CIO magazine included one of my predictions today in the top 6 tips for 2015 in an article titled “6 IT Workforce Predictions for 2015”

“The global economy in general is moving to a contract or freelance workforce. It’s now a $1 billion worldwide market, and projected to be $5 billion in the next five years,” says Xenios Thrasyvoulou, founder and CEO of PeoplePerHour and SuperTasker.

“The flexibility benefits for both employees and employers are hard to beat; the ability to find exactly the talent you need for exactly the job you need them for is one of the drivers, as well as the desire for specialization without having to pay a premium long-term for a full-time employee,” says Thrasyvoulou.

Read the full piece here >>

The freelance economy now accounts for over one in three people in the working population. That’s over a trillion dollars in the UK and US markets alone.  Over $1bn per annum is spent today online in hiring and paying for freelancers a figure which is projected to grow to $5bn within the next 3-5 years according to Industry analysts.

Most people associate the move to this new way of working as a drive to cut costs and be more flexible. All of which is true. However, I believe the biggest benefit of this new way of working is not in cost cutting, and I make the case here by drawing on our own experience at PeoplePerHour of eating our own cooking. The biggest benefits of freelance working  – if implemented correctly – are a drastic increase in productivity.  I argue here that what drives that in turn are two things: 1) hyperspecilization ie breaking traditional more generalist jobs down to smaller ones and hiring people who are experts and super focuses on those jobs, anywhere in the world, to execute them , and 2) accountability.  Which comes from transforming the traditional employer- employee relationship to one of  service provider – client.continue reading »