It’s the lifestyle trend that promotes happier work-life integration and it is growing rapidly.
Digital nomads are location independent global citizens, to whom working anywhere in the world is not a perk or a luxury, it is given. Why be tied to an office when technology makes it possible to work and communicate with businesses and teams across the globe?
Fast broadband, cloud computing, and a myriad of online collaboration tools allows for plenty of interactions with colleagues but also some focused productivity time, too. Telecommuting and distributed teams let employees work in an environment where they are most effective, happiest and as a result, their most productive.
The Western world has seen a shift in attitudes towards work in the last five years. The mind-shift has changed from “managing by seeing” to “managing by results”, which makes workforce global, without time zones or office hours.
The UK is currently home to a growing freelance economy – the highly skilled and in-demand knowledge workers - who are setting the rules of where and how they want to work; and companies that are short for the skills, have no other choice but to adjust.
Work as a concept has changed
Digital nomads value freedom over security and independence over regular income.
They aim to build their jobs around their lifestyle and not the other way around.
Teleport, a company that helps knowledge workers find the best place to work all over the world, found that startup founders, web developers, web designers, marketing, sales & product managers have the most opportunities to work globally.
But there are plenty of more traditional professions like lawyers, doctors and business consultants, who are enjoying the nomadic lifestyle.
To them, work-life balance is work-life integration (“balance” suggests that the work side of the scale is draining them out). Work is more than an income generation, it’s personal.
Digital nomads are valued for the personal knowledge that they possess, which gives them a competitive advantage.
The economy of self
Digital nomads are essentially freelance entrepreneurs, who are responsible for designing their own futures.
This represents a massive shift from agricultural, industrial, and information-based
economies, in which one’s responsibilities were clearly defined by others.
For the vast majority of the 20th century we plugged ourselves into corporations. We settled into suburban homes, aspired to climb the career ladder, bought stuff at the shopping mall and drove our cars on vast highways.
100 years later, most of these aspirations are outdated.
We refuse to sell our souls to buy a house that we can’t afford or buy fancy cars to impress people we don’t like.
“Career” has lost its meaning too, as it indicates to “carry” us throughout life. Career is now simply “work”. Work is a long term concept, that relates to the creation of a meaningful outcome. Work consists of different jobs/projects/gigs that we take on during our working lives.
As for buying stuff, commerce has moved online and on-demand shared car services make environmentally and financially a smarter choice for transportation than owning a car.
We are now seeing a rise of immaterial and individualized economy, and the
commoditization of personal knowledge.
Corporations rely more on freelance entrepreneurs on an ad-hoc basis, with young
professionals crafting businesses in “project economy” (Rieva Lesonsky 2011).
Entrepreneur economy leads to a greater mobility
This century we will popularize entrepreneurship, which will also change what it means to be an employee.
In the entrepreneur economy, the only thing that counts is results, but office attendance doesn’t necessarily mean productivity. Employees could take twice as long to complete a project than a remote employee, who isn’t interrupted with meetings, side conversations and manager enquiries.
The jobs associated with knowledge and information, are much less concerned with time and space.
Global competition, emerging skill shortages and the demands of the new generation are forcing companies to use their most highly paid talent more effectively. This means not being limited to only local talent and hiring globally.