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will be given more importance. Their ability to learn
and teach others is going to be sharper. With increasing
availability of social & collaborative platform enabled by
technology will make their tasks easier.
The entire change in behaviour will become a BIG
ENABLER for gig economy. Gig Economy provides the
required time fl exibility, freedom to choose what you want
to do, Challenges, Opportunities to experiment, with global
exposure and opportunities to learn always. This is what
Millennials want to have in their life.
Challenges in Gig Economy
But it is not all rosy in gig economy. While Millennials
may like to have all the good features of gig economy but
they need to sustain themselves. They need consistent
income to meet their expenses and be at a similar economic
level what their counterparts who are in full time jobs.
Another major issue, which may hurt millennials, is their
focus on identifying skills, which will be in demand and
their ability & willingness to acquire them.
Employer role in Gig Economy
Are employers giving adequate compensation to gig
professionals? This is not the case always. While some
expertise are in high demand like blockchain, virtual
reality, augmented reality, ethical hacking, cyber security,
legal, sales, artifi cial intelligence, analytics etc. are in
high demand and companies are ready to give premium
compensation for these skills but in reality, many jobs
especially creative work, standard routine jobs, coding
etc are not paid at fair market value. Very often Gig
professionals are seen as an alternative workforce to cut
the cost, rather than to create greater value and leverage
their workplace operations. This, in turn, results in low
quality work output. Not only does seeing alternative
workforce as a cost cutting exercise potentially diminish
the quality of work, it also make these gig professionals
discouraged as they feel under paid and deprived
of typical company benefits like health insurance,
retirement benefits, and most importantly sustained
compensation. But organizations cannot brush fair
market compensation by saying that the choice is made
by these gig professionals. They have equal responsibility
as they enjoy the benefi ts of this untapped potential talent
to beat their competitors.
But these challenges will not be a deterrent in the
growth of gig economy. The future of work is poised
to support Millennials in the form of their best use for
projects. HR managers have to create a distinction between
contract jobs Vs Gig Jobs. There are plenty of places
within a job cycle, where gig can be identifi ed. This is not
going to be a replacement of standard work, rather it will
involve specialists approach to perform or deliver for a
particular set of tasks with clear deliverables. So the way
manpower planning is done needs to change in order to
support Millennials.
Manpower planning to harness Gig
Professionals:
Manpower planners need to get to real task/job analysis
to identify which particular part of the job needs specifi c
skills, which may or may not be delivered by standard
employees. These sets of responsibilities will need
specialist to come for a defi ned time with clear deliverables.
For example in Training & Development function, the
internal HR function may be good in identifi cation of
training needs and defi ning how to address them but they
may not be good in “Designing Training Interventions” so
they may need a specialist and a specifi c gig can be shared
with gig world.
Coming back to Millennials and gig economy, technology
will pay a very important role. With automation and AI over
most mundane, taking repetitive jobs, HR has to look for
expertise. They will advertise not for Head of Marketing
position but they will say I need someone who can manage
my digital reach out to customers, our brand, and support
sales with market analytics. It may be possible to get
one person to do the job but it may also be possible with
multiple professionals. The future of work will be mix of
full time, part time and RIGHT TIME assignments. More
and more managers will be specifi c in matching the skills
or subset of skills to get the optimum performance on the
job. This will suit the millennials and they will be happy to
get involved. Their CV will show the expertise and tasks
accomplished instead of number of organizations and
years of experience they have.
As a summary, I will conclude that gig may not be
the only way millennials are going to get engaged in the
organizations but it will be a SIZABLE part in the manpower
planning exercise of companies. Behaviour and expectations
of millennials will support the nature of gig economy.
Millennials have to do good amount of career planning in
terms of continuous analysis of skills & expertise required
so that they have an edge over others. Employers should also
give fair market compensations to support the gig economy
and focus on bringing effi ciency in the operations rather
than cost cutting. Regulatory authorities will also have to
come up with a proper support system to take care of basics
HR benefi ts such as health insurance, disability benefi ts and
old age support system. P & M
Vol. 10 Issue 1 • JANUARY 2019, Noida |
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