In the last few decades, the world of work has been transformed into a state where it is markedly different from that of just one or two generations ago. Many of our fathers or grandfathers will have held the mentality that a job is for life. This meant sticking with one occupation or career path throughout a lifetime of work and often staying loyal to one employer. Today, many employees will have around twelve jobs in their lifetime and around 40% of the labour force will change careers every one to five years. This article explains three key ways in which the world of work is changing, which have led to a dramatically different way of viewing careers and the routines of working life itself.
Hybrid and Remote Working
Before 2020, the working week for millions of people consisted of a morning commute to the place of work and a 9-5 Monday-to-Friday schedule. With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, this changed in the space of months. As a result of the need to contain the spread of the virus to stop healthcare systems from becoming overloaded with patients, millions of workers were required to work from home. This led to remote and hybrid models of work being rolled out across many countries. As the restrictions on movement and group gatherings have been lifted in 2022, there is still a deep desire on the part of the general workforce to work remotely, at least some of the time during the working week. Research suggests that 98% of people would like to continue remote working at least some of the time. This demand for remote and hybrid models of work has led to millions of new job opportunities having at least a hybrid working schedule, and this trend looks set to continue.
Second Income Streams
For many previous generations of employees, there was only one form of income generation and that was their job. Today, this attitude has changed markedly and millions of people around the world look to generate additional income streams. This is especially true of the millennial generation who view the generation of multiple sources of income as a part of modern life. Millennials have several methods in which they seek to achieve this. One such way is by building a portfolio of shares and assets on online trading platforms to generate income through returns on their investments. Cryptocurrencies are becoming exceptionally popular assets to trade and sites that help investors to convert currencies, such as an eth to usd conversion calculator, are commonly used to help make informed crypto trades by gaining a full understanding of their relative values.
Work-Life Balance
As a final point, the current generation of employees is increasingly looking for ways to improve their work-life balance. Hybrid models of work and generating second income streams are ways to help achieve this. However, some workers take the work-life balance even further by becoming digital nomads and combining a love of travel with their working routines. Access to reliable internet worldwide and the use of techs, such as laptops and smartphones, have made the digital nomad lifestyle a reality for millions of workers. In addition, there has been a rise in the “gig economy” and in freelance work, which allows workers to choose when to work around their schedules.
