Joanne B. Ciulla
The Working Life – The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work, (p. 154-155), Times Books – Random House, 2000
How can companies expect employees to be loyal to them when they can’t be loyal to employees? One way is to strip loyalty of its moral meaning. Employees will be “loyal” if you pay them more than they would make in other places …
When commitment is reduced to time at work, loyalty to something one pays for, and trust to a legal contract, these terms are emptied of moral meaning and the workplace becomes morally bankrupt.

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16
The New International Version

¹ He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

² I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
my God, in whom I trust.”

³ Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare
and from the deadly pestilence.

⁴ He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

⁵ You will not fear the terror of night,
nor the arrow that flies by day,

⁶ nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday.

¹⁴ “Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

¹⁵ He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.

¹⁶ With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”

…the quality of training and development on offer ranked as the most important criterion in a prospective employer for 43 percent of students, well ahead of job security (28 percent) and salary (11 percent).

“This would indicate,” KPMG deduces, “that students are thinking more now about their long-term careers, and recognise that training and development is fundamental to attaining the portable skills which could help them in the medium to long-term.”

KPMG’s Head of Recruitment notes:

It is striking that students rate training and development as more important than job security or even salary. Clearly the recession is making them think about their long-term prospects, not just their first job. Employers need to take account of this—the economic downturn could have caused a long-lasting shift in student attitudes.

If this turns out to be a trend, is there a corresponding shift in attitudes by employers? Are we prepared to respond to young workers who want to be developed for the long term? If so, there may be an opportunity  for companies to build long range relationships with young workers who are eager to learn and grow and take their place in the working community.

So, here’s the to 43 percent…the modest young who stand ready to entrust themselves to our care because they know they have a lot to learn….

Let’s not let them down, shall we?

(By the way, it’s a pleasure to welcome InsideWork’s dynamic summer interns Kristie and Michael, whose fingerprints are already showing up significantly in our workflow: Welcome you guys! Thanks for joining the team.)

Confirmed freelancers — not to be confused with temp workers — find it a stretch to simply land one job and stick to it. The freedom of a flexible schedule fuels much of the creativity embodied in the work freelancers produce. All the genuine freelancers I’ve met have been brilliant. They know their fields and they learn to know their clients. They’re not much for busy work or pro forma meetings, but their experience and project orientation enable them to meet the demands of business more effectively than many nine-to-fivers could.

If your company is looking for talent, you might consider working with one or more freelancers instead of hiring. Freelancers work for sole proprietorships and small businesses as well as larger corporations with the higher costs associated with hiring. Even if the hourly cost or project rate charged by a freelancer seems higher than staffing, it’s generally worth every penny for the ease of the experience. You can find an experienced freelancer and have the project finished faster than you can by hiring an in-house staff to accomplish the same work. And getting out of a bad fit with a freelancer is as simple as not offering further work. Try that with an employee.

If you’re just launching into the freelance life — especially if you’re a recent graduate — it can be difficult to get established immediately. Freelancing is like owning a (very) small business. Even if no one will ever read it but you, you’ll almost certainly find it useful to write a business and marketing plan that identifies your unique offering, and why people should believe you can deliver on that offer (h/t Doug Hall). If you require funding other than fees for services, a business plan is crucial.

Start-up costs for freelancers vary depending on your area of expertise and what you’ve already acquired in the way of necessary equipment (computers, hard drives, cameras, specialized tools…whatever’s required to deliver on what you promise). Whatever you do, resist the temptation to take on extra overhead by renting space or purchasing gear today that you can’t exploit until later.

The most complicated question for most freelancers is, “How much should I charge?” In many instances, you can calculate hourly rates from industry standards provided by sites like payscale.com or salary.com. Then double it. This is because about 40% of your time will be spent doing administration and marketing work as well as research for your client.

Or you can follow the advice of Keith Martin, MacUser Magazine’s technical editor (he lives in London, so you’ll have to convert from pounds to your local currency):

First, a few words on how to approach charging in the first place. Estimate how long the job will take, then add 50% to that figure. This isn’t in order to scalp anyone, it is just being realistic. As well as allowing a buffer for complex issues, it helps protect you when revisions have to be made. If possible, it can be much simpler to discuss things in terms of daily rates or even lump sums for the whole project rather than the relatively bitty and quibble-prone per-hour approach. You still need to know how it breaks down per hour, but you don’t necessarily have to discuss that specific detail with your client. Now, about that hourly rate…

There’s a tried-and-tested method for working this out, and it is surprisingly simple. First of all, decide how much you want to earn per year. Be generous; remember that this is the gross amount, covering absolutely every penny that you’ll spend, from tax and mortgage or rent through to IT maintenance costs. As a freelancer this is all down to you, from the phone bills to the stamps… everything. Forget the fact that you might do other paid work. Assume, for the purposes of this exercise at least, that this will be your sole work and source of income. We’ll pick a figure of £40,000pa for this exercise, but feel free to go higher.

