A New Way to Work

Portfolio careers may be the future of work and financial resilience

New Rules Media created this original image.

Today, some workers are eschewing a traditional 9-5 in favor of a portfolio career. This means working multiple part-time jobs or combining full- and part-time employment across industries, monetizing skills with multiple income streams by incorporating side hustles, multiple part-time jobs, or freelance work. Is it the right move for you?

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WASHINGTON—While in her previous role as director of the Wallis Annenberg GenSpace, a community space from the Annenberg Foundation in Los Angeles focused on aging and longevity, Jennifer Wong found herself asking, “How can I do more?” Wong, who had previously assisted the California Department of Aging in developing Governor Newsom’s Master Plan on Aging, decided to leave and “lean into” a portfolio career in consulting, allowing her to use the skills she developed over her career for the projects she wants to do.

So, what is a portfolio career? According to The Portfolio Collective, a UK-based global online community for portfolio professionals, every career is unique, but there are roughly four types: those who take on a diverse mix of unrelated projects (often all at the same time), side hustlers, freelancers, and focused experts. These are often associated with individuals who are highly educated and, perhaps, have higher incomes. However, folks with lower incomes can also engage in a portfolio career but they may work multiple part-time jobs, for example.

Wong notes that the world's weight was lifted off her shoulders when she left and went out on her own, allowing her more free time and the opportunity to pick and choose the projects she wanted to do. By launching her own consultancy as a solopreneur this year, Wong opened herself up to do more, putting her expertise to work on various subjects, from aging to the environment to succession planning.

She shared that finding balance in the number of clients she takes on and her pricing model has been challenging but worth it. She credits her coach, who has helped her develop a business model that works for her, as a key part of her success.

Wong is not unique. She is one of millions of workers worldwide who have taken the leap into a portfolio career, and whether these individuals realize it or not, they are remaking the future of work.

The State of Work is Bleak

There’s a fraught relationship between employers and their employees, which only appears to be getting worse.

More than half of global professionals have ambitions that aren’t tied to any particular company, and this year, Gallup found U.S. employees were “increasingly detached from their employers, with the workforce reporting less role clarity, lower satisfaction with their organizations and less connection to their companies’ mission or purpose.”

Stela Lupushor, founder of Reframe.Work and co-author of the book Humanizing Human Capital: Invest in Your People for Optimal Business Returns, believes burnout is a big driver in disengagement, especially for midlife women in leadership roles. These women must not only manage a demanding career but also caregiving responsibilities at home for their children and parents.

“We need to look at it from the trigger; what pushes people versus what makes them stay,” according to Lupushor. “Increasingly, more and more of these stories (about individuals trying a portfolio career) are about burnout.”

This disengagement is problematic for employers, notes Jim Harter, Gallup’s Chief Scientist of Workplace Management and Wellbeing. “Employee engagement trends are significant because they link to many important performance outcomes crucial to organizational leaders such as productivity, employee retention, customer service, safety incidents, quality of work and profitability,” he wrote.

At the same time, many Americans are concerned about their financial security, including losing their job or the increasing cost of living, so alternate or diverse sources of income may be more attractive than in the past. In a survey of 1,200 workers earlier this year, the online marketing firm Authority Hacker found that more than half (54.58%) of full-time workers have increased concerns about their job security. And while Americans overwhelmingly say they're "doing at least OK financially," most remain worried about rising prices, and 1 in 6 says they have bills they can't pay, according to a recent report by the Federal Reserve.

Renegotiate Work

Brie Abramowicz, a Portland-based portfolio career coach and founder of Build with Brie, who helps entrepreneurial clients create income streams separate from their 9-5, believes these trends are coming together to remake the future of work. “We’ve outsourced our idea of financial security to job security,” she shared. “People want to protect themselves financially, especially elder Millennials; they’re also interested in creating their own legacy.”

A 2023 survey confirmed Abramowicz’s observations. The distribution of freelance workers across generations included about 15% GenZ, 45% Millennials, 27% GenX, and 9% Baby Boomers. However, a higher share of younger populations are beginning to contribute to gig work, a component of portfolio careers, due to the rise of online content creation and social media influencer culture on platforms like TikTok.

According to the Gig Economy Data Hub, a project of the Aspen Institute's Future of Work Initiative and Cornell University's ILR School, at least 41 million U.S. workers are engaged in some form of gig work. These workers generally reflect the composition of the workforce in terms of racial demographics. Hispanic, Latino, and African American workers tend to engage in temp or on-demand work, while whites tend to work as consultants, freelancers, or fractional experts.

But it is not just younger workers who should consider a portfolio career, argues Colleen Madsen, an Edmonton-based retirement and career coach and founder of the Experience Group. She believes that a portfolio career can help individuals guard against ageism and unexpected layoffs or ease into retirement while providing additional financial security. “People really need to sit back and think about other possibilities (than retirement),” she shared.

Swimming Upstream

Employers, especially those in the startup or growth phase, like hiring fractional workers and consultants, according to Lupushor, but not all companies are thrilled about the prospect of their employees engaging in this type of work. “For employers, one of the most significant advantages is flexibility,” she explained. “The ability to scale the workforce up or down based on demand allows businesses to respond more agilely to market conditions without the fixed costs associated with full-time employees.”

Lupushor also shared that some employers have taken measures to block their workers from engaging in portfolio careers, either through explicit employment contracts or limiting remote or flexible work arrangements. However, as Abramowicz noted, “We all want to architect our own futures,” which may be increasingly at odds with employers who believe they have a degree of ownership of their employees or do not value autonomy or flexibility.

Those who may be interested in a portfolio career may struggle to express their skill set when setting out, especially if they have been with one company for a long time. Madsen suggests that individuals create a dossier in addition to their resume, expressing what they can do or want to do, not just jobs they’ve had in the past or their age.

Starting a business from scratch requires financial risk, according to Ellen Donnelly, a London-based entrepreneur coach and founder of The Ask., especially if the person leaves a full-time job and goes all in. “To do so requires either external funding or having a financial safety net in the form of savings,” she shared via email. “Both of which can be harder for women who typically earn less.” However, she notes that a portfolio career actually hedges against financial risk, providing some stability and freedom.

Unlike their full-time peers, those with portfolio careers may need to take control over what their previous employers handled, like health and retirement savings plans. And then, of course, there are psychosocial challenges associated with moving out of a traditional office setting to one that might be remote, from where most of your meetings were in-person to one where most are over Zoom.

“Portfolio careers are by no means a new thing, but they’re growing faster than anticipated,” according to Ben Legg, co-founder and CEO of The Portfolio Collective. “And that creates new problems — a lack of belonging, no one to hold you accountable and an isolated workforce navigating a disconnected world. We aim to change that by providing a community where portfolio professionals can connect, learn together and share opportunities, ultimately recreating the sense of belonging they had in an office setting.”

So, should you consider a portfolio career? That’s dependent upon your overall risk and needs assessment, which is unique for each person. However, for those seeking greater fulfillment, freedom, and financial opportunities, this approach to work offers an alternate path to the traditional 9-5. In the end, a portfolio career requires individual resilience and the ability to be comfortable with change.

“It takes a strong fish to swim upstream,” says Madsen, “but a dead one can float with the current all day long.”