STAY ON THE FRONT FOOT

STRONG entrepreneurial and self-promotional skills will be needed for workers wanting to cash in on companies who want to employ freelance staff.

Workers will also need a high level of technical skills to compete in the so-called gig economy.

Studies suggest at least onethird of Australia’s workforce is involved in freelance, or independent contract, work.

However, Andrea Clarke, author of Future Fit: How to Stay Relevant and Competitive in the Future of Work, says that number is growing.

She expects Australia will follow in the lead of the United States, which will see most of its workforce become freelancers by 2027.

To take advantage of the freelance boom, Clarke says workers must have welldeveloped technical skills, as well as being adept at running their own business.

“While you’re (working as) an individual, you’re also a business, so you need to look at what’s happening across the industry you work in and think about what changes are expected to occur over that sector in the next five years and how you can stay ahead of that,’’ Clarke says.

She says many workers turn to freelancing after redundancy but the most successful freelancers intentionally shape their business reputation in advance of going out on their own.

“It’s the people who have a very well-curated profile, online and offline, that will be the ones that continually land the gig,’’ she says.

Freelance lawyer platform Alifery founder Louise Hvala says gig-economy workers will infiltrate all work sectors.

“Doctors have always used locum services and IT and marketing, and things like that have always been big in that (freelance) space – law is probably one of the last industries (to move to a gig economy),’’ she says.

Hvala says freelancers must have a proven reputation within their industry as well as strong business acumen. “A lot of our lawyers have done an MBA or other courses to help them come up to speed with the business side of things,’’ Hvala says.