#makeworkworkforyou

Thinking of making a career transition? Our co-founder Jenny Galluzzo outlines 3 essential steps to set yourself up for success and #makeworkworforyou!  

1. Be Open

2. Be Confident

3. Break the Rules 

Recently some of you, our amazing Second Shift members, took part in a survey about YOU! What are you looking for? How do you currently work? How do you interact with our platform? The results are very interesting and give us insights and direction as we grow this community and business.

Here is what we learned:

HOWEVER! This is where things get interesting…

96% have not yet attended a Second Shift event!  This year we have been to Seattle, NY, SF and LA. Look out DC, Chicago and Boston we are coming in late 2018. Please come to a member event-- it’s such a great way to network, meet clients and learn new skills.

So how do you find out about events and other interesting opportunities?? Our blog and social media!!!

Yet....more than half of the survey respondents do not follow us on social media!!! This is seriously disappointing because we work really hard to provide interesting content and behind the scenes intel about jobs and community.

Follow us so that you don’t miss out on exciting opportunities, events, perks, promotions and JOBS!

Click the links below to follow us-- it’s that easy! 

Instagram

Facebook 

Linked In

“My point is, you have to have insane confidence in yourself, even if it’s not real. You need to be your own cheerleader now, because there isn’t a room full of people waiting with pom‑poms to tell you, “You did it! We’ve been waiting all this time for you to succeed!” So, I’m giving you permission to root for yourself. And while you’re at it, root for those around you, too. It took me a long time to realize that success isn’t a zero-sum game. “ 

Well here is some good news for women—a New York Post article shouts out women in their 40s and 50s who face both age and sex discrimination when they are at the most capable point in their careers! One of our core values is to be a grown up and there is a reason why...

“The truth is midlife women, with all that experience under their belts, who have ridden the rapids of family life and juggled duty and caring, make the most terrific employees. As one senior woman in financial services told me: “Of course I can handle difficult clients. I’m the mother of 15-year-old twins for heaven’s sake. I can handle anything!”

Have you listened to Abby Wambach's commencement address to the 2018 graduates of Barnard College? She focuses on her career and how women are socialized from a young age to be grateful for what they get, no matter how hard they worked for it. That lack of confidence and feeling of obsequious gratitude directly influences our careers and results in unequal pay and opportunities for advancement. We see it all the time--senior-level women with deep expertise who sell themselves short because they are grateful for any opportunity to work. Sound familiar?

“Like all little girls, I was taught to be grateful. I was taught to keep my head down, stay on the path, and get my job done. I was freaking Little Red Riding Hood.

You know the fairy tale: It’s just one iteration of the warning stories girls are told the world over. Little Red Riding Hood heads off through the woods and is given strict instructions: Stay on the path. Don’t talk to anybody. Keep your head down hidden underneath your Handmaid’s Tale cape.

And she does… at first. But then she dares to get a little curious and she ventures off the path. That’s of course when she encounters the Big Bad Wolf and all hell breaks loose. The message is clear: Don’t be curious, don’t make trouble, don’t say too much or BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.....

If I could go back and tell my younger self one thing it would be this:“Abby, you were never Little Red Riding Hood; you were always the wolf.”

Love that so much and it just gets better from there. No spoilers here-- it’s worth watching the whole speech for yourself. But, here is one more section that aligns perfectly with our Second Shift ethos. 

“As you go out into the world: Amplify each others’ voices. Demand seats for women, people of color and all marginalized people at every table where decisions are made. Call out each other’s wins and just like we do on the field: claim the success of one woman, as a collective success for all women.

Joy. Success. Power. These are not pies where a bigger slice for her means a smaller slice for you. These are infinite. In any revolution, the way to make something true starts with believing it is. Let’s claim infinite joy, success, and power—together.

Wolf Pack: Her Victory is your Victory. Celebrate it.”

We give the gift of this speech to you. Enjoy it!

The Majority of the Workforce will be Freelancers in Just Ten Years

A New Study by Upwork and the Freelancers Union Provides a Lens into the Future of Work

Last month, a new study on the future of work by Upwork and the Freelancers Union looked at the growing number of freelancers to see how the gig-economy is growing. The study revealed some interesting statistics about the freelance workforce; we took a deep dive into the results:

·       57.3M people freelance.

·       Only 10% of freelance workers like the name gig-economy – they prefer freelance economy—(we agree!)

·       63% of freelancers think having several sources of income and multiple clients more secure than one – the average freelancer has 4.5 clients a month.

Here’s the who, what, where, when, why and how of the freelance economy:

Who is the driving force behind this rapid change?

“Almost half of working millennials (47%) freelance.” As a result, the common negative perception of freelance as a primary earnings method shifted, with 67% of people agreeing that it’s a stable form of work.

What is likely to keep the freelance economy going?

