The First 15 Years

​When I published ‘Work it Out – how to find the work you always wanted in a shifting jobs market’ 15 years ago, I believed that our future would no longer typically be built by climbing a single career ladder.

Instead, we would build it piece by piece, combining different opportunities, different skills and different sources of income to take us in the direction that was important to us. I called those pieces ‘Workpieces’.

Today we have freelancing, flexible working, portfolio careers, part-time jobs, digital products, online selling, side businesses, social media marketing, the wider gig economy and now, AI working.

But there was another idea in the book that I believe matters even more today and that is that none of us can build our future alone. We all have different gifts, different experiences and different connections. Everyone is good at something!

When we work together, we don’t just find opportunities for ourselves, we help create opportunities for one another. And as we help one another succeed, something even more important begins to emerge - we build community.

Over the past fifteen years I’ve seen this happen time and time again across Ireland and the UK. People flourish when they stop competing with each other as individuals and begin working together as colleagues. When they stop simply chasing jobs and start building what really matters to them, we see them unlock their potential.

Yet, despite everything that has changed, much of our employability system still operates as though the world hasn’t moved on.

We are still delivering programmes and trying to match people into jobs rather than building personal value. We are still measuring success by referrals and outputs instead of relationships, confidence, contribution and community.

Meanwhile, AI is changing the nature of work faster than any of us imagined. And if the nature of work itself is changing, surely the way we help people build their futures must change too?

Rather than focusing solely on employability programmes, I think we need to pause and think about work in a different way - not as something we have to chase but as something that’s already part of what we have and who we are.

And if we can work with each other we can unlock all of this. This isn’t just theory - it’s what my colleagues and I have been supporting for 15 years.

Work it Out begins it’s UK-wide PILOT in August. It’s available for all local authorities.