A 2016 article in Quartz projected that 94 percent of net job growth in the past decade was in the alternative-work category, with more than 60 percent being due to the rise of independent contractors, freelancers, and contract company workers.

This growing change is known as the Gig Economy or the future as contractual work. Many businesses will look to reap the many benefits of this new economy and labor force, but will need to alter their long-held beliefs and structures to be successful. Workers that assemble quickly, collaborate, and disperse will have different needs (and wants) than those in the traditional long-term employee category that we have seen slowly dry up. Gig or contractual means:

– No long-term commitment by either employee or employer beyond the job.

- No courting of employees with perks or creative packages.

- No company concerns around engagement nor expectation of it by workers.

- Workers are motivated by the task; they expect good pay, aim to build skills, and move on. 

The biggest change is the least tangible — trust. At the heart of any working relationships is trust, but as work changes to more temporary and contractual, the definition of trust itself changes. This is not new, but its expansion provides an opportunity to look closer at the work of Debra Meyerson. In the 1990s, she explored the idea of “Swift Trust” typically found in projects and teams. 

This form of relation is one where trust is assumed by workers from the start and verified and adjusted over a short time together. A good example of this can be found in the present-day movie industry. Here teams of talented independents cooperate to create a film, then they disassemble, joining the next opportunity and often never working together again. 

This type of swarming approach flies in the face of how we understand talent recruitment, teaming, and development today as well as how we see the foundation of our organizations. Swift Trust requires much less formality, eliminating all the process and procedure that built today’s talent-management departments and roles. It begs the question then — what will become of all the “sub-institutions” around HR such as leadership development, management systems, communication protocols, HRS and ERP systems, engagement programs, recruitment approaches, and training departments? Each of these have historically served to develop and guide employees through long journeys. If they become relics of a bygone era, then their loss could be a company’s gain. 

For example, according to the 2016 Association for Talent Development State of the Industry Report, U.S. Companies spent $1,273 per employee annually on direct-learning expenditure, with the number of formal learning hours averaging 34.1 hours per employee. A move to greater contractual or gig labor means a company of 100 workers could have $127,300 and 3,410 hours back to reallocate accordingly. This leads to some important questions.

If you’re not directly developing workers, how then do you best ensure accuracy, quality, and productivity? Workers who come ready to produce won’t need nor have time for training. Rather, they will need rapid access to systems, quick connection to team-members, and the tools to do the job. 

What happens to learning and development? Learning will be happening in the work itself not outside of it. The gig economy creates new rules as the workforce will require experts not only in their craft, but also experts in how to own their learning. Enterprise collaborative technology (i.e., Yammer, Slack, Workplace, etc.) can be leveraged to enable rapid and seamless expertise sharing to ensure consistency and accuracy. 

What about culture, which is highly touted today as being critical for business success? The only workplace culture that businesses will desire will be one that embraces agility and is change tolerant.

What will be the role of management? Managers will not need to focus on traditional tasks of motivation, rewards, and the monitoring of expectation. Rather, they’ll serve as coaches and connectors to bring people up to speed in the workflow and ensure they are finding and connecting with the right people and information. 

As the future of work creeps closer, change in how work is done and who does the work is imminent. However, more than technology or change management, any level of success will first require a new mindset and acceptance that different agreements will need to exist between employer and employee, organizations will need to redesign, and change will be the only constant.          

Mark Britz is a workforce-performance strategist who has launched ThruWork (ThruWork.com), a talent-development consultancy for small to mid-sized businesses. The company specializes in solving organizational performance problems and focuses on non-training approaches to scale employee performance. Contact Britz at (315) 552-0538 or email: mark@thruwork.com

Recently, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) announced that the federal government met its small-business federal contracting goal for the fifth consecutive year. The end result was that small businesses across the country were awarded 23.88 percent in federal contract dollars totaling $105.7 billion, an increase of $5 billion. This marks the first time that more than $100 billion in prime contracts has been awarded to small businesses. The federal government earned an “A” on this year’s government-wide scorecard. 

The results are in

In fiscal year 2017, the federal government exceeded the service-disabled, veteran-owned small business and small-disadvantaged business goals. Prime contract dollars in all categories increased. The federal government also exceeded its subcontract goals for awards to women-owned small business and small disadvantaged businesses and awarded $75 billion in subcontracts to all small businesses. The fiscal year 2017 prime and subcontracting awards to small businesses equate to nearly 1 million jobs created to support the nation’s economy. 

Making the grade

The FY 2017 Small Business Procurement scorecard analyzed the prime contracting and subcontracting performance, and other contributing factors which resulted in an overall “A” grade for the federal government. Eight agencies received A+, 12 received a grade of “A,” three received a “B” grade, and one received a “C” grade.

What it means for small business

The SBA continues to collaborate with federal agencies to expand small-business opportunities for small-business contractors to compete and win federal contracts. Every year, the SBA works with each agency to set their prime and subcontracting goals and their performance is based on the agreed-upon goals. Each federal agency has a different small-business contracting goal, determined annually in consultation with the SBA. 

Opportunities for New York state firms

If your small business is looking to compete for contracts, I encourage you to attend our annual government contracting event, the 2018 Albany Matchmaker. Set for July 24 in Albany, the matchmaker offers one-on-one appointments with purchasing agents from federal, state, and local agencies as well as large prime contractors from across the Northeast. You can learn more at the event website: www.sba.gov/albanymatchmaker. If you’d like to read more about the Small Business Procurement scorecard and the detailed explanation of the calculations, please visit http://go.usa.gov/Nxxd. For additional information on government-contracting programs and services available through the SBA, visit www.sba.gov/contracting.

Bernard J. Paprocki is district director for the SBA’s Syracuse district office. He is responsible for the delivery of SBA’s financial programs and business-development services for a 34-county region in upstate New York.