Why freelancers want your work but not your job
Gone are the days when freelancing was a less desirable option than landing a full-time role. How are organisations benefitting?
In 30 seconds
Organisations gain from freelancers’ broader range of experience and expertise across different sectors
Freelancers have more autonomy and a sense of agency. They need to manage themselves and understand where their skills fit
When deciding who to work for, freelancers tend to look beyond the money to culture, sustainability and inclusivity
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When you think of the typical employee, you might still default to the idea of someone who comes into the office every day, stays for maybe 10 years and then leaves. Now, though, more and more of the people doing the work are not on the permanent payroll – and increasingly it’s because they don’t want to be.
Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice in Organisational Behaviour at London Business School, is fascinated by what this means both for individuals looking ahead at the trajectory of their career and the firms that hire them. Her recent HBR article with Diane Gherson, a former chief HR officer of IBM – Highly Skilled Professionals Want Your Work, but Not Your Job – delves further into the rise of the highly skilled, super experienced professional who is freelancing out of choice, not necessity.
“What really surprised Diane and I when we began to research this is just how many there are of them and how important they are to organisations,” she tells Katie Pisa, in the latest episode of The Why podcast. She explains: freelancers enjoy autonomy over when and where they work, and a sense of agency. They need to be able to manage themselves, understand their skills and see how freelancing can be part of their career trajectory.
Managers like to use freelancers because they tend to have experience across sectors. “Being freelance is actually broadening their expertise, and that turns out to be really valuable.” If you're the head of strategy for a retail bank and you're trying to build a brand new digital strategy, you need to bring in people who already have the skills, at the same time as upskilling your existing workforce.
"There’s never been a more important time for a company to ask itself: Who am I? How do I create work that's great? And how do I create a sense of belonging?”
As an employer, if you’re paying the industry standard, what’s going to make a freelancer choose to work for you rather than a similar company? The difference is a job that intrigues, motivates and provides an opportunity for learning and development, she says. And just like employees, freelancers these days are interested in sustainability and inclusivity. “There’s never been a more important time for a company to ask itself: Who am I? How do I create work that's great? And how do I create a sense of belonging?”
Gratton, who teaches a popular MBA elective to second-year students on the future of work at LBS, says today’s students realise that they are going to have to work into their seventies. “That's the economic reality right now,” Gratton reminds us. The FT calls 2020 book The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in and Age of Longevity, co-authored with Andrew Scott, “a wake-up call” on what to expect and how to consider your options. In a multi-stage working life, freelancing for some of that time makes sense.
Her next book, to be published in 2026, looks at how important it is for all of us to weave our own lives and to gain mastery. Freelancers build micro skills over time, she says, and they have to consciously shape their work. “The market changes really quickly, so you have to be much more cognisant of your career path than you have to be inside an organisation.” In fact, she says, given the rapid pace of change, everyone needs a freelance mindset.
Full-time staff remain important nonetheless. “They hold the culture of the organisation, its history, its contracts, its networks.” But leaders are now looking at what needs to be done, and how: “Who do we need who's going to be full time? Who do we need who's going to be a skilled freelancer?” For traditional hires, they need to make the deal very attractive: what will make them want to stay? Some companies have 70% freelancers, some 30%, some none. “A great CEO is capable of understanding the mix that they need.”
Find out about the HR Strategy in Transforming Organisations programme at LBS
