The passive revolt

Where are we these days with the Charles Handy Portfolio Lifestyle?  Maybe further than we realise!  Are 85% of us passive job seekers or just full; over brimming with work, short of time, full of skills.  I hear trades people asking not to be recommended to anyone else; they have too much as it is, why take on more work, more hassle, more taxes, responsibilities, risks etc.

I often find myself despairing, seeing poor service and shoddy work but have to remind myself, that most employees are, well, employees - so why should they care that much?  Seth Godin recently asked 'Where are all the tweakers?' and was inundated with offers.  Busy, but still wanting a bit more. 

I often quote a phrase with business acquaintances: 'After 1 or 2 years of being self-employed, one is unemployable'.  Capable, skilled, but unemployable.  We can no longer work in the traditional manner of 9-5, pensions, performance appraisals etc.  We work the hours we choose to work, our revenues/profits are our performance appraisals, reviews with our managers (customers) are ongoing.  And as we do not come cheap, funnily enough we don't have too many meetings for the sake of it. 

So, is it really the case that of the so called 85% of passive job seekers, those that read blogs, participate in forums, use RSS to control the data flow, meet in Starbucks, work from home, stay mobile, stay lean and virtual, but NEVER visit job boards - are revolting, have revolted?  We are not looking for a 'job' but short term 'tweaks'.  Maybe we are active 'job tweakers'!!

If we therefore take the 100% and just for now assume the split shows that 15% are active job seekers, 45% are passive (not 85%) and 40% are tweakers.  How can any corporate recruiter really expect to convert the 45% or 40% over to 'real jobs' without real human contact?  What if you have a really important, customer facing, revenue generating role but can't fill it?  Surely a contractor won't do such a good job as an employee.  Do you leave the job vacant or just get a contractor in, just for long enough.  Don't commit too long - cost too much - hence it won't work.  So what to do?  That's the challenge with growth - you need great people to grow.  But what if you only want to be big on service, skills, profit but not big on time, customers, employees or revenue.   What if you can earn more (money) for less (time) and one bad day in the office makes you an 'active job seeker'.  Why change to take a real job? 

If the 40% (or more) are of this mindset, where does it leave the fight for the passive 45% (or less).  A damn sight tougher than suggested but sshhhhh, don't tell anyone, it would spoil the party!!!