So-called slasher careers that combine two or more jobs are becoming more common. Trainers are part of this trend.
An estimated one-third of U.S. workers—about 42 million people—no longer have traditional 9-to-5 jobs. People in this part of the workforce who hold more than one job sometimes are called "slashers"—those whose job titles include a slash, as in trainer/dog walker.
Some slashers have full-time jobs but work on the side to pursue a personal passion such as writing or coaching. Others, such as retirees and the laid-off, assemble portfolios of jobs to create more income or try new roles. Still others become slashers because they prefer to be their own bosses. Whatever the causes, the U.S. workforce includes a growing number of slashers. As Tina Brown, editor-in-chief of The Daily Beast and Newsweek, remarks: "No one I know has a job anymore. They've got gigs."
And organizations are happy to use slashers as resources. In a stagnant economy, many companies feel it is too risky to take on more full-time people, so they increasingly rely on armies of temporary, part-time, and contract workers to fill skills gaps. Trainers are part of the slasher army. Websites such as flexjobs.com and Monster.com list a variety of part-time, flextime, freelance, and telecommuting jobs for trainers and educators.
But not all slashers are temps or contract workers. Many in the training field combine traditional careers with other work to enjoy a variety of experiences. Jann Vandermeulen is a training manager/psychotherapist based in Ontario, Canada. He manages training for sales and account managers at Morneau Shepell, a firm that provides employee assistance programs. And he is a certified psychotherapist with a private counseling practice in anger management and cognitive behavioral therapy.
"I wanted to satisfy the counseling part of me," explains Vandermeulen. "I like splitting myself between two roles that allow me to do different things."
One challenge, he says, is that it takes time and resources to be seen as a professional in two areas. In addition to his psychotherapy credentials, he is certified by the Canadian Society for Training and Development.
Vandermeulen, who is a Gen Xer and single, plans his professional development with an eye to the future when his training/counseling roles might lead to work as a training or clinical psychotherapy consultant.
And now for something completely different
Another approach to a slasher career is to combine training with unrelated work. Karen Novotny Tischer is a three-way slasher. She's an Information Management System (IMS) software instructor, course developer, and consultant, as well as a fine art photographer and a personal assistant to a photographer. After many years spent teaching IMS for IBM, she went out on her own and now contracts for similar work with banks, insurance companies, manufacturers, and other large organizations. But, she explains, "That career fluctuates with my clients' bottom lines, and they have been up and down during the recession."
More time between teaching gigs gave Tischer the opportunity to "satisfy the other half" of her brain by pursuing a career as a photographer. "Photography is the medium that works best for me to express my artistic side," she says. But photography is expensive, so Tischer took on a third role as the personal assistant to another photographer.
Her approach has pros and cons. "I love my life after leaving corporate America. The freedom is fabulous. I'm my own boss, and I can choose what I want to do. I don't have to go to corporate meetings or deal with the 'administrivia' that used to take about 40 percent of my time. And I can react more quickly to a client's needs because I don't have to go through 10 levels of approval."
But her freelance career is riskier financially than her former corporate job. "It can be hard to collect what people owe me, and the amount of work is uncertain." She also must manage her own marketing.
To make a situation like Tischer's work requires a person to be self-motivated, able to handle uncertainty, and willing to balance an uneven workflow. "Sometimes I'm crushed with training work; when I'm not, I work on the art."
She advises trainers thinking about a freelance career to save a year's worth of living expenses and to have minimized their debt beforehand. Tischer also recommends joining a professional group that provides support services to small business owners.
When she first launched her freelance career, she joined the National Association of Professional Women, which provides marketing, insurance, and legal services to women business owners. In addition, she belongs to the American Society of Media Photographers for networking and skills building.
Activating her inner detective
Kim Barnes is the founder and CEO of Barnes & Conti Associates, an organization development (OD) consulting firm, and also a mystery writer.
"From the time that I was a young girl, I always identified with seekers of information and solutions," says Barnes. "While my friends were reading about nurses and flight attendants, I read every Nancy Drew detective book. I inhaled science fiction and fantasy involving a search for answers. I believe that my choice to study and practice organizational development came from the same sense of curiosity and desire to solve mysteries."
After a long career as an internal, then external, consultant, author of business books and development programs, and founder and executive of her own company, Barnes found that she missed the hands-on experience of the organizational detective work she had once enjoyed as an internal consultant.
"A couple of years ago I was doing a great deal of international travel and had many hours on planes to spend doing something more creative than writing another article or designing another program. I began writing a mystery with an internal OD consultant as the protagonist. At first I did it as a lark, thinking my colleagues might enjoy it. But then I saw an ad for a mystery writers conference and thought, 'Why not?'"
At that conference, Barnes received practical feedback and advice. "I began to get more serious and realized that in learning the craft of fiction, I was growing in an unexpected way. I began to approach my work differently. I began to use stories more often to get a point across."
Barnes published the mystery, Murder on the 33rd Floor, in 2011. Since then, she has written the first draft of the second book in the series and begun plotting the third. "Many colleagues have told me that they gave the book to friends and family to help them understand the kind of work we do—minus the murders, of course." Barnes also has used the theme of the book—the consultant as organizational detective—to create conference sessions that explore the sleuthing aspect of OD work.
Advice from a pro
Beverly Kaye, co-author of Help Them Grow or Watch Them Go and other career development books, advises people to plan for a slasher career just as you would for a single career. "People used to take on a second job to earn extra money, but now they're also doing it to keep from being left behind in the wake of change."
Kaye advises everyone to have multiple career options. One lesson of the recession is that forces beyond your control can affect your career plans. "We now know that anything can happen to a career," says Kaye. "Smart people are making contingency plans, and many of them are built around a passion. If you can turn that passion into a career, that's a big plus." She has seen many trainers turn their corporate experiences into a consulting role and many others become coaches after taking courses to prepare themselves.
"Our field is changing so much that savvy trainers should look at trends in the field and in business to prepare for what's ahead," she says.
It's not necessary to retire or be fired to pursue a slasher career, says Kaye, but you must be adept at finding the time. "Pursue something that energizes you. A good career fit is something that combines your skills, interests, and values. A good slasher job should have some tease in it and make you stretch a bit."