Every Friday afternoon, independent copywriter and marketer Nikki Pommer (24) turns off her telephone and e-mail. “Friday is my self-study day,” she says. “Then I am unreachable for customers and I want to be able to concentrate fully.” She is now following an online positive psychology course. Before this she did a course in public relations and media, and before that a course in writing for the web.
In addition to that free afternoon to learn new things, she reads an average of one book a week. “In the evenings I read work-related books,” she says. „For example, I have just Writing for SEO in 60 minutes from”, write a book about web texts that score with search engines. „That’s why I read recruiting with words.” Pommer not only likes to keep developing, she also finds it necessary. “My field is constantly changing and the competition is fierce.”
Actually, every working time should make for study, according to the Future of Jobs Report from the 2020 World Economic Forum. It is based on a survey of large companies in 15 industries across 26 developed and emerging countries. Conclusion: in the coming years, half of the working population will have to retrain or retrain.
Stay relevant
Taking a course every now and then is not enough, says Henk Volberda. The professor of Strategy and Innovation at the University of Amsterdam contributed to the report. “Workers must renew 40 percent of their current core activities to remain relevant in the 2025 labor market,” he says. “In addition, the pace at which we have to innovate is getting faster and faster.”
The fact that additional training is so urgently needed is mainly due to the digitization of society. According to the World Economic Forum, this will cost 85 million jobs over the next three years. Think of call center workers being replaced by automated systems, auto mechanics becoming obsolete because electric cars require less maintenance, and mail deliverers being passed by email.
On the other hand, another 97 million jobs will be created. “But,” says Volberda, “those jobs require new, specialist knowledge and are therefore not suitable for everyone. This concerns, for example, positions such as data analyst, digital transformation consultant or drone traffic controller.”
Employers seem to be more intensively involved in staff training than the self-employed. According to Ikwordzzper.nl zzp generally pay less attention to the importance of ‘lifelong development’. This site is based on research for the Social and Cultural Planning Office. That reported in 2019 that employees in 77 percent of Dutch institutions and companies undergo internal or external training. Among the self-employed, 41 percent followed a course or other training. This applied to 22 percent of the self-employed with a physically demanding profession.
Also read: ‘You have to train for four to eight hours a week’
tax deduction
Florian de Jager, policy advisor at FNV Self-employed, understands the difference between employees and freelancers. “As an employee, training is often arranged and paid for for you. The self-employed are responsible for this themselves.” And self-employed people who are short on cash will think twice before making such an investment ‘in themselves’, he says.
What didn’t make it any easier: up to and including 2021, a self-employed person could deduct training costs that are relevant to his company from income tax. That arrangement has now expired.
Instead, employees and the self-employed can apply for a so-called STAP budget (Stimulering Arbeidsmarkt) as of 1 March. For example, workers can receive a maximum of 1,000 euros per year for relevant vocational training. The advantage is that they no longer have to pre-finance study costs. The disadvantage of the new scheme is that many courses cost more than 1,000 euros per year. De Jager has a tip: “Take a look at an educational institution, branch organization or trade union. They often offer self-employed workers training and courses at low rates.”
According to the FNV member, it is crucial that the self-employed invest more in their own training. “If they invest little or no in new knowledge and skills, the difference between them and their salaried colleagues who do receive additional training becomes too great. As a self-employed person you eventually fall behind on the labor market.”
Short-term
Professor Volberda thinks that fear is justified. “In general, the self-employed tend to focus too much on the short term,” he explains. “Their focus is on taking work now and earning enough money. As a result, they forget to invest in the future.” Employers see this need. “It will be difficult for them to replace their entire workforce in the future.”
As an example, Volberda cites the American tech giant Google, where employees can spend 20 percent of their time on a project of their own choice. “That can also be learning something new. As long as it matches the mission and goals of the company.”
Self-employed people who do not invest in their knowledge and skills now will lose out in the long term. Volberda gives the example of an IT professional. “You can now die in the odd jobs, but if you don’t invest in mastering new software, you’ll soon be out of work.”
His advice to the self-employed: “Make sure you generate enough turnover in four working days and use the fifth day to brush up on your knowledge and come up with new services that you can offer” – even if those services do not immediately generate money.
New customers
Independent developer of ‘housing concepts’ Manon Verrijd (23) is already following this advice. She invests a lot of time and money in new knowledge. “I don’t save anything, but put everything I have left into training.” For example, she followed an interior design course one evening a week for a year and a half and participated unpaid in the TV program for a month. Tiny House Battle. „I needed a tiny house to design. That cost me so much time that I couldn’t take on paid assignments that month. But I have learned a lot from it and it has brought me new customers.”
For the next three months, she will attend a public speaking course. “If I can speak better, I can also present myself better to customers.” The course costs 3,500 euros. “Not cheap”, admits Verheid. “But I see it as an investment that pays for itself later.”
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of January 21, 2022
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