Here’s the magic: just divide this annual income target by 1000, and there’s your hourly rate:
£40,000pa/1000 = £40ph.

As a freelancer, you will be able to manage your schedule and do what you do best. You can even hire a freelancer yourself for administrative and marketing tasks. As a company working with freelancers you can focus on paying only for deliverables from people you may not need (or may not be able to afford) to hire as employees.

In many fields, the spell of the J.O.B. is broken. More and more of us are discovering it’s not the job but the work that matters (a lesson near the heart of InsideWork). As long as we’re honest with each other, there’s no reason we can’t all enter into working relationships where everybody wins.

Jenn Branden O’Brien is a freelancer living in Orange County, California and working wherever she finds a match.

The Online Etymology Dictionary gives some insight into the roots of the word, job.

1557, in phrase jobbe of worke "piece of work" (contrasted with continuous labor), perhaps a variant of gobbe, "mass, lump" (c.1400, see gob). Sense of "work done for pay" first recorded 1660. Slang meaning "specimen, thing, person" is from 1927. The verb is attested from 1670. On the job "hard at work" is from 1882. Jobber "one who does odd jobs" is from 1706. Job lot is from obsolete sense of "cartload, lump," which may also be from gob.

Notice that the historical use of the word seemed to center on doing pieces of work which probably varied considerably. This is a contrast to the modern notion of a job as a narrowly defined set of tasks that one did in a specialized and continuous manner.

William Bridges, author of JobShift: How to Prosper in a Workplace Without Jobs, explains:

The job is a social artifact, although it is so deeply embedded in our consciousness that most of us have forgotten its artificiality or the fact that most societies since the beginning of time have done just fine without jobs. The job concept emerged early in the nineteenth century to package the work that needed doing in the growing factories and bureaucracies of the industrializing nations. Before people had jobs, they worked just as hard but on shifting clusters of tasks, in a variety of locations, on a schedule set by the sun, the weather, and the needs of the day. The modern job was a startling new idea – to many people, an unpleasant and even socially dangerous one. Its critics claimed that it was an unnatural and even inhumane way to work. They predicted that most people wouldn’t be able to live with its demands. Americans even once talked about the job as “wage slavery” and contrasted it with the farmer’s and craftsperson’s freedom and security. But what started as controversy became the ultimate orthodoxy: we’re hooked on jobs.

Now the world of work is changing again. The very conditions that created jobs two hundred years ago are disappearing.

Now the world of work is changing again. The very conditions (mass production and the large organization) that created jobs two hundred years ago are disappearing. Technology enables us to automate the production line, where all those jobholders used to do their repetitive tasks. Instead of long production runs where the same thing has to be done again and again, we are increasingly customizing production. Big firms (where most of the good jobs used to be) are “unbundling” their various activities and farming them out to little firms, who have created or taken over profitable niches. This “outsourcing” of work is not just happening in the support areas where it started – running the cafeteria, for instance, or providing building-maintenance services. Three out of ten large American industrial firms now outsource at least half their manufacturing. Public services are privatizing and government bureaucracies (the ultimate bastions of job security) are thinning. As the conditions that created jobs fade, we lose the need to package work into jobs. No wonder they’re disappearing.

We all will have to learn new ways to work.

Bridges wrote this in 1994. The past 13 years have only accelerated the changes he saw emerging. Jobs are not secure. Sure, there will still be jobs around, but your future security will depend on being a lifetime learner and constantly growing in your ability to create and deliver value to the marketplace. I recommend Bridges’ book for its outstanding advice on how to live in a dejobbed world.

Links

• JobShift by William Bridges (Amazon.com)

Lesslie Newbigin
Honest Religion for Secular Man (p 136), Philadelphia. Fortress, 1966 We can commit ourselves without reserve to all the secular work our shared humanity requires of us, knowing that nothing we do in and of itself is good enough to form part of that city’s building, knowing that everything — from our most secret prayers to our most public political acts — is part of that sin–stained human nature that must go down into the valley of death and judgment, and yet knowing that as we offered it up to the Father in the name of Christ and in the power of the Spirit, it is safe with Him and — purged in fire — it will find its place in the holy city at the end.

Colossians 3:22-25
New International Version Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.

Peters pointed out that in order to stand out you need to see your career as a series of Wow! projects. The ability to define and execute Wow! projects defines your personal reputation and brand, while bringing value above and beyond just doing my job.

I’ve felt this acutely over the years in my own work and in my own hiring. I refused to hire people who were just looking for a job or who waited to be told what to do. The pace and the demands of business are so great that I had little patience with telling every single person what their work should be for a given day. I wanted to surround myself with team players who really owned what we were trying to do, imaginatively think about how to create value, and then executed project after project that moved us forward.

