Emma El-Karout The End of Work as We Know It … Infinite Possibilities and a New World of Work

Automatic Summary

Rethinking Work: The End As We Know It and the New World of Possibilities

Thanks for joining us as we explore the evolving nature of work in the context of modern technology and industry advances. We dive into the profound transformations we've experienced and ponder the infinite possibilities the future holds.

The Death of Traditional Work

Work: why do we do it? The simplest answer that comes to mind is, we work for money to make a living - a reality for most of us before the global pandemic.

But there's a collective awakening happening: the traditional work system is broken. Discussions around the future of work and the Fourth Industrial Revolution have been ongoing for the last year led by economic shifts from technological advancements.

But the question lingers: amid the pandemic's acceleration of these issues, are we already living in the fifth or even sixth industrial revolution?

Contextualizing The Future of Work

In envisioning the future of work, we imagine a world of enhanced connectivity, people working from anywhere without bias, with equal opportunities for all.

Moreover, we foresee how groundbreaking intelligent technology can optimize our time usage, minimizing waste, and increasing the efficiency of our labor. With a new lens, we can view technology, not just as a disruptor, but as an enabler.

Relevant studies revealed back in 2017 that companies were already investing up to 60% in AI. This figure has likely risen due to the global changes we've witnessed. However, only a mere 3% of CEOs consider investing in their people, signifying an impending skills gap and shortage.

A New Era: The Open Talent Models

The notion of open talent models - a completely novel way of accessing and managing talent - is reshaping our work world. This approach introduces a networked talent ecosystem in which businesses can maintain a diversified core team while also leveraging freelancers and independent contractors as needed.

This shift in managing talent challenges our traditional beliefs about work, requiring an essential pivot from individuals and businesses.

For businesses, there is an additional challenge - attracting specialized talents. In the past, an attractive employment value proposition (EVP), a competitive salary package, and benefits would lure talents. Yet, in today's location-agnostic world, businesses must infuse purpose and excitement into their project propositions to be appealing to talents tasking remotely from around the globe.

The Rise of the Gig Economy

The advent of the gig economy—the rise in the use of freelancers and consultants contracted on a short-term or project basis—has redefined work as we know it. This shift has given independence and power back to the people, allowing individuals to conquer projects that inspire them, create a sense of achievement, and align with their life's purpose.

These evolutions have opened a world of new opportunities, especially for specialized professional workers. With the world going digital, maintaining and enhancing your online reputation has become paramount.

Adapting to the New Normal

Navigating this new world of work also involves selecting platforms that can best represent your area of expertise, such as One Circle, which connects freelance HR consultants with businesses. Since our launch, we have seen enormous growth, building a community of nearly 300 HR consultants with over 15 years of experience.

We're committed to helping as many people as possible navigate this uncharted territory. We believe in the untapped potential of this new world of work and the infinite opportunities it presents. We're here to help you adapt, evolve, and thrive in this brave new world.

We appreciate your time and interest. You're welcome to reach out online if you need any help or have any questions.


Video Transcription

Thanks a lot uh uh for attending my session. Uh Talking about being challenged by technology is the first time that I use this. Uh So I'm gonna be telling you a little bit today about the death of work as we know it. Can you see my screen?Can you see my screen? OK. I'm gonna share my screen. Can you see it? Can you see my screen? Yes, you can see it. Perfect. OK. So the the end of work as we know it, right? And all the infinite possibilities and the new world of work. So if I ask you today, why do we work? And then we think about it. The 1st 1st, 1st answer that comes to our mind is basically uh money. We work for money to make a living. And this looks like the most of us right before the pandemic, right? So the, the way I'm just trying to figure out perfect. OK. The, the, the, the way that we've been working is seriously broken and everybody has been talking in the last one year, maybe 18 months about the future of work and about uh the fourth industrial revolution, et cetera. This whole pandemic, it came and then it, it, it expedited things, right? It's we, I don't know today whether we are in the fourth or fifth or even sixth revolution.

