HR

The impact of the freelancer on the organisational knowledge use & development

Posted on By Koenraad Seys
A recent article in MIT’s SLOAN review indicates that three quarters of respondents to their 2020 global survey of 5,118 managers now view their workforces in terms of both employees and non-employees (https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/the-future-of-work-is-through-workforce-ecosystems/?og=featured).  The workforce eco-system has become more complex than the long term employee who builds on a linear career in line with company expectations.
For example, some organisations offer development opportunities not only to their own employees but also to those in their greater ecosystem community.
Freelancing is not for outliers anymore. Some countries, like the Netherlands, have a specific legal framework defined for them (ZZP – Zelfstandig Zonder Personeel). This has an impact on organisations, the way they work, engage and value knowledge acquired or generated over time when working and interacting. Fending off the opportunities made available by these itinerant workers is not an option.
According to Eurostat, that is collecting data from the European member states, people who were self-employed in 2018 amounted up to 14% on average. Professionals make up nearly a quarter of the self-employed in Europe. According to  Statista.com a large 55% of freelancers in Europe work in IT and marketing and communication.  IT makes up for a quarter of the freelancers in Europe ( https://www.statista.com/statistics/946967/freelancers-in-europe-by-sector/ ). For the period between 2000 and 2011 their number nearly doubled according to the https://freelancersmovement.org/ .
Although there is no clear definition of what a freelancer is, Stephanie Rapelli defines freelancers as ‘self-employed workers, without employees, who are engaged in an activity which does not belong to the farming, craft or retail sectors. They engage in activities of an intellectual nature and/or which come under service sectors’.
In an outlook on what next freelancers look, Forbes predicts the diversification of the freelance population and integration in a mixed corporate knowledge network: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonyounger/2019/05/04/what-the-next-generation-of-freelancers-will-look-like/#39b7994353ad. They will cover more domains, choose to freelance earlier in their career than current freelancers.
The need to realise more complex projects or business goals for which organisation will contract them, it introduces links and relations that are rather based on coopetition rather than that they are pure competitors. When posting for a job, freelancers are each others competition. Once the contract obtained and the job started they are imbedded in teams with other freelancers or company employees. They may have similar, overlapping or complementary knowledge and expertise. They become colleagues.
These continuously shifting relations demands flexibility but also opens options for networking and sharing. Freelance networks with like minded professionals even competing for the same assignments are not contradictory as their offering is not scalable (one can only take one mission at the same time, an hour can only be sold once). Once on a mission referring a new request to a co-freelancer in the network will help all parties involved in the staffing process.
See also Stowe Boyd in his keynote speech for the Social Now Europe 2015 when he talks about Deep Culture where more stress is put on loser connections with a need for more creativity – combined with agile (self steering teams).
As also recalled by Amy Edmondson and Jean-François Harvey in their book Extreme Teaming, the cross-pollination that happens at the interstices of knowledge domains, experience sets and frames of reference are most inspiring and a source of radical innovation. Newly formed, temporary teams assembled from members form various backgrounds often set the stage for knowledge recombination and innovation. Social network theory suggests that highly diverse teams can obtain valuable knowledge from interpersonal relations outside the team.
This mixing of people from different back-ground and experience will stress the need to pay attention to the interactive skills and openness to share ideas in a continuous search for adding value, growing a process or service provided, in a context of continuous innovation.
According to https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/freelance-stats/ about 60% are looking for a stronger community and more chances to collaborate.
Is this shifting knowledge ownership to professions or corporations? In reality this is already the case as a knowledge corpus is often owned by a group of professionals, acquired through education and reinforced through experience. It is based on common understanding, experience and general information and communication shared and studied. Product communities and certainly Open Source Software initiatives can be considered as communities sharing a common interest and related knowledge and know-how. The latter have also a common goal and purpose. Product communities however are vendor led and facilitate the sharing of product and specific technical knowledge, leading to different sub-communities with their own specific interests in mind. Broader communities addressing more or less specific roles exist as well. They may limit themselves as content sharing platforms requiring subscription as www.techrepublic.com/ , addressing a technical public or more interactive virtual groupings like www.mindtools.com or www.12manage.com . These highly curated platforms thrive, more peer oriented networks are harder to find and when they exist they have a hard time persisting.
Still, the majority of companies consider freelancers as temporary workers and are not considered as a member of core staff. Once the contract is terminated the freelancer is revoked access to the systems of the company they were working for. They are not part of the internal social network with whom they shared information and knowledge during the period in which the contract was active. From a legal and competition point of view this is completely understandable. There is a risk that by accessing internal information they can divulge this knowledge with the client they are currently working on. On the other hand isn’t  the reason why you engage freelancers to introduce experience, insight and knowledge so it can cross pollinate and enrich the already existing company insights.
All newcomers, be it employee or freelancer, come with sector or technical experience during other assignments with your competitors. Also, mobility of employees has increased.  Both trends lead to a more volatile strategic advantage for companies. Unless you want to limit their input to execute what is told, you would better open up. Encouraging knowledge sharing platforms covering both technical topics in the style of mindtools or 12manage and why not generic sector oriented communities can certainly speed up evolution and innovation in a guild like manner like https://www.businessarchitectureguild.org/ focusing on informed, creative and connected membership. The common frame of reference is also to be considered as a a point of reference for quality.
As an organisation or company you can profit from setting up alumni communities. It offers opportunities to have regular contacts with them, curate the information shared, tap ideas. More permeating borders allow current employees and freelancers to interact on this platform increasing the interaction and flow of ideas. Of course some of these will pass over to other alumni communities of competing organisations, however this goes both sides. At moments you will be on the sending side at others you will be on the receiving side.
Working with knowledge from freelancers is used in an opportunistic task oriented manner. A lot of knowledge is available for those who want, dare and can access it. It may not be without risks or bring undivided advantages, but it will guarantee a fresh influx of ideas and experience.

