www.peopleandmanagement.com
much more experienced labour/freelancers that
are extremely deliverable oriented. Furthermore,
distractions or problems within the company do
not matter to these freelancers and they can help to
substantially reduce costs as they do not require the
same commitment as fulltime employees.
White Collar Gigs
In the white-collar space, there is a surge in
demand for freelancers with skills in website design,
graphics design, gaming, app design, coding, artifi cial
intelligence, project management, marketing/
promotions, content and event management among
other roles and platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr
& Flexjobs help organizations bring freelancers
As more Indians opt for new work arrangements,
interest is growing across age and experience
brackets, however, as always there are two sides
to each coin and there are many areas of the gig
economy that remain “grey” so to speak. The debate
and discussions on the legal implications pertaining
to regulations on worker exploitation has just begun
in most parts of the developed world as countries are
waking up to the fact that there is no clear policy on
critical matters such as the place of arbitration when
working with freelancers from multiple countries.
together in an environment where there is a lot more
cooperation and collaboration without the usual offi ce
politics at play.
A recent survey by Upwork revealed that over 91
percent of all Hiring Managers they had surveyed
had open positions on their team at some point in 2017
and in a 2018 study it was revealed that 39 percent of
hiring managers felt hiring was harder in the past
year, citing diffi culty in accessing candidates with
specialized talents as the biggest challenge. These
challenges are easily offset by tapping into the gig
economy. The ease and accessibility of high-speed
internet has spurred on factors driving the gig
economy including women returning to the workforce
looking to balance home and profession, retired
people seeking ways to leverage their expertise while
remaining independent, and graduates looking for
extra pay and fi nancial fl exibility.
This is especially true in Asian countries as jobs
posted in the US & Europe during the day keep Asian
freelancers up at night. These jobs posted in many
cases disregard the Minimum Pay and rules on Work
Breaks as some workers end up working 24-hour shifts
to get their gigs completed. Questions are also being
raised on the platforms that connect freelancers to
organizations as the platforms are regulated by no
one other than themselves! In many cases, workers
on these platforms have to end up competing with
millions of other freelancers who may have had much
longer to establish themselves on the platform, or
worse, having to compete with the algorithms of the
platform to get their ratings up to bid for better or
more high paying gigs.
With the gig economy becoming a reality, the
future will witness a change in the way organisations
hire and manage their talent. Organisations need to
reshape their talent strategy to accommodate the
needs of this new category of the workforce. They
must rework payroll systems, recruitment strategy
and overall people strategy. P & M
Vol. 10 Issue 2 • FEBRUARY 2019, Delhi NCR |
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