But then again, if we set context onto the future of work, and we take a step back and we think when, when we talk about the future of work, we talk about connectivity about people working from everywhere. And we talk about equality. That's because the future of work and working from remote and working virtually knows no bias. Right. Then, then when we think a bit deeper about it, we think about how in the future using all of this amazing intelligent technology that will help us as humans to save time. It's there's a lot of wasted time that I'm sure you as well experience this. It's a waste of human potential. When technology can actually take over from us, it helps us to um innovate to do things in a better manner, to do things more efficiently. So when everybody else is thinking about technology as being the destructor, yes, it is. And we can think about it as being an enabler. There's there's some old, older study from 2017 that says that companies uh back then were investing up to 60% in A I I would assume this is much, much more today given the current situation that we are in. But imagine that only 3% of the CEO S are actually thinking about investing in their people. So you can imagine the big skills gap that is gonna happen and the big skills shortage. And today we are gonna start feeling it.

We will start feeling it even more as we progress in the post panic uh uh era. But then imagine again, and there's a new way of working when we have more time to do what we do better flexibility. We can work up to our own schedule when, when we know we are needed on a certain project. And we can choose the exciting project that we want to be part in. Some of. You might have experienced the taste of that working from home or during the pandemic. But this is just a catalyst for the open talent models going mainstream open talent models is basically a completely new way of accessing talent. And this is where today we think about the way that we are working and then we think this is this is becoming the normal for us, right? This is uh it's, this is what we used to refer to before as an alternative workforce, the people who work on projects, the people who work from home, uh The freelancers, the independent consultants, we used to refer to them as being the alternative workforce. Whereas today, there are actually the workforce, they they, they enable businesses to build a networked talent ecosystem. So you might think now, what is it exactly what does that mean network talent ecosystem.

It means that as a business today, I have the power of building a talent pool in my organization that is uh um, so diversified. Yes. So I can, I can have my core team who are working full time. I can plug in the freelancers as and when, when I need them, I can plug in uh independent contractors. So it's a full network ecosystem that I have in place. Um It's, it's different than the existing structures that we have. Now how liberating is that this whole way of, of, of managing talent, just it challenges our beliefs about work because there's a major pivot that needs to happen, right? And from a business perspective, the pivot is, is even uh uh um very prominent because as a business, I need to start thinking differently about how am I going to attract talent and specifically the specialized one because earlier, I could tempt talent by my EVP by um uh uh uh with, with the salary, with the package, with the benefits, et cetera.

But now when my talent is based anywhere around the world and my projects need to be attractive enough. And my proposition as an employer needs to actually match with the purpose of life and excite them enough to uh want to work on my project virtually because this whole new way of working is actually location agnostic. Remember we spoke about less bias et cetera. It's, it's a completely new way of working that doesn't talk about location or, or anything. It's, it's just availability and reaching out to talent basically anywhere. So an open talent mindset actually shifts our fundamental understanding of how the work is done. Uh Now, given that I still have only a little bit of time, I'm, I'm gonna jump to tell you a little bit about businesses today. They are looking for fairly priced quality flexibility, speed and sustainability. They are looking to be adaptable because this will be their differentiator, right?

And for them to have access to those open talent models, it helps them to innovate, it helps them to save problems on the spot. And one of the most important thing is actually flexible because it helps them to manage their costs. The augmented workforce uh uh uh provides a business access to specialized expertise that otherwise they could not have access at a very high cost. And um let alone reaching out to specialized um experts on projects. But as well as the creativity and the freshness of thought that comes with this, I'm gonna stop sharing now and I'm gonna ok. So I stopped, I stopped sharing my, my screen because I still have a couple of minutes. I wanted to tell you that the current situation actually expedited what has always been uh uh uh uh in, in, in, in the lineup as a new way of working, right? And it, the way that it helped is that it helped both the in the businesses and the people to develop a certain level of trust as a person. Today, I trust that I can actually work independently. I can work from anywhere. As long as I have my laptop, I have an internet connection. I'm ok to work to deliver on projects on focus.

