By Lukas Beech
In today's reality, there is a clear trend away from time-based employment. The "iron rice bowl," or permanent job, is in decline, from over 80 percent of first-time employees in 2006 to about 60 percent now. In fact, many business leaders are compensated today for their creation of shareholder value, not for their time. More and more people will be paid for the value that they create, and this value is typically measured by the achievement of goals, projects or so-called key performance indicators (KPIs).
According to a McKinsey Global Institute report from May 2017, "automation, digital platforms and other innovations are changing the fundamental nature of work." The workforce as we know it is changing rapidly as AI and blockchain technologies are enabling more efficient peer-to-peer connection and quicker and more secure payment mechanisms. Digital platforms are fostering more efficient labor markets by connecting people to the right jobs, and freelancers are on the rise as companies look to the flexibility of free agents to keep costs down.
If the future of work is all about the achievement of KPIs, then we must adapt and start thinking of ourselves as key value contributors. We must learn to price our value not according to the idea of "Korean won per hour/month/year," but rather as a price per KPI, or per project. As we get better at doing this, we will change the way in which we think and work; in how we structure our hours, weeks and our life in general. By doing this, we will finally get over the redundant confines of the "retirement age" and other outdated paradigms.
To start, think of your work as being a series of priceable achievements that can be calculated by dividing your income by the number of tasks completed. Next, think of your work as the kind of value you apply to those tasks that you are good at, that you are passionate about, while minimizing other less valuable tasks. In doing so, you increase your value, your price and your payment in less time.
As we trend toward a gig economy, freelancers or free agents will get more power, and this comes through opportunity. If an employer cannot offer enough tasks that align with your passion and value, then you can add more missions which have no conflict with your other missions and employers. To achieve this, there is a growing movement of digital platform value-enablers such as Mission Heroes, upWork, among others that enable companies and people to work together to accomplish missions, and to create massive value by aligning the needs of companies with the relevant passions and skills of value-focused individuals and teams.
Although Korea is lagging behind other countries in making this shift to mission-based value-creation, its time is coming. The way we will work in Korea has a bright economic future ― one where people will be able earn their living by applying their unique passions and skills to accomplish the missions of a growing list of progressive companies.
Lukas Beech (info@missionheroes.com)is a partner at DHR International and a director at Mission Heroes, Inc.