Business idea: A world without companies, without jobs and without employees.
The redefinition of economic work is one of the biggest issues of our time. Even if it is not yet so obvious. So much depends for people on how work is defined, measured, remunerated and organized in the future. As a society, we are undoubtedly once again at the beginning of a paradigm shift. In recent articles, I have repeatedly referred to a corresponding business idea that could anticipate this development. Here it is now.
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Approach: time is relatively irrelevant in knowledge work
Our current economic system is based on the assumption that more working time means more output. This is true to a large extent for all direct manual and repetitive activities. That is why there are working hours: If employee X performs activity Y for 8 hours, result Z can be expected. To a certain extent, this can be scaled more or less linearly.
For knowledge work and, above all, future (external) intelligence-supported work, this old formula is slowly losing its validity. Someone with a pocket calculator, for example, can perform calculations fundamentally faster. Someone who has perfect command of a mathematical calculator, i.e. has application skills, can in turn complete calculations fundamentally faster. Whose work should be paid more?
The more external intelligence we add to our being, the more irrelevant the time factor becomes for work performance. So far so good.
The problem with this is that we have a socio-economic system in place that is based entirely on this time/labor dependency. So the more we automate, the more work as such becomes obsolete by definition. This does not mean that there is less to do. On the contrary. As the use of technology increases, there are progressively more opportunities to manage. Our system cannot keep pace with this development.
Great upheaval – great suffering
The “tried and tested” method of how mankind had previously carried out such system changes was to wait until there was no other way. The old system collapsed and a new system adapted to current requirements emerged from the social rubble. Wars have much more to do with these changes than we generally realize. The losers have always been the people. Whole generations, mind you.
Seeing eye to eye into the next upheaval
You can’t blame our ancestors for this. They were completely unaware of such macro processes. They were far too preoccupied with elementary matters. Today, however, things are fundamentally different. We have a lot of data, extensive research and a horde of futurists. Nevertheless, we are slipping into the next upheaval with our eyes wide open, so to speak.
I have already written a lot about the fact that it is the task of politics and business together to prevent this. However, instead of trying to constantly adapt our system to new technological and social conditions, we are almost manically clinging on to things that proved their worth in a time when we lived very differently. And we invest huge sums in maintaining these structures through subsidies. In doing so, we are considerably increasing the height of the fall. The fall, which is as certain as the Amen in the church, is guaranteed. The world and humanity will not come to an end. But none of this is necessary.
The lost hope in politics
I have given up hope that politics can actively shape this change. As long as it is organized in one-sided interest groups, fundamental, comprehensive, forward-looking and future-oriented solutions are not possible. When I talk about a lack of sense of community in this context, I am not being judgmental. It is simply a fact.
System change from doing
If you want to change the world today, you do it privately. By founding a company, starting a charity, launching an initiative. New forms of work have been on my mind for a long time, quite simply because I often observe how outdated the organization of work in a workplace is. We don’t really realize this because we don’t know anything else. But if we look at our needs, from the employee to the employer, it becomes pretty obvious.
Requirements for the work
- Today’s employees want to be as flexible as possible. Family life has gained enormously in importance and demands its place in the daily routine. Today, it is commonplace for couples to want to share family and childcare responsibilities. This is only possible if the work allows for a correspondingly flexible schedule.
- On the other hand, companies also want flexibility. As an entrepreneur, it is incredibly difficult these days to employ a few really good people for unusual jobs. The administrative hurdles are enormous. Many initiatives and ideas are not implemented because you can’t bring people into the project or company. Or you have to keep them for so long that you’d rather not take the risk.
- The search for potential people is extremely difficult. There are probably many specialists on LinkedIn, but searching specifically for skills, experience and ratings? Not a chance.
- Variety and exchange is something that most companies and employees are always looking for. Replacing employees for a limited period of time is hardly ever done today, but would have an incredible number of advantages. For the employees and for the companies.
- Employees and employers want social security. Of course, it’s easy to argue about the extent of this. But it is slowly dawning on trade unionists and “turbo-capitalists” alike that extreme positions are simply not that intelligent. And, as crass as it sounds, anyone who still has to exploit employees today has not made the right investments.
- There is an enormous amount of administration everywhere. These are costs and energy that add no value to the process.
A company that transforms work instead of political & social discourse
So instead of having long discussions and trying to initiate such processes politically, we could simply do it. We could do it by enabling new forms of work without disregarding existing laws.
If you want to change the world, then start a company.
