While the western economy is shrinking and unemployment rates are rising, I am noticing a new trend among people in their 30s. They are quitting their jobs. Leaving jobs they have worked at for many years in pursuit of something else. Generally something more meaningful, whether it pays or not becomes secondary. It was an interesting phenomenon to me, but not surprising. I believe that they are often in their 30s because that's when they start to have some money saved up and don't really need to depend their monthly paycheck to survive.
While I do not have the luxury of doing so due to my foreign status, I do enjoy reading about other people's transformations and voyages through their blogs and posts on FB.
The Economist last week talked about the difficulty of companies retaining the most talented in their workforce. The article said that the gap between the most talented and the rest of the population is widening, including their compensation. So while everyone else is stressed out about the downturn, these highly desirable workers are being aggressively sought after.
Why makes them so sought after? And why are there so few of them?
Some say that many of the important innovations and decisions are made by a small percentage of people. But these people are constantly generating new ideas that are viral and spreading to the rest of he population.
Not that long ago I came across an article by Douglas Rushkoff that someone posted on Facebook about whether or not the jobs we know today are obsolete. Before reading about this guy, I had always thought that Malcolm Gladwell was the one that came up with the term viral media. Regardless of who came up with the idea first, both had in my humble opinion some thought-provoking messages about how information is passed in our world, as well as who gets ahead.
The Economist last week referenced the Rushkoff article and counter-argued that Mr. Rushkoff is not exactly correct. Instead of stating that there is simply not as many jobs to go around for everyone, that the definition of a job is evolving.
As America moves from being an industrialized country to a more service-based industry, the population needs to evolve with the job demand. But it is not doing so quick enough. It is also difficult (or impossible) to reorient the entire workforce and retrain them to think and work differently.
I read an article that divided the typical white collar job into three main categories, but for some reason I can't find it anymore (bad memory). But the general idea of it is that there are three tiers of white collar jobs: the ones that do repetitive work that can be replaced by machines; the ones that do somewhat repetitive tasks that cannot be replaced by machines but can be replaced by someone else cheaper in another country; and the third is someone that has to constantly create new things or solve different problems.
Creativity, is the last hope of the west to stay ahead of China or any other emerging countries. Without it, we are more expensive and not necessarily better. This is also what I found when I went to China earlier this year. Creative people are hard to retain, because once they get bored at a job, or find the job meaningless, then they move on. But it is what every company wants, someone who is able to influence and create new ideas to make the company stand out among the rest.
The other message from all this, is that the creative folks are the ones that can control their path. You want to work remotely? Fine. You want to take time off to do something else? Fine. You want to spend your time at work thinking about new things rather than doing menial tasks? Fine. There is so much leverage on their end to make the relationship work with their employers as long as they want to.
It's up to you.
Are you doing something meaningful?
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