A guide for the age of flexible working

It is estimated that by 2020 more than half of the workers in the U.S. will be doing some kind of extra work along with their day jobs. 

According to Deloitte, “Driven by accelerating connectivity, new talent models, and cognitive tools, work is changing. As robotics, AI, the gig economy and crowds grow, jobs are being reinvented, creating the ‘augmented workforce.’ We must reconsider how jobs are designed and work to adapt and learn for future growth.”

I could make thousands of more predictions and give quotations to support the fact that the way we are working is changing according to people’s shifting understanding of how a job should be.

I believe that since we are living with this new reality, most of us understand what the future of work is. However, what most of us cannot do is find a way to begin. Where should a person start from if she wants a freelance job? Where should a company go if they want an experienced manager for a project?

Luckily, the Turkish business society is very good with catching up on trends when they want to. There are many wonderful platforms full of opportunities. I will try to mention a few of them. The freelance market in Turkey is sophisticated enough that there has been diversification of platforms in accordance to needs.

Armut.com is the biggest platform especially for services like painting or cleaning houses and offices. Mutlubiev is a vertical market platform focusing on housecleaning alone.

If you are looking for a fast way to hire blue-collar workers, then there are two main options. The first one is a mobile application called 24saatteiş, which promises to find a job or a worker in 24 hours. The second is the kariyer.net-backed İşinolsun mobile application.

If you are looking for a senior specialist, then there is only one choice: Expertera. They are leading the way for experienced individuals to work in freelance jobs.

Creative jobs are the most competitive and most crowded market of all. However, they are all clones of Fiver. Sanaluzman’s founder Niyazi Bekiroğlu, who also owns a software company, told me that his own need for a specialist in one of his companies’ biggest projects laid the foundation for Sanaluzman. His own experience working with a coder based in Moscow was so life-changing that he wanted to implement it in Turkey on a larger scale. Sanaluzman is a platform for freelance creative works. However, it has a few major differences than the platforms that already exist. First of all, they work with İyzico and never get involved in money transactions. The payments are made through İyzico if both parties are satisfied with each other. The employer opens a vacancy for a creative job, then the creatives get in touch with the employer; if the parties agree, they both sign NDAs and service level agreements before the work starts. The agreed fee is reduced from the employer’s credit card but İyzico doesn’t make the payment unless the work is completed. If there is a dispute, then a panel of referees from Sanaluzman intervenes and tries to find a common ground between the two parties. This is unique to Sanaluzman as far as I know. Also, they have an application called SincApp, which records the working sessions of the freelancer if they want to. Therefore, in disputed situations, the creative has a tool to prove that she worked as agreed upon.

I wish Sanaluzman and all the other platforms well. Let’s see what the future of work holds for us.