In Who Should You Hire?, Seth Godin reflects on the shift from

manual-based work (where you follow instructions and an increase in productivity means doing the steps faster) to project-based work (where the instructions are unknown, and visualizing outcomes and then getting things done is what counts.)

Job Mentality in the Christian Community

In the Christian community this type of value-creating initiative has been wiped out by an overemphasis on authority. We are taught to be submissive to authority and that means not doing anything that the authority doesn’t tell you to do. I’ve seen it in Christian schools, churches, and ministry organizations.

Eventually people become passive, and innovation dies. It also comes out of an over-emphasis on “stewardship” – the teaching that we are mere managers of our resources whether it is time, money or talent. So the emphasis becomes-risk aversion, playing to the accepted playbook of formulas and conventional wisdom.

In the Christian community this type of value-creating initiative has been wiped out by an overemphasis on authority

Am I against jobs or people that hold jobs? Of course not. But I don't like the "job" mentality of employers and employees. Employers should seek to create more purposeful, energizing, and developmental environments for people. And employees must realize that job satisfaction, personal development, and career advancement depend on the project mind versus the job mind.

God has called us to take initiative, take risk, to get things done versus waiting for someone to tell us what to do. Isn't that what we call a life of faith? God wants us to think more like co-owners of his Kingdom; to understand His goals and purpose, to take initiatives to advance them.

I’m also concerned that parents and educators are still preparing young people for a job world rather than the highly innovative, fluid, and entrepreneurial project world that is the new reality.

In our new world of work, I’m worried that at a time when followers of Christ have incredible opportunities in all arenas to innovate and serve, that most are being very passive. Companies are looking to hire the kind of people that Peters and Godin and the Bible describe. Are you one?

Seth Godin adds,

I’m almost done with my (sold out) book tour, and the biggest pleasure of the project was working with people who totally understand what it is to get things done.

He echoes Christ’s commendation,

Well, done, my good and faithful servant!

• 42 percent of day laborers are in the West
• 23 percent are in the East
• 18 percent are in the Southwest
• 12 percent are in the South
• 4 percent are in the Midwest

The National Day Labor Study – underwritten by The Ford Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region’s Washington Area Partnership for Immigrants and UCLA’s Center for the Study of Urban Poverty – is a snapshot of this remarkably fluid American labor market.

Some Details:

• 49 percent of day-labor jobs are performed for homeowners; 43 percent for construction contractors
• 69 percent of day laborers report being hired multiple times by the same employer
• 79 percent of day labor hiring sites are informal – in front of businesses, home improvement stores, gas stations and busy streets corners
• 21 percent of day laborers look for work at day-labor centers
• 83 percent of day laborers rely on day-labor as their only source of income
• 70 percent look for work five or more days a week
• 40 percent of day laborers have lived in the United States more than six years
• 74 percent have worked in the day-labor market less than three years
• 78 percent say they learned about the informal day-labor market after migrating the United States

• The median rate for day laborers is $10 per hour
• 22 percent of day-labor jobs pay between $7 and $10 dollars an hour
• 46 percent pay $10 – $12 per hour
• 25 percent pay more than $12 per hour – usually to skilled electricians, plumbers and the like
• In peak working months the median income of day laborers is $1400. In slow months the median income drops below $500
• 57 percent of day laborers have held permanent jobs in the United States
• 86 percent are looking for permanent employment
• 75 percent of day laborers are undocumented migrants
• 59 percent of day laborers were born in Mexico
• 28 percent in Central America
• 7 percent in the United States
• 41 percent of day laborers say they are married
• 36 percent say they have never been married
• 7 percent say they are divorced
• 52 percent of day laborers report attending church regularly

The Bible doesn’t talk about corporations per se – the corporation being a latter day legal construct. Consequently, much of what we say about commerce on the corporate scale is extrapolated from what the Bible says about other forms of commerce.

We don’t have to do much extrapolating when it comes to day-labor:

Do not hold back the wages of a hired man overnight.
– Leviticus 19:13

Do not take advantage of a hired man who is poor and needy, whether he is a brother Israelite or an alien living in one of your towns. Pay him his wages each day before sunset, because he is poor and is counting on it. Otherwise he may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
– Deuteronomy 24:14-15

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, "You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right" So they went.

He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, "Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?"

“Because no one has hired us,’ they answered.

He said to them, "You also go and work in my vineyard."

When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first."

The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. "These men who were hired last worked only one hour," they said, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day."

But he answered one of them, "Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?"

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.
– Matthew 20:1-16

Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty.
– James 5:1-4

In these days when U.S. policy-makers consider how the law ought to regard undocumented workers, we wish for a wider conversation to address the status and contribution of the working poor – underemployed workers and day laborers; citizens, immigants and temporary residents among them – who bear God’s image as much as any human, and whom we dishonor at our individual and collective peril.