My Uber ride in San Francisco a couple of months ago, was a revelation. The elderly Driver was very polite, widely traveled & proactively offered a detour to the Crooked street. He turned out to be a White passport holder from Germany and was still serving United Nations, giving financial advice to governments. His motivation? - The Love for driving at leisure and meeting new people to kill boredom while in town.
 

Chances are that you won’t be seeing your next colleague every day. And don’t be envious of their lifestyle but learn from their exposure of simultaneously working on multiple projects and companies.

Welcome to the world of “Gig workers”

Although, more prevalent with Millennials, giggers cut across age groups. Uber drivers, Recruitment specialists, software developers, shared CXOs, news anchors, stage performers, designers, and many more.

“In 2016, nearly 53 million Americans were freelancers, that’s 34% of the workforce. Projections show that by 2020 43% of the US workforce will be freelancers.” Rural economy in India has always had a massive portion of contractual workers. “In urban India, the pool of project-based professionals is estimated to be 2 million today or 8 per cent of the formal workforce”

"Success" for Gig workers is striking a balance between Viability & vitality ... And "Reputation" is everything and they have to Produce or Perish!

Gig workers can be broadly classified in three categories:

But why are people moving toward "Contingent" freelance jobs or Gigs?

While it’s a contemporary topic in business circles, reality is that most companies still have a long way to go to effectively manage a blended workforce. Similar to EVP, employers need to create a Gig Value Proposition (GVP) to effectively attract, engage & retain quality gig workers.

Here are 7 steps for businesses to create a GVP

1. Change of Mindset: Managing a Gig worker requires a Mindset that respects their freedom of work timings & flexibility. Many young managers aren’t mature enough to fathom a Non 9-5 work culture of their team members. Cognizance of flexibility needs to be engrained in the company’s culture, down to the last manager for effective engagement.

2. Agile recruitment: One of the critical aspects of attracting on-demand gig workers is being able to quickly access & rapidly deploy talent. Traditional processes of recruitment & resourcing do not resonate with this class of fast-paced, multi-tasking workers.

3. Cost as a driver: Identify areas of business which can benefit from rapid deployment of skills. Consider re-examining your current processes, workforce & tasks for gig-based cost optimization.

4. Choose the right Technology partners: Businesses must identify recruitment partners & platforms that truly understand the flexible employment market. Online Marketplace providers with Talent acquisition as their core offering are best suited for time & money investment to recruit On-demand workers.

5. Plan for complexity: How do you pay and allocate costs for on-demand workers? What’s your process for tracking deliverables and milestones? From the mundane to the complex, the steps involved in adding these workers to your workforce may require significant thought and process updates. It is equally important to lay clear expectations for the Gig workers which are specific, measurable & time bound.

6. Training Investment? The dilemma to invest in training of Gig workers, who are not even permanent is real. Its pertinent to note that most On-demand workers are not going to be engaged beyond their contractual commitments or their ability to earn. Their motives are completely different from those of traditional employees. Engaging them is none the less important to their retention. Considering their entrepreneurial nature, an opportunity to up-skill themselves serves as a magnet and yet helps in company alignment. An optimal way out is Just-In-Time Learning which provides on demand learning opportunities to help them hit the ground running. Prepare to offer Quick, on-demand, specific, micro-learning training sessions & support.

7. Social Inclusion: Social features allow remote workers to feel more connected and builds a stronger sense of community. Businesses must extend their Rewards, Recognition & engagement policies to Gig workers and use technology that offers such features. Since urban gig workers are Digital nomads, aligning them on platforms that have elements of R&R, Badges, Social recognition, Leader boards, Gamification naturally help to boost their productivity.

 

The Benefits conundrum: Apart from expense as a factor, even legalities of how Gig workers are classified, is the reason why many employers are still holding back. Since Loyalty is critical for gig companies which relies on independent contractors, Airbnb and Uber have written to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), urging it to modernize rules so they can reward hosts and drivers with stakes in the companies. The ruling could open floodgates for similar organizations around the world.

About the author

Vikramjit Singh Sahaye is an HR technology evangelist, mentor & a keynote speaker. He is Founder & CEO of www.hiringplug.com – curated Marketplace of professional Gig Recruiters & specialized agencies to efficiently crowd source high quality candidates for forward looking enterprises. These are excerpts from his session at HR Extravaganza 2018, held in New Delhi recently.