“Work is something that takes up such a huge part of my life, so doing different types of work keeps it more interesting and exciting,” she said. “People have the ability now more than ever to collaborate, create and just do things that don’t fall into one bucket. We’re past the age of being just one type of worker.”

Then there’s Richard Fearn, based in London, who runs a nonprofit, manages investments — and is in the middle of producing a musical. “I’ve never liked the idea of just doing the same thing every day,” he said. “I have multiple interests that I’m passionate about and they’ve naturally become different streams of income for me. Modern working attitudes and flexible technology allows my generation to juggle a multitude of things in a way we’ve never been able to before.”

The professional workforce, particularly millennials (aged between 25 and 40 years old) and Gen Z (up to 24 years old), is increasingly rejecting the concept of a full-time job and a single boss in favor of something that’s being dubbed “polywork,” or having multiple jobs at once.

A study of this blooming workforce by a new social network, also called Polywork, found that 55% of the 1,000 workers it polled, aged 21 to 40 years old, said an exciting professional life was more important than money. Just 35% said they could envision sticking with a single job for life, while nearly 64% said they already were doing more than one job or hoped to in the future. More than 70% of those surveyed believe the pandemic accelerated the trend.

The rise of polywork dovetails with the much-documented decline in job satisfaction amid the pandemic, which left employees feeling undervalued, as well as lacking communication and a connection to their bosses. In a recent survey, Skynova, a small business support firm, just 53% of employees said they were given goals directly related to the quality of their work, while 45% of employers rewarded workers who exceed performance standards.

As for the site Polywork, it lets users create a free personal webpage, share what they’re up to personally and professionally, and send collaboration requests to other members. Its backers include a who’s who of Silicon Valley, including Ray Tonsing (early investor in Clubhouse, Airtable and Brex), YouTube co-founder Steve Chen, Twitch co-founder Kevin Lin, PayPal co-founder Max Levchin, VSCO co-founder Joel Flory, Behance founder Scott Belsky and Worklife Ventures founder Brianne Kimmel.

“The data from our community shows that there will no longer be such a thing as a single job for life and that people are rejecting the single job titles that have been bestowed upon them for the last 10 years in favor of representing all the different types of things they do, and working in multiple ways at once on their own terms,” said Polywork’s founder …read more

Source:: Digiday

Author: Aaron