"Becoming an expert is easier than staying one": Lonneke Frie on the future of work

You are good at what you do, but AI, the energy transition and other changes inside and outside your organisation keep asking something different of you. So how do you remain an expert, while staying healthy and enjoying your work? In a keynote on 7 October, Lonneke Frie, Associate Professor of Human Capital Innovation, presented her vision and research agenda. She did so at The Future of Work, an event organised by the Sustainable Talent Development research group and the Centre of Expertise Global and Inclusive Learning.

Some 60 people from Lonneke’s network gathered in the Speakers' Corner of The Hague University of Applied Sciences, ranging from colleagues, students, business partners and research fellows to friends and family. Frie sketched a world that is becoming increasingly fragile, uncertain and unpredictable, with warning signs such as inequality, declining trust in government and environmental degradation. Yet her message was a hopeful one: now is precisely the time to build a new system that enables people to do work that is nourishing and meaningful, and through which they can make the world a little better.

A lot of knowledge is left on the shelf

"It is easier to become an expert than to remain one", says Frie. Anyone who is good at something will notice that the demand for that expertise changes. Sometimes you need to learn something new, sometimes you need to unlearn something, or apply your knowledge in a new field. Or expertise for which there was previously no demand suddenly becomes valuable.

At present, responding flexibly to a changing demand for expertise is far from always successful. The Netherlands Working Conditions Survey 2025 shows that one in three workers has more knowledge and skills than their job requires. Only 61% feel that their knowledge matches their work well, and more than 40% want to develop further. "There is a lot of untapped potential and a need to continuously renew your expertise", says Frie.

Flexpertise: continuously renewing your expertise

Everyone says that workers need to be flexible, but according to Frie, we hardly know what that means. She speaks of flexpertise: the ability to renew your expertise when the demand for knowledge and skills changes, in a way that benefits both your own career and the stakeholders you work with.

Flexpertise goes beyond taking a course. You see an opportunity or a need to adapt, you learn a new field, you apply that knowledge and those skills, and you build confidence in them. Ultimately, this changes how you see yourself in your work, which leads you to talk about your work differently. That, in turn, makes it easier to gain recognition for your new expertise. Moreover, research shows that this recognition makes an important contribution to your sustainable employability. In her research, Frie assumes that people develop multiple areas of expertise through hobbies, paid (side) jobs, studies and volunteering. It is precisely in that unique combination, which she calls the expertise cocktail, that the underestimated value lies. "We need to stop putting people in boxes. Everyone has a unique expertise cocktail, built up through experience. That is exactly the value that organisations, and managers in particular, need to learn to recognise and make use of. Flexpertise, then, is about realising in time that you need to, or can, add an ingredient to your cocktail. In our research, we learned from flexperts what helps them to spot and seize those opportunities."

6 tips to become a flexpert 

1. Surround yourself with people who have different expertise, and consciously choose a new field.
2. Develop your own expertise cocktail and give it an appealing name.
3. Accept that you will feel uncertain in unfamiliar territory.
4. Make your expertise useful to others, and make sure you have the resources to learn and experiment.
5. Take the time to reflect on who you are.
6. Claim a new field, even if you are still a beginner.

Managers and organisations make the difference

Flexpertise is not just down to the individual worker. People can only adapt well if their manager understands why someone is temporarily unable or unwilling to meet a changing demand for expertise. Frie calls on leaders not to think in terms of obstacles, but to look for points of leverage. "The greatest leverage lies with managers and organisations. Through a clear transition vision, culture and reinforcing systems (such as HR and financial processes) in particular, they can create space in which people are able, willing and confident enough to renew themselves. And that starts with slowing down, because without calm you cannot make conscious choices."

The organisation matters too. Together with former The Hague University of Applied Sciences colleague Marieke Gombault of Metis Consultants, Frie mapped out sixteen organisational factors that foster flexpertise, such as a safe learning environment, a supportive manager, time, autonomy and a clear transition vision. That is why Frie believes that human capital should be a boardroom topic, and that HR should revolve less around processes and more around flexibility and what makes people unique.

Knowledge fair: research in practice

After the keynote, researchers from the research group presented their work at a knowledge fair, ranging from the careers of (fl)experts in the North Sea to learning and working with AI and the Flexpertise Strategy Scan.

Looking ahead

In the coming years, Frie will study flexpertise at four levels: the (future) worker, the manager, the organisation and policy on the future of work. Through her research, she aims to contribute to ecological and social transitions. "The question that drives me is how we can ensure that everyone does energising and meaningful work through which they make the world a little better. Flexpertise is a big part of the answer." At the end of 2026, the Flexpertise Strategy Scan will be launched: a free, open-source tool that shows organisations how well they stimulate flexpertise, based on the 16 organisational factors.

About the research

The Sustainable Talent Development research group is part of the Centre of Expertise Global and Inclusive Learning at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Would your organisation like to take part, or would you like to know more about this topic? Please contact Lonneke Frie at [email protected].

The concept of flexpertise was introduced in 1998 by Professor Beatrice van der Heijden in her PhD thesis on measuring expertise. Together with Dr Ellen Sjoer (Professor of Sustainable Talent Development at The Hague University of Applied Sciences) and Hubert Korzilius (Associate Professor of Research Methods at Radboud University), Van der Heijden formed Frie’s doctoral supervision team. In 2024, Lonneke Frie won the Best Dissertation Award for her dissertation From Expert to Flexpert: How workers meet new expertise demands throughout their careers.