The rise of Gig economy: a challenge for HR professionals


The Gig economy is a labor market that is based on the short term contracts of freelancing jobs rather than permanent jobs. As compared to the regular salaries, workers get the amount in return of the gigs, they perform. Traditionally, jobs in the gig economy were courier services, ride hailing services, freelance journalism, etc. However, online platforms such as upwork, fiver, freelancer, etc. bring new impetus in the economy. Information technology has connected the employers and employees through these online platforms. Most of the people work in the software development, creative and multimedia sector, sales and marketing support services, writing and translation services, clerical and data entry and other professional services. According to online labor index 2017, Asia by far dominates the freelancing market globally with India at the top, Bangladesh on the second, while US on the third place. Affordable labor, a highly-skilled and technical workforce compel the companies to look to hire freelancers.

There are several benefits associated with the gig economy not only for the employees but for the employers as well. Employers prefer to hire freelancers for these skilled jobs, as they don’t have to pay fixed salaries. They also able to decrease their fixed cost by hiring the freelancers, when there is work. Employees also feel autonomy, flexibility, and better control of work life balance.
Though, companies are relying increasingly on contingent labor forces, such as freelancers, consultants, and temporary workers however, these workers are not part of the regular talent pool of the company. Therefore, companies usually don’t invest to retain them. On the other side, freelancers get involve in pseudo-employment without getting payments for redundant work, paid leaves, or other employment benefits.
This phenomenon of gig economy is also making HR professionals irrelevant due to the change in the traditional mode of hiring, training, and compensating the employees, as most of the online platforms are managing the workforce on employers’ behalf. According to the survey of 2017 conducted by upwork,57.3 million Americans are freelancing (36 percent of the U.S. workforce). As the gig economy is continuously rising, there is very much likelihood that this mode of employer-employee relationship has to stay. The popularity of gig economy would create challenges for hiring and retaining the right persons at affordable cost. Therefore, there is a dire need of the hour for HR professionals to carve out the strategies to make the work more attractive for the young professionals by incorporating autonomy, flexibility, and better control of work-life balance to stay relevant with the upcoming trend.

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