Need of balancing employees and on demand skills

Several lofty, utopian terms are attached to the upswing we’re seeing in the Indian ‘gig’ economy, so let me play the (freelance) devil's advocate here. Robert Reich, Senior Fellow at the Blum Center for Developing Economies at UC Berkeley says that where we’re headed is ‘Share the Scraps’ economy, instead of the ‘share’ economy — an economy where we are all caught in a race to reach the rock-bottom of wages and benefits. The question we must ask ourselves is are we trying to harness collective genius, foster innovation and raise standards, or are we trying to eliminate standards (which were already on a downward spiral) by shifting all the risk and uncertainty to the employee.

Let’s begin from the perspective of the employee. Most of the psychometric profiles we build at Jombay find that people seek deeper relationships and shared experiences at work, and wish to strike a healthy work-life balance.

Proponents of the gig economy speak highly of the flexibility and balance that comes with micro-entrepreneurship, but does that really translate into reality for most freelancers?

Those trying to make a few bucks on the side in their ‘free time’ lose out on spending this time with their families, or allocating time to upskill themselves and make more money at their regular jobs. Those adopting freelancing full-time take all the risks of entrepreneurship with limited rewards. Platforms that connect buyers and sellers set prices by demand and supply equations, not labor law mandated minimum wages. Working in an unstable, unpredictable environment for low pay and no benefits, doesn’t sound like much of a dream for a wide majority.

Of course, let’s not forget the employer’s perspective. Sure, there are some short-term gains like risk mitigation and lower costs alongside the ability to source skills on demand like we would all like to. Imagine if people buy cars, buy their own insurance, drive people around and you get to make a cut of their earnings! Of course, they’re not your employees so you don’t need to concern yourself with annoying little issues like compensation, benefits, security, and safety. 

Organizations need to rethink their approach. If you treat them as ‘hired help’, then they will behave like ‘hired help’. Measuring gains purely in terms of skills is short-sighted, and long-term goals like organization building could take a back seat. The money you’re saving usually buys organizational competencies and knowledge, which when held within the company bring organizational growth through collaboration. Problems of succession planning and talent retention grow ever more complicated when necessary skills, competencies, and knowledge cannot be retained because they aren’t held in the company in the first place.

The ‘gig’ or ‘share’ economy, on the face of it, seems like an ideal solution for our current economic scenario where labor laws complicate ventures and the employment gap is now a chasm. Companies need to develop a healthy mix of full-time employees and on-demand skills to balance financial gains and the long-term health of their own organization, as well and the economy at large. A talent management strategy which has flexibility, freedom, and collaboration of the ‘gig’ within the company, still allow you to experience the advantages while escaping the trade-offs of the gig economy. The jury’s still out, but at the end of the day, you can’t build a company to last if your employees are moonlighting at various gigs and your freelance workers have to multitask on parallel projects because they aren’t paid enough. A date on Tinder (probably) costs less than a marriage but also doesn’t last very long.