The feudal organisation

Posted on By Koenraad Seys
Most of us know feudality from school, being the predominant way of organising a state during the Middle Ages. Although embedded in a traditional society based on a stable order imposed by god, some elements may still be of value in current contexts.
Discarding the basis for legitimising the position of nobility as the leaders in the Middle Ages, feudality is mainly a method for distributing power and a way for the king or emperor to exert control over his realm while having a sustainable community.
Looking at the material context of medieval society, feudality was a logical organisational format. Traveling even over short distance was difficult and took time. Roads were rarely paved so using them was mainly restricted to summertime when it was dry and days were long. As it easily took a day to travel to the next village, it was hardly feasible for the lord to enforce strict control on regions further away. Giving instructions and receiving feedback on them easily took weeks. On matters not involving the overall structure, fiefs were alone in their decision process. Although set in a rigid and strictly hierarchical context, legitimised by god, fiefs were largely independent, autarchic units. They had to decide on their operational besognes.
A fief had to be able to subsist independently of others. It could and should survive on its own, provide in its victuals, producing enough agricultural produce for its own inhabitants, be able to construct housing, furniture and tools to get necessary production going. Specialisation was limited. They were also self policing on the level of internal peace keeping and justice. They also produced enough surplus to support nobility and clergy. Their focus was on their purpose: subsist.
They were only called to help when neighbouring or when fiefs of which they were part of were under attack of an external source. On the other hand they presented enough force to ascertain the equilibrium with neighbouring fiefs.
In the ceremony, where a lord got ordained, tokens of trust were exchanged delegating full control to the lord while promising the lord eternal support and assistance. As such the local lord was also representing his higher master to which he had sworn obedience, while assuring representation of his domain with higher authorities when it came to engagements of a broader nature. Other interlinking was extremely limited, thus evolution was slow.
This is the basic setup of feudal society without distortions incurred by powerplay or unbalancing privileges.
Considering current organisations and societal evolutions a new type of distance could be identified. Increasing specialisation, either technical or functional, makes communication across the board more difficult. Vocabulary and practices often differ between groups and they have different support, infrastructure and tooling needs. Competition requires light, flexible and adjustable setups, quick on their feet to respond to changing contexts under their own responsibility not needing to go long ways through the overall organisation to obtain feedback or authorisation. This would take too long.
The medieval principles of autarchic units existing in balance with neighbouring units are also found in new organisation types heralded in modern management literature.
The Connected company defines it a podular organisation where “you divide labor into “businesses within the business”” fully oriented at its customer. An infrastructural platform sees to it that the necessary information and knowledge can be shared and common support activities are mutualised.
In holacracy work is organised in holons, “a whole that is part of a larger whole”. These holons or circles are organised along the lines of business functions and processes and fundamentally autonomous for their internal organisation of work, however constrained by the need of other circles and anchored in the context of the organisation. “The “Lead Link” is appointed by the super-circle to represent its needs in the sub-circle. A lead link holds the perspective and functions needed to align the sub-circle with the purpose, strategy and needs of its broader context. The other link, called a “Representative Link” (…) is elected by the members of the sub-circle, and represents the sub-circle within its super-circle.”
Different to the past, management or leadership overhead is out of the question. Each unit should be self steering based on a set of basic governing principles, mutual member negotiation and unit democracy.
Although recurring in other contexts mechanisms from the past re-appear, ideas are recycled and depend on similar conditions for their success and sustainability.
Each member of the organisation should be taking up responsibilities for the role (holacracy) or tasks assigned to or taken up by him/her, he should act as an engaged adult
Have a clear view on the organisational purpose and vision
Share the common vision or purpose declared or grown in the organisation
Avoid powerplay, created when units see possibilities to lift the equilibrium instated in the initial organisation
When providing a governance framework keep it crisp and stick to general widely applicable rules. Avoid to let it become an elaborate set of detailed rules and procedures.
In this context it is also tempting to retreat in the own autarchic circle, not sharing any knowledge or learning and to focus on the internals of the working of the circle. The businesses in the business not contributing to the whole will eventually lose efficiency by not sharing experience across the board, merely being a franchise or an independent organisation. The potential for corporate learning is clearly available based on the platform services on global level.
Keep connected to your customer (in a broad definition) and continue to observe how needs and behaviour are evolving while capitalising on your talents, knowledge, competences and experience.