This week, I’m shifting format to include a topic article along with the links to curated content. If you are skimming, don’t miss the blog post titled “Enough”, I think it would provide you something interesting to think about this weekend. Enjoy!
Workforce Ecosystems
In the fall of 2024, I had written a post titled “Workforce Ecosystems”. I never published it, but it crossed my desk this week and I realized that it has even more relevance today. The post started like this:
The mix of employment engagement types within a company are shifting. Organizations can include employees who are full-time, part-time, freelance, and contract. People across all these groups need to work together to deliver great work.
This is creating a new challenge – how to consciously design workforce ecosystems.
Currently (circa 2024), the conversation is being led in the academic & consulting worlds with MIT, Harvard, and Deloitte producing reports and recommendations. In an MIT article, they describe the workforce ecosystem like this:
“The workforce ecosystem, which compromises actors from within the organization (such as employees and contractors) as well as beyond (such as developers, suppliers, and even technology solutions), must be managed strategically for maximum benefit.” – MIT, Future of the Workforce
They go on to report that 80% of organizations say they need to manage both employees and their extended workforce in an integrated way, but only 33% say they are sufficiently prepared to manage a workforce that relies more on external contributors.
My Perspective (Circa 2024)
The employment trends are shifting quickly making it beneficial for both businesses and individual employees to move to a more distributed model.
Companies gain financial benefits from fewer full-time employees, expertise from freelancers/fractional support when a specialty is needed, and a free flow of fresh thinking for innovation on long-standing business.
Workers gain by diversifying their income portfolio (reducing financial risk), ability to contribute to multiple projects and gain unique skills from each, and the flexibility to manage their overall life in a way that fits their aspirations.
While there are benefits all around, there is also a need for a new leadership model to emerge. Orchestration is required in many areas – the logistics of who to pull into the work when, the culture development of teams that shift and morph regularly, and the process of technology and information flows/access.
My Perspective (Today)
I think the workforce ecosystem is now even more challenging. In addition to the human structures continuing to shift as described above, we are now also managing agents.
This Gartner article, How Agentic AI Is Reshaping Manager Oversight, highlights the challenges managers are having as they move to not only managing people, but the added complexity of the digital agents. In fact, they quote:
“Seventy‑five percent of CHROs report that managers are more overwhelmed than ever, underscoring that AI‑driven productivity gains come with hidden oversight costs.” – Gartner
With companies cutting full-time employees to shift more money to AI, I wonder what the balance is of problems that are being solved vs. the challenges that are compounding. Before the rise of AI, concerns were already being raised around the pressure managers were facing. If you want links to some of the reports and data, here are 3 blog posts I wrote on the topic: What Managers Need, Managers Need Support, and Manager Challenges Continue.
Circling back to the workforce ecosystem, the importance of designing the full picture is more important than ever. I wonder how companies are handling this side of the agentic workforce.
What are you seeing in your organization? Is this something you are actively working plan out?
My Posts This Week
Enough. Have you ever considered how much is enough? This post raises the question as it relates to all 8 dimensions of wellbeing.
Fingerprints Personal Branding Method. The three phases of the personal branding process – mindset, message, and “marketing”.
A Different Approach to Productivity. This post moves us away from task lists and time blocking and instead focuses on emotions, intention, and energy.
What’s Your Layoff Story? No matter if you have been recently laid off or never laid off this post is for you. We should all be prepared with layoff stories. The ones that help us realize we are not our title.
Finding Your JAM. This may not be what you are expecting. The post covers Joy, Achievement, and Meaning with a link to a self-awareness quiz to define your unique profile.
Podcasts That Caught My Attention
This week, there are four podcasts with the first two being a “communication pairing” and the second two being a “financial pairing”. I hope there is at least one on the list that is just what you need today.
A Simple Solution to Fix Workplace Miscommunication. 12 minutes. TED Talks Daily. Leadership expert Melissa M. Mikus discusses why most workplace friction is about not knowing how to effectively communicate. She has a small tweak that anyone can implement right away.
Sometimes Interruptions are the Work. 5 minutes. Before Breakfast. No one likes to be interrupted. That said, this quick episode reminds us that sometimes the interruptions are core to our work.
How I Measure Progress Toward Financial Independence. 11 minutes. Optimal Finance Daily. Part 2. 13 minutes. Craig Stephens breaks down a practical way to track financial independence by combining passive income with long-term investment growth, rather than relying on a single metric.
How to Get Rich: Take the Long View. 27 minutes. The Next Big Idea Daily. This episode provides highlights from two books. First is How to Get Rich in American History: 300 Years of Financial Advice That Worked (& Didn’t) by historian Joseph Moore. The second is For Profit: A History of Corporations by William Magnuson.
What Do You Think?
What defines your personal levels of “enough”?
How do you define your JAM (Joy, Achievement, and Meaning)?
What ideas did the posts & podcasts spark that you could implement in the week ahead?