Creator Economy in a Job-Centric World
It's a very practical thing, businesses.
In anyone else's company, you — as the employee — are just the expense. And in some cases, the greatest expense.
When you see the company's Profit and Loss statements, and you look at the line — "Staff Remuneration" — often that is one of the largest expenses.
Last time it used to be rent of office spaces. But then companies cut rent due to more employees working from home. So what else can the employers squeeze out of their operating expenses?
Well, more work for less wages. And that is what I have experienced in the several corporate jobs that I had. Like I said in my previous post, I've quit jobs for good.
How do we replace it with something better?
I know this is not for everyone — for myself, I would love a system where creators can make a living from their own creativity. Where they can show the world what they have to offer.
When in a job do you ever showcase your gifts? You probably only utilize 5% of your talent and it is supposed to represent 100% of who you are. But as a creator, you get to show the multi-faceted parts of yourself.
And you get to set your hours. If you're really passionate about the thing, you will put in the hours. It is just not at some arbitrary schedule like 9 to 5, or 9 to 6 — or the most common right now which is 8 to 8, with some breaks in between I guess.
You can't really be lounging on the beach in the afternoon when it's sunny, even though you really feel like it and your kids are clamouring for you to go out. You can't. Because you have a job — and you have a meeting with Bob at 4. Right?
So you're not really free, even though there's remote work. You're still chained to your employer in a very tangible, almost vicious, way.
Like it or not, they have the greater power over you. They have the power to heap more work onto your plate, to tell you to take on this project and that project and burn you out. All the while offering you little to no share of the profits, which you have helped to generate for the company.
You might have saved the company a $1 million, for example. But how much bonus are you honestly going to get? Merely a small fraction of that $1 million. You don't get to capture that value which you have created.
I mean, to be fair to the business owners: if I was a business owner, I would do the same thing. Not that I see myself as a business owner with employees — just a solo creator.
It is too much time managing people and their differing incentives. At the end of the day, people want to see "what's in it for me?"
And if you don't offer them incentives to do their work well, they're just going to resent you. If you shove them more work at the same amount of pay, or even dock their pay and take away all their benefits, what quality of work do you think you'll receive?
They'll just be looking at every opportunity to skive.
And how can you blame them? How can you blame them?
This job-centric system needs a change. There needs to be a very tangible opportunity for creators to make their own living.
And when that's the case — when supply of skilled labour drops and the demand outstrips supply for these companies — maybe then they'll be forced to treat their employees better.
Maybe then the employees will have greater bargaining power to negotiate better pay and more benefits.
But I can tell you that with such tangible opportunities for creators to make their own living, the smartest, the most talented and most creative won't go back.
They will just be creators on their own terms.
Photo 1 by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash
Photo 2 by Marten Bjork on Unsplash