Let’s take a break from the existing analogies for a moment. At its core, a company is nothing more than a group of people who want to make a difference together. Talking about give and take is therefore actually quite distorted. I think a better and more contemporary division would be into workers and work organizers.
In order to make work in our society more flexible, free and intuitive, we need a central element – a place where workers and work organizers can meet. Supply and demand are bidirectional and, as already mentioned, the two roles are dual. A worker can also be a work organizer.
Key points of the business model
The company should offer the following components:
Profile
A platform on which each user (worker/work organizer) must detail their professional experience, training, strengths/weaknesses and wishes. In addition, information about availability must be available at all times. For example, “open for new tasks next month” or “not available until July 2019”.
Efficient merging of searchers
You will now say that LinkedIn already offers this and yes, LinkedIn does cover some of it. But when it comes to mapping detailed work experience or availability information, things get difficult. However, these two components are essential so that I, as a work organizer, can efficiently and reliably search for suitable workers.
If a critical mass of people use the system, today’s complex intermediate steps will become obsolete in one fell swoop. For example, the recruiting area with headhunters, job postings and much more. An area that is actually still incredibly inefficient today.
Contracting (via blockchain)
The company should then serve as a virtual hub for the contracting of employment relationships. In other words, jobseekers and work organizers conclude standardized contracts. The legal status of the jobseekers or workers is initially irrelevant. This can be anyone, from an employee in a company, to the self-employed, to companies.
This type of contract organization, which is admittedly quite complex in the international environment, makes it easy for job seekers and job organizers to get into the doing. Today, contracts and everything that goes with them are incredibly inefficient. With the platform, the administrative part of the job matching process should in fact take no longer than 2 minutes. After that, you can get to work.
Remuneration of employees
A central element of the business model should be its own cryptocurrency. This has advantages in many respects:
- Protecting the economic interests of community members from external, politically driven influences by controlling the values independently, i.e. collectively, provided a critical mass is reached.
- Massive reduction in transaction costs
- Possibility to expand your field of activity later
- Obvious starting point for the monetization of the business model, in which a small margin is “billed” to the company on every transaction.
The remuneration may be based on criteria that the parties agree independently. This can be a unit of time, but does not have to be. I assume that the longer the time, the less time is billed.
The currency can be sold by all members in exchange for conventional currencies. Work can also be remunerated by the platform, but only in its own currency. Having your own currency is also a relatively good funding instrument.
Quality assurance through evaluations
Being able to judge the quality of work in advance is fundamental. I think everyone who has ever hired employees has been wrong about their qualifications. It is sometimes quite difficult to assess potential employees correctly.
The platform should therefore make it mandatory to rate all services. In this way, a detailed performance profile of all members can be created. A profile that is really meaningful.
Insurance & employment with the “platform”
All participants pay a small portion of their remuneration via the platform into a type of social insurance. This supports platform members who have been paid by various other members over a longer period of time and have received a rating that is at least equal to the average.
In order to avoid any legal problems in terms of bogus self-employment, it should be possible to be employed by the “platform”. A low “political” minimum wage would be agreed in order to minimize the risk and, in addition, remuneration would be paid in line with actual performance.
In this case, the employment contract only serves to comply with regulatory requirements. It enables anyone and everyone to integrate easily into the work ecosystem.
Simple collaboration
With such an option, finding and organizing outside of existing contractual situations becomes possible in the simplest possible way.
It is important that as many workers as possible are active on the platform, regardless of whether they are currently working for a company or not. The platform makes it possible to exchange work and organize it flexibly.
For workers, this means having a lot of freedom to do what they like to do. For work organizers, it means having the opportunity to put together teams in the shortest possible time or to deploy specialists for specific tasks for a limited period of time.
For companies, this opportunity means that they can offer their employees the chance to exchange ideas and do exciting work without having to put in a lot of effort. Everyone benefits from this exchange.
Brain dump
So much for my brain dump on this topic. I am already aware that it is neither round nor complete. But it’s pretty crazy. But don’t be put off. Many of these developments are coming our way and in the end, the best offer will decide. I am convinced that the traditional organization of work, as we have cultivated it for the last 200 years, will no longer be the best offer for workers in the future.
Because if today’s employees suddenly have the opportunity to organize their work differently, better and more flexibly than in a permanent position, they will do so from one day to the next. This is what this project must aim for in order to be successful.
If anyone would like to discuss this or initiate concrete steps, go ahead. As always, everything is open source.
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