So I have more trust in my own capabilities and I work my way around it in terms of how I'm gonna set up my time, my family, my priorities, et cetera. But as well as a business, it provided me a deeper level of trust that my people are capable of delivering, even if they are anywhere. As long as we are clear on goals and objectives, I just want to tell you that for those of you who are enjoying my talk and we, we, we basically don't have much time. Uh Yy, you can, you can reach out to me and find me um uh uh online and uh here's, here are my details, here are my details, but I just wanted to tell you a little bit as well about what we do. Uh We're, we're an online platform one circle. It's an online platform that connects businesses with uh uh freelance hr consultants virtually and on demand. And our, our number one rule is we always give our best, but we also don't forget that to have fun. And uh the reason why I'm telling you that is um the reason why I'm saying that is that we're in the heart of the gig economy and in the heart of the platform economy.

And when we first thought about uh the whole business model of providing access to freelance professionals or freelance consultants uh in a uh talent marketplace, people thought we are crazy. Right? But today, uh it's, it's, it's the, it's the new way of working um uh from um uh from A I like it. Somebody said we should never forget fun. Exactly. And I do think personally and I agree with the Arian that, that, that working is fun. It's, it's the finding that sense of purpose, right? And having that feeling of autonomy that I am able and capable of finding the right projects that I want to work on the projects that give me that sense of achievement projects that uh make me feel good about what I have done and I'm proud of. And this takes me to um uh to, to, to, to highlight something that is very important and not a lot of us think about it today. It's very important for us to take charge of our own reputation online. Very few people think about that. Uh Given that today, most, most of us are finding work uh online. Uh it is very important to present ourselves in the proper manner online. We need to build a certain level of trust in our capabilities and what we are able to achieve.

And uh th this is, this is one of the ways that as consultants or independent contractors. Uh uh This is our message from one circle as well to them is that we should take, we should take pride of the projects that we put out there. But as well, of all of those years of experience, the skills that we have developed the specialized project that we have worked on, put it out there, build your reputation, online, build a certain level of trust and make sure that if project that you are working on and you are delivering on to businesses uh are at the uh that those projects are at that level of quality that you would be proud of because moving forward, uh one of the ways that you're gonna start getting projects is through referrals, through your rating and through platforms like one circle or upwork or fiver et cetera and, and businesses are open to that today with their, with their own people working virtually in a remote setup businesses today starting to think why would I restrict myself to people that are within my geographical location if I am able to reach out to people anywhere because their own core team are working remotely, right?

So this whole experiment that we all went through just open doors of opportunities and and uh maybe not for everybody, but specifically for I would say for professional workers and experts and specialists open doors of opportunities for uh for businesses to reach out to those people.

Um Virtually, uh do your best to find the right platforms that, that can actually uh represent you that are niche within your area of expertise, uh and associate yourselves with them. And um, yeah, we are, we are, we are, uh we are hoping that we can help as many people as we can as one circle. We are specifically niche with an hr you can find us on one circle hr.com. Uh And we just went live a, a couple of months ago and we already built a community of uh almost 300 hr consultants with more than 15 years of experience. So I'm, I'm really happy and thankful for this opportunity to chat to you today. Uh I'm just watching the, the time because it's my first time on this platform. I thought we would have a moderator. Uh But do you have any questions? Does anybody have any questions before uh we get disconnected? OK. There's no questions. Thanks a lot, everybody for joining.

Uh When you have created your platform. Yes. Uh We created our platform. It's live. It's on one circle hr.com. We've started the, we went live three months ago. We are optimizing the platform. You can connect with me on linkedin uh Emma Al Kut or just find on linkedin One Circle hr and connect with us. Uh And I'm happy to help and yeah, and I'm excited to see all of those amazing chats uh popping in. Uh Yeah, keep, keep, stay focused guys. It's, there's so much opportunity out there, just find the right, the right platforms that can actually represent you. Um And, uh, and, and then, and then, uh connect with them. Uh uh upskilling yourself is very important and uh be uh uh proud of what you are doing. Uh And it's, it's a new world of opportunities. Um Thank you very much guys, I'm gonna put in the chat how you can, uh, reach me or found our, uh, website and we are happy to help Cheers.