be because the investment was made in the technology so "let's get some use out of it." Students - and more importantly, faculty - who had not worked online may have found it to be better than they expected with some of the same plusses are above.

The push for K-12 schools to go back to "normal" was much greater than the push for higher education. Though K-12 school districts also made the shift with technology, it might only be used now for special situations (weather-related closings, absent students, parent content, professional development etc.)

To make a K-20 generalization, there is greater hybridization of earning now than there was pre-pandemic. That may also be true in the workplace.

I'm seeing more mentions of "solopreneurs" and reading about some success stories about them. What is a solopreneur?
It is an individual who is both the owner and sole employee of a business. If the idea of "working for yourself" is appealing, perhaps you already fit the definition. The term is new but the idea of a one-person company is not new.

Entrepreneurs sometimes start a company solo but then expand and might even sell the business. A solopreneur does not have those goals. I knew people in my neighborhood who were solopreneurs in the trades - carpenters, mechanics, hairdressers, home healthcare workers etc. They liked the flexibility of self-employment. In fact, they would have called themselves "self-employed."

Why are solopreneurs getting attention now? The pandemic probably played a role in having people reevaluate what’s important to them, at work and at home, and consider being their own boss. One difference today is that this might not require the kinds of overhead costs that jobs in the past required. In other words, the kinds of careers that solopreneurs are going into now often have minimal overhead costs.

An article at experience.dropbox.com looks at a dozen solopreneur business types with some advice on how to get started. These are plumbers, landscapers or other self-employed opportunities.12 of the best solopreneur business ideas you could start today. Here is their list of popular possibilities.

1. Blogger
2. Content Creator - Video & Podcasting
3. Graphic Design & Photography
4. Copywriting
5. Dog Grooming & Dog Walking
6. Consultancy
7. Personal Trainer
8. Web Developer, Software Developer, or Mobile App Developer
9. Virtual Assistant
10. Events Planner
11. Artisan, Craft Designer, or Etsy Seller
12. Dropshipper

https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/solopreneur

https://www.uschamber.com/co/start/startup/what-is-solopreneur

Job-market studies of more than 15 million job postings nationally between 2016 and 2021 found that more than a third of the top 20 skills specified for the average job had changed. One in five of those top skills was entirely new to the work. Some people are calling it a reset and it was accelerated by the pandemic. Employers are resetting degree requirements in a wide range of roles, dropping the requirement for a bachelor’s degree in many middle-skill and even some higher-skill roles. This trend has implications for how employers find talent. It also opens up opportunities for two-thirds of Americans without a college education. At least one report projected that an additional 1.4 million jobs could open to workers without college degrees over the next five years.

Is higher education out of the game? No, it still has a role to play, but these kinds of reports find that employers’ demand for bachelor’s and postgraduate degrees was “starting to decrease perceptibly.” Almost half of the middle-skill jobs and nearly a third of the high-skill occupations showed significant reductions in degree requirements between 2017 and 2021.

This is a good thing if you are concerned with equity in hiring. That report's estimate for the next five years is that 1.4 million more jobs will be open to workers with the requisite skills but no degree.

I wrote here recently about seeing more about skills-based hiring and competency and mastery and less about degrees. Are employers lowering their standards? But when they drop degree requirements, job postings become more specific about skills. Job postings are very likely now to be specific about soft skills. The assumption that someone applying with a college education will have skills such as writing, communication, and attention to detail is not a good assumption.

I never liked the term "soft skills" which seems to undervalue those skills. A clear majority of employers say soft skills play a critical role in their hiring decisions.

ZipRecruiter compiled some of the most in-demand soft skills on its platform. Here are the top skills on that list, including the number of jobs on the site listing the skill as a requirement.

Communication skills Number of jobs listing the skill: 6.1 million
Customer service Number of jobs listing the skill: 5.5 million
Scheduling Number of jobs listing the skill: 5 million
Time management skills Number of jobs listing the skill: 3.6 million
Project management Number of jobs listing the skill: 2.8 million
Analytical thinking Number of jobs listing the skill: 2.7 million
Ability to work independently Number of jobs listing the skill: 2 million
Flexibility Number of jobs listing the skill: 1.3 million

Having studied and done a lot of work and teaching around communications, it does not surprise me that remote and hybrid work arrangements have increased the need for good communication skills. This can range from how you respond to an email, to making a presentation to a live or virtual audience.

Flexibility is a broad skill and hardly "soft." Multitasking, shifting to virtual, using new tools and a host of other situations follow the adage that the only constant is change.

Will the skills-based hiring trend continue? Some major employers, like IBM and Accenture, have publically altered their hiring practices. But several tech companies that had made big announcements about favoring skills over degrees in hiring for IT jobs still haven’t eliminated degree requirements from their job descriptions.

 

Digital wallets are tools to collect workers’ learner and employment records. They are not a new thing and have gone through different names and conceptualizations. In 2018, I was working with "badges" but it wasn't new then. I had worked with the Mozilla Foundation that was developing an Open Badges Infrastructure in 2012 (around the time that MOOCs exploded on the learning scene).

Open Badges is still around and on their site, they claim to be "the world's leading format for digital badges. Open Badges is not a specific product or platform, but a type of digital badge that is verifiable, portable, and packed with information about skills and achievements. Open Badges can be issued, earned, and managed by using a certified Open Badges platform. Want to build new technologies to issue, display, or host Open Badges? The Open Badges standard is a free and open specification available for adoption."

The idea of digital wallets has been talked about again now around the trend of skills-based hiring. If you have read that companies are more likely to hire based on skills rather than degrees, then some way - such as a wallet - that lets individuals collect and share verifiable records of their schooling, work, training programs, military service, and other experience is necessary. This is a work in progress, though you might expect that if this idea has been around for at least ten years that it might have gotten further.

There is a push for common technical standards among wallet developers to allow importing data from a variety of sources and sharing that via employers’ applicant-tracking systems.

When I was exploring badges a decade ago, I was also looking at Competency-Based Education (CBE) and mastery as related to higher education degrees. A simplified explanation of the difference from the view of an employer: MASTERY is measuring what they know. COMPETENCY is what they can do. Formal education has always been more focused on mastery rather than competency. Employers have those priorities reversed.

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https://info.jff.org/digital-wallets

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