“Freelancers are more realistic about artificial intelligence’s (AI) impact than non-freelancers.” As a result, they are more likely to seek the training they need to continue to compete in a technologically changing workplace -- “65% of full-time freelancers are updating their skills to ensure that they are marketable as the job market evolves.”

Where are freelancers earning their living?

The majority of the freelance economy isn’t moonlighting; 29% work full-time, 53% work part-time, and only 16% work occasionally for extra income in addition to another traditional job. “Most freelancers started within the last three years,” and freelancers are increasingly choosing to join the freelance economy by choice, which is indicative of a move to towards more creative outlets to earn a living, often not requiring formal education. Freelancers are finding their work through friends and family, professional contacts and social media – personal connections are more powerful then technological ones—(something we hope we are solving!)

When are freelancers working?

“Most freelance weekly: freelancers indicate, on average, having 27 different clients within their last six months of work,” and 52% of freelancers will work for the same clients repeatedly on different projects with most full-time freelancers working 36 hours per week. Among workers who find their projects online, 77% start their projects within a week – 21% start the same day.

Why is freelancing the wave of the future?

“54% of the entire U.S. workforce is not very confident that the work they do today is likely to exist in 20 years,” and both traditional and freelance workers agree. The study goes on to differentiate that freelancers are more aware of how their work is changing due to increased AI and robotics used in the workplace. Ultimately, the data reveals that the changing nature of the freelance workforce makes them more adaptable and is why they are likely to outnumber traditional workers in ten years time. Perhaps more importantly, 77% of workers believe that these same technological improvements are making it easier for them to find freelance work.

How will this impact our economy?

The numbers don’t lie, the freelance economy is good for the U.S.; “freelancers contribute approximately $1.4 trillion to the U.S. economy annually – an increase of almost 30% since last year.” Part of the economic boost comes from freelancer’s preference to purchase their own benefits in the marketplace; 67% agree that “a healthy freelance economy boosts America’s middle class.” A current practice they’re likely to be able to continue because 72% of freelancers are willing to vote across party lines for candidates that support the freelance economy. They’ll be able to have a tangible financial impact on elections as well because 36% earn $75,000 or more – double the percentage that did from 2014. Further to, 66% say they earn more in the freelance economy then they did in a traditional workplace; 75% of them earned more in just their first year, with 37% earning more immediately.

One last interesting fact: “Freelancers skew more male than U.S. workers overall.” Ladies, given all the benefits the freelance economy brings, let’s get out there!

Recently NY Times writer David Leonhardt made the case that prejudice against women with children, or “momism,” in the field of journalism is the main reason why men are disproportionately represented at every level in the media workplace.  

“Women do almost as well as men today,” Jane Waldfogel, a Columbia University profession, has said, “as long as they don’t have children.”

This story is incredibly personal for me because it mirrors my own. I started out in journalism as a wide-eyed intern at World News Tonight with Peter Jennings hoping to be the next Christiane Amanpour. Over the years I worked my way through internships and local news affiliates finally earning a master's degree in journalism at Columbia University. Amongst other freelance work, I worked in booking at Good Morning America, as a reporter/camera operator/editor at a local news channel in the Bronx, and as a producer and talk show host at Plum TV.

Journalism is a cutthroat career with a relentless and punishing schedule. There were very few role models for how to have a successful working marriage, family and career. At each stage of my career the signposts were not pleasant for working mothers: Not one of my female bosses or professors were married or had children. It was incredibly disheartening to look around a newsroom and not see anybody whose life you wanted to emulate, career yes, personal life no.

Leonhardt quotes from a recent article in Poynter, “The news business is unfair to journalists with children…” it continues, they “say they have few role models in management who demonstrate what it means to have a viable balance between work and caregiving responsibilities.”

When my children were born I made the decision to pivot my career to a different field. It wasn’t only the lack of role models that inspired this decision—my husband had just launched a start-up and the intensity of that endeavor upended our family balance, but equally important, the television news business had changed and was a decidedly less exciting place to work crazy hours with little monetary reward.  

It turned out that transitioning my skills and experience was not easy, and the struggle I faced inspired me to co-found The Second Shift. There are many women like me, who want to continue working but need a way to remain engaged and useful when the path they are on is no longer an option. That is what The Second Shift solves—we offer a way for the workforce to retain talented women by providing a path in and out of the full-time workforce without completely giving up their careers.

To this day I am a die-hard news junkie; I have profound love and respect for the hard work of journalists and the media. I have deep admiration for my friends and colleagues who stuck it out and managed to keep their careers going while having multiple children and somehow balancing it all (you know who you are and kudos!) My hope is that women coming up in their careers will have different options open to them and a world that is more forgiving and offers more flexibility. I miss working in the news world and telling stories that affect society at large. However, I know that through The Second Shift I am making a difference in our member’s lives and changing the landscape for all working women.