Payback

Today I’ve launched the latest Corporate Escapology podcast with Katie Elliott – you can watch on YouTube or listen on Spotify.

Katie has worked for more than fifteen years in HR – she describes herself as an “HR Generalist” which I find a bit of a reductive term because what it really means is she knows an awful lot of things.  This whole Specialist vs Generalist thing got my goat at BP and it still does now.  The world needs Generalists to solve the world’s big problems – read David Epstein’s Range if you don’t believe me.

Off the soapbox Forbes, this is Katie’s story. The reason I wanted to have Katie on the podcast is because she’s done something very interesting. She left her HR job just after all the lockdowns when her employer assumed she’d go back to the office. She had other ideas, resigned and went freelance.

She only works part-time freelance because she’s building something she calls the HR Hub.  It’s a subscription service aimed at very small businesses and scale-ups who can’t really justify a dedicated HR Manager but want to know they’re on the right side of the law and doing the right thing by their people.

Katie has literally packaged up 15 years of experience into a font of knowledge that she is now commercialising. In theory she can earn while she sleeps, although she does offer a monthly zoom call with each of her clients to problem-solve and coach.

It made me wonder how many of us could do the same?

With all our incredible know-how and experience.

There’s a glut of online training courses so maybe don’t focus there, but a subscription service that has a blended live video-call component, could be what many businesses are looking for.

In the book there’s a chap called David whose story I tell who does something similar, although it’s not a subscription – he offers his expertise out by the hour with his clients paying by a credit card in advance. Easy for the expenses for his clients, super easy for him on the admin – and no chasing payments.  Also he chooses when he’s available to work and when he’s retired (which he’s supposed to be).

I guess you could argue I’m on the same spectrum as them having packaged up my knowledge and research over the years into Corporate Escapology (available for pre-order) – write it once and offer it out many times. But it is making me think whether I should blend a new online course I’m building to refresh last year’s (more aligned with the book) with some kind of virtual coaching online. It might be worth a try.

We are really fortunate these days that there are so many opportunities to make money without necessarily being employed. The idea when I was growing up that by 50 I might work in this pretty fluid way would never have entered my head; definitely not my parents’ heads.

And yet my children think it’s quite normal. Neither of my daughters wants a conventional job. I hope they’re not going to be disappointed.

In many ways I’m not sure they deserve what we have – not yet anyway.

Katie earned it with her 15 years building that knowledge, so did David and me too. It’s like a long-term investment we each made that’s now paying back.

It’s just never been easier.

Give it a try? Drop me a line if you want some help.