Millennials And Gen Z Choose ‘Polywork’ For More Exciting Lives, Half Of 21 To 40 Year-Olds Say They Do Five Different Types Of Work, ‘Excitement’ More Important Than Money For Today’s Professionals
New research out today reveals that nearly half of young professionals (47 percent) consider themselves people who ‘polywork’ doing an average of five different types of work – with one in ten (11 percent) saying they currently do more than ten types of professional work at the same time.
The majority of 21 to 40 year-old professionals (81 percent) say the pandemic has changed their attitude towards work forever with 45 percent saying they would not consider doing one single type of work for life, but would choose to polywork instead. Three quarters of all young professionals (72 percent) say virtual ways of working have opened up more work possibilities in the last 12 months compared to previous years.
Polywork, a new professional social network that has been created for people who do more than one type of work and cannot be defined by a single job title, asked over 1,000 US professionals about how they work and their attitudes towards modern working.
Over half of all 21 to 40 year-olds (55 percent) said an ‘exciting’ professional life is more important to them than money with 62 percent saying the opportunity to learn more skills, more quickly through different types of work is more rewarding than professional ‘security’.
A Word from Peter Johnston, the founder of Polywork
There is a new generation of professionals who do more than one type of work both in their regular job and outside of it, and they no longer feel a single job title reflects what they do or who they are. During the pandemic people have re-evaluated what they want to do, which in turn has accelerated the trend of polywork, using technology to connect with different and varied opportunities, whatever and wherever they may be. We do not see this trend disappearing, not least because Gen Z and Millennials see a variety of work as a way to achieve a more exciting life.
Meet The People Who Polywork
Cassidy Williams, living in Chicago, IL, USA, does more than five different types of professional work across multiple countries including software engineering, public speaking, writing, podcasting, investing, advising, and mentoring. She comments, 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. I love that I can work with people across the world to do fun things like design mechanical keyboards or more serious things like raise money for good causes. With technology being such an embedded part of our lives, I see this kind of work style being more and more common. 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.
Richard Fearn, living in London UK, has three different types of work on the go at once: producing a musical; managing his technology investments; and running a non-profit company. He comments, I’ve never liked the idea of just doing the same thing every day. 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.
To jtrenoin the waitlist for Polywork sign-up at their website.
