Clarico Reacts: The Irish Times - What is Fractional Employment?
Clarico Reacts is a series where we publish our thoughts on new publications and content relevant to our favorite topic - People at Work. This post looks at the Irish Times article by Margaret E Ward entitled “What is Fractional Employment” and how can it offer late-career opportunities for executives?”
We are thrilled to see a national article shed light on flexible and creative ways of working. Fractional Employment, is defined in the article as an employment model where “experienced senior professionals such as chief finance, marketing or technology officers work part-time for multiple companies simultaneously. They provide high-level expertise and strategic guidance for a “fraction” of a full-time commitment”.
In todays professional society where we have a myriad of intergenerational issues ranging from Gen Z’s seeking to be multi-hyphenates and no longer aspiring to hold one single type of role or profession for their entire working lives, Milennials and Gen Xers raising families and becoming sandwich carers and Boomers working towards an every moving target of a retirement age, thinking of different ways of working outside of the traditional 9-5, 5 days a week is the way forward.
The Covid-19 pandemic shook the working world in terms of bringing remote working to the forer however there has been an element of course correcting in recent times as traditional employers veer back to the traditional 9-5, on-site model. While the traditional model no doubt has its merits in terms of office culture and learning support, the reality is our society has changed. Our workforce are juggling long commutes, tricky child care circumstances, health issues, rising living costs and insufficient transport systems amongst other things. Employers definitely need to be more flexible and progressive but remote working isn’t always the solution, nor should it be synonymous with flexibility. true flexibility is broader than simply offering remote roles. fractional employment is an example of true flexibility with benefits for both employers and employees alike.
The article explains that employers get the benefit of access to a broader, more affordable pool of talent and expertise while fractional employees avail of flexibility, diversity and are more protected than they would be as contractors receiving employment rights and benefits and and being integrated into the organisations they work for.
“Fractional roles are popular in the branding, marketing, product design, sales and technology sectors. Employees in these industries are used to working in the gig economy, or as freelancers, and once they’re senior enough, they may choose fractional ways of working instead of full-time roles at one company.”
We don’t see why the fractional model needs to be confined to specific industries or indeed to executive level roles. Whilst there are of course issues in certain industries with client and competitor confidentiality we do think this model of working could go far beyond the industries mentioned in the article. What is with noting is that whilst often historical employment contracts may have included stringent exclusive employment clauses, in 2022 the EU (Transparent and Predictable Working Conditions) Regulations shifted the legal position around exclusive employment and restricted employers from incorporating exclusivity clauses into their contracts. Restrictions by employers can still be provided for where it is proportionate and is based on objective grounds but the onus is on employers to impose these incompatibility restriction on particular employees and provide the employee with details of the restriction and the objective grounds relied upon by the employer in either the contract of employment or separately in writing to the employee. Nevertheless, the shift in legal position on this is indicative of the societal need and demand for ensuring people can take up multiple forms of employment.
“Workforce culture is evolving, and millennials are more conscious of having greater work/life balance, says Sabine Louet of SciencePod. “Pharmaceutical and technology companies are now substituting some of the roles traditionally filled by one very senior person with two or three more junior, fractional roles that can be replaced at will,” she says.”
In our view, the fractional employment model does not need to be confined to specific industries or indeed specific levels. Fractional employment could be an ideal solution for mid-level employees who often have caring responsibilities making full time employment tricky. It is a way of working that can be cost effective and efficient for employers but also offer employees flexibility, broader industry exposure and employee protection.
Employers adopting this model would of course have to consider the suitability for this model for each individual role they have but we are delighted to see outside of the box thinking being applied to our world and ways of working and applaud the Irish Times for publicising such a positive article on same. It’s certainly given us food for thought.
If you would like to discuss implementing Fractional Employment in your workplace or indeed other flexible models, please visit our HR Consultancy page.
Here are some more resources on Fractional Employment we also found helpful;