Each week, I tend to talk with 2-4 new “fractionally curious” people about how to break into this type of lifestyle.* I believe this growing curiosity in fractional work is the signal of a broader trend worth noting.
Before the pandemic, when a startup executive burned out or left their jobs, they typically opted for one of three paths: Get a new job right away, move to a more affordable market and change careers, or, take 6 months off to tinker on projects, then re-emerge as a startup founder or a VC (lol).
But then came the glorious era of “anything goes” remote work. People worked three jobs at once and didn’t get caught! People didn’t work at all and didn’t get caught! I personally felt like I lived a double life for a full six months. I worked a full-time, Zoom-based job from Australia, finishing by noon local time each day, and then enjoyed my afternoons COVID-free with the Aussies. That was the first time I realized it might be possible to have it all.
For many of us, this period introduced a new possibility about what life could be like when we let our work lives and our home lives slip into each other a little bit more.
And guess what? We liked it. We liked the feeling of inviting our colleagues into our homes (metaphorically), of recognizing that humans are humans who have real human stuff going on outside of work. We started to invite the concepts of play and experiment into our professional roles.
I perceive today’s increased interest in people pursuing fractional work as a signal that some of us (maybe most of us?) simply don’t fit in boxes.
I’ve said this before but it’s worth repeating: The 9-5 job model, based on the premise that one could only work in one place at a time, is outdated. But that’s not true anymore. Thanks to technology, we can be in two places (or more). We can work faster than ever.
People who ask me about working fractionally are no longer asking the question, “What’s my dream job?” They are asking, “What’s my dream lifestyle?” And they are asking because they know that anything is on the table right now.
The Future is Fractional
This shift in mindset is reflected in the growing number of people reaching out to me for advice about going fractional.
After yesterday’s post, two more recently fractional or fractional-curious people contacted me. I will probably get another 1-2 people to reach out after today’s post. I don’t mind. I love meeting newly fractional people, both because I really want to help normalize this mindset and because there’s always a little voice in the back of my head suggesting, “Maybe we could we work together on something, sometime.”
I do notice there’s a particular profile of a wannabe fractional worker (at least the kind of person who contacts me, which is obviously biased in itself). They tend to be:
Common Characteristics of a Fractional Worker
Senior enough in their career to carry the confidence to go out on their own
Connected enough to have companies or projects to get going as their “starter set” of fractional work
Able to turn on a dime and pivot into many directions quickly
Generally curious about exploring many possible paths at once
Motivated to work based on things other than earning as much as possible on a paycheck
Entrepreneurially inclined, either to start their own consulting business, content business, or some other more scalable long-term outcome
But one of the most exciting trends I’ve seen among future fractionals is that they are coming from the full range of domain expertise. Fractional operations, sales, business development, product, engineering, design, brand, you name it.
I’m particularly attuned to these trends because I spent two years working at Bolster, a talent marketplace for executives looking for new full time, board, or fractional roles. What we observed was — any type of role could go fractional. And we weren’t the only ones. Startups like A Team and Huddle and Continuum have built businesses around the concept of helping smash together “pickup project teams” that can quickly come together and work on a contract or project basis for a fixed period of time. Networks like Fractionals United, Fractional Connections, and fractionaljobs.io all exist to help this rapidly growing talent network find each other, and find work, together.
The supply side is there. Now it’s about unlocked demand among employers and hiring managers for this new paradigm of work.
All the Colleagues You’ve Loved Before
What would it be like to work with all of your favorite people again?
It’s a terrible job market right now. I know this. Really, I do. In addition to hearing from newly fractional people, I’m also hearing from 1-2 people each week who were recently laid off or from college grads who literally can’t get a first job right now. This sucks. As a person who graduated college in the midst of a recession, I get how demoralizing this can be.
But I also know that terrible job markets invite incredible opportunities. The macroeconomic conditions right now are exciting because the level of talent fluidity is insanely high. Put simply, nearly everyone is on the job market.
If you’re mid-career and looking to pivot, think back to everyone you've ever worked with before—wouldn’t you love to work with them on a project again? What could you build together? How many shortcuts could you overcome because you already know each other’s working styles and tendencies? How great would it be to tap someone in just for the discrete part of the project where you know they’d do a better job than anyone else in the world?
If you’re a fractional worker, how can you set yourself up in a way where you’re exclusively taking projects that fit exactly the type of work you want to do and the way you want to get it done?
I’m personally really excited about the network collapse that is happening around talent in the workforce right now. I can’t wait to see what new ideas will germinate as a result.
*You may notice that this is the same first sentence from my blog post yesterday. But rather than write a post on the broader talent market trends, I wrote a lengthy how-to guide on time management for fractional workers. So I’m trying again today. Same starter prompt. Different essay.
