There’s Nothing *Spooky* About Seasonal Work

Happy Halloween y’all!!! How lucky are we as tired parents to get Halloween — the day kids consume the most sugar of the whole year — and daylight savings, where they’ll be up a whole hour earlier than they already are… all on the same weekend.

I have been reflecting a lot on my prior work experiences and thought I’d actually start today’s newsletter by taking a scaryyYYyyY walk down memory lane… (Ok I promise that’s my last play on Halloween, I swear).

In one of my first jobs, I worked in HR at a small biotech company — 300 employees, two offices. I joined right before open enrollment which, if you’re in HR/benefits, you know is our Superbowl (though honestly, the analogy of our “tax season” might be more accurate because there wasn’t a ton of “fun” in this hoopla).

It was chaos. Spreadsheets. System migrations. Manual everything. And I was trying so hard to stay afloat. Then one afternoon my Head of HR looked at me and said, “Let’s bring in some temp help for all this admin stuff — tell me how many hours you need.”

Two days later someone was sitting next to me processing forms, sending confirmations, running audits on numbers. She was the yin to my yang and LOVED the admin / spreadsheet work I despised — and was so good they hired her full-time.

The funny thing is, looking back, it was all so natural how she integrated into our team. There was no guilt felt by me for taking the help, nor had there been a required PowerPoint to leadership for the “use case” of help. My boss had a budget and she used it wisely. If we needed support, we got support. If someone was out for a long period, we brought in coverage. Capacity shifted, staffing shifted. It wasn’t revolutionary — it was just… dare I say, logical?

I genuinely didn’t realize how rare this model was until years later.

The wild part is, in so many industries, seasonal labor is normal. Retail. Hospitality. Agriculture. School systems. Healthcare. No one blinks.

But in corporate knowledge work we treat seasonality like a personal time-management flaw. And when it becomes unsustainable, people just burn out or straight up leave.

Since starting Both&, I’ve become obsessed with “non-traditional” work models — part-time, fractional, consulting, seasonal, blended teams. Plug-in talent. Flexible capacity. Actual adaptability.

And it’s because I see the supply and demand of how beautifully this could work. The issue isn’t the supply — millions of people WANT these forms of work. The issue is that organizations are lagging in creating the demand in the form of job openings.

But maybe — and I’m so hopeful about this data — maybe they aren’t that far behind.

Which is why Brea Starmer (an incredible thought leader in this space) and her work with Lions & Tigers (a professional staffing and workforce solutions partner she founded) is so critical. She just released a report this week that basically summarizes what so many parents and consultants (and the companies leveraging strategic temp workers) already know - we’re at an inflection point:

• 70 million, nearly 40% of the American workforce, are freelancers, contractors, or gig workers.

• By 2027, 50% of the U.S. workforce will be independent.

• Women are 1.5x more likely to need to change jobs by 2030 because they are overrepresented in occupations with higher exposure to automation.

Taking it further than just looking at the economic landscape and predictions, this report surveyed 500+ professionals across industries with blended work teams and found that:

• 79% say access to hard-to-find expertise is the top benefit.

• 86% say blended teams increase delivery speed

• 87% rank quality as the #1 KPI for blended teams.

• 97% say losing access to flexible talent would disrupt results

There you have it!!!

(Check out the full report here: https://lionsandtigers.com/why-now/)

Now, parents already understand this instinctively, because our lives are seasonal. Childcare is seasonal. Our kids’ needs are seasonal. Our capacity for work has ebbs and flows. We expand during growth spurts and contract when someone is sick, school is closed, or life simply… life’s.

So the idea that work could — and should — also have seasons just makes sense. And the good news is, as the data above shows, for the companies embracing this and the talent providing it, it’s working.

In summary, if you haven’t sensed it already: I am REALLY excited about blended work because it is such a critical, perfectly matched solution for so many people who come to me with Both& stories and questions.

And — here’s an opportunity to learn directly from the people leading this movement:

Live Session: Blended Teams & the Future of Independent Work

Featuring
Brea Starmer, Founder of Lions & Tigers
Dr. Pam Cohen, former Chief Research & Analytics Officer at The Mom Project

They’ll break down the research, the trends, and the business case for how blended teams are transforming business performance and influencing workforce strategies, innovation, and inclusion across industries.

📅 November 6
🔗 Register: https://lnkd.in/gz5WPRXt

So much good work being done here. I love it.

And in the meantime — keep sending the stories. We’ll keep sharing them. There are so many people already benefiting from fractional, consulting, part-time, and temporary work. The more we bring those stories forward, the more we build the blueprint together for something really big.

Stay safe (and keep the coffees coming) this weekend.

Until next week,

Kaleana