Work Life and the Future of Work

This week’s podcast follows on from our discussion with Matthew Knight, discussing the future of work and how things are changing. David and Volker thought it would be good to discuss this topic as a ‘special’, looking at the changing world of work. Particularly for freelancers, people with mental health and middle aged men.

Poor mental health costs the British Economy £118bn a year, according to LSE. And the Financial Times is warning that we’re heading for a Mental Health Recession, with support phonelines, provided by employers in the private sector, being swamped. 

However, according to Deloitte, there is not enough investment in mental health, to combat the impact of the pandemic. 

Are we all doomed?

We discuss our history of employment and whether a full time, PAYE, job is more secure than a freelancer job. The bigger question however is, whether we will still have a job in 10 or 20 years time. 

As we get to midlife, we should have job security, psychological safety and should not have to worry if our skillset is still relevant in a few years time. If you’re a freelancer, does it make sense to go back to a full time job to tick more boxes on a CV - and is a CV still the right document to demonstrate your expertise?

And how have things changed since the pandemic? We are working longer, the employer gets more time from us, yet we have less of a commute. With us working longer hours, we are more prone to stress and burn-out. Not like other countries, with us being able to go shopping every day, and not having a rest day like a Sunday, we seem to be in this hamster wheel all the time.

We touch on productivity, e.g. notification, different tools we use trying to connect people, and trying to find the perfect solution. And the question is whether we are too old to keep up with new technology and processes, or are we trying too hard to stay relevant? And as a freelancer, do we want to be part of the team, or stay on the outside?

As Matthew Knight said, in the future we might all be freelancers, but at the very least there will be a more dispersed workforce - possibly with us all working with Meta headsets. Or we work in co-working spaces closer to home, just for company and mental health support for that matter.

What do you think? Please let us know what you think of the future of work. We will have more guests on this topic in 2023 and are open for more experts on this topic.

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