Technology has forayed into every aspects of our lives in the past couple of decades. It has disrupted the majority of verticals and has transformed the way we operate. The human workforce also has transformed significantly. While regular jobs may have become fewer for many and may not hold the charm for many others, unemployed but skilled human resource has shown tremendous agility in adapting to freelance services, for a short duration or on a part-time basis. This trend has further grown, with the COVID 19 pandemic lending momentum to the economy driven by a freelance ecosystem, also known as the gig economy.
From the business view point, organizations have been more accepting and accommodating to the idea of hiring gig workers. What works most in the favor of gig workers is that they show good success rate in scaling up operations exponentially at a reduced cost, helping organizations optimize their project budgets. This further helps companies to ensure outcomes despite thin margins, especially when one considers the pre-pandemic economic slowdown, which further got aggravated due to the COVID 19 associated lockdowns and restrictions.
Growth of gig economy
- The 2019 World Development Report shed light on some of the important factors driving gig economy in the world and in India. These factors included rapid adoption of digital technologies and large scale adaptation of production processes to these technologies. The traditional systems gradually were considered to be lacking in efficiency, while early adopters of digital technologies began enjoying competitive edge, leading to a complete transformation across industries and domains.
- The decade long transformation reaped strong dividends for the companies who had adopted digital technologies, as they could show greater flexibility in transitioning to a remote working and the work-from-home regime which became essential for sustenance for many companies across the world post pandemic outbreak.
- As a result, like the companies in the creative fields, including media, advertising and communications, arts, design and recreation, and entertainment, who majorly employed gig freelancers, part-time employees or gig workers, companies in the fields of computer and IT, construction, transportation, logistics and warehousing, and others too started to accept gig workers in a big way.
- Fortunately for our country, digital strategies was on the rise. The gradual but steady penetration of Internet across the country, importantly in tire 2, 3, and 4 cities, contributed in building the right digital infrastructure that can benefit digital technologies. Going by the information with Statista, in April 2020, the world had around 4.57 billion internet users. Also the latest estimates state that India, which was the second largest online market in 2019, and has grown to over 690 million internet users in 2020. The rural India is also benefiting from this digital transformation with the rural users expected to reach 304 million by end-2020 from 264 million users. This has created the right environment for gig economy to grow stronger, extending several advantages to both sides.
Advantages for Both Sides
- The gig economy has benefited both sides, the employers and out-of-work people, and has come as a blessing for them in the strained times. Although employers have had to make the hard decisions of layoffs and short-staffing owing to the strained economy and thinning budgets, the volume of work and quality of delivery remained significantly unchanged, increasing work pressure on the remaining employees.
- Gig workers fit in really well as a cushioning resource to these organizations which ranged from small and big enterprises, start-ups, MSMEs and other entities. With gig workers being quick to hire remote workers with short term contracts, employers could operate in a more organized and effective fashion, having hired the gig workers for specific predetermined project work. Owing to a rich talent pool in the market, the challenges of talent hunting, hiring, and onboarding were reduced, which is leading to more time, energy, and resource saving.
- Gig freelancers are enjoying the freedom to choose the nature of work they want to take up. Those forming the workforce in gig economy benefit from the direct value for efforts, flexible projects and work hours, and benefits of networking and connecting with more people with lucrative business opportunities.
- In the digital era, it is largely accepted that learning is lifelong, with the workforce expected to stay relevant by upskilling themselves. Gig workers are able to focus on developing future-ready skills, including soft skills, as well as to pursue education or undertake certifications, upgrading their domain and industry knowledge
Dual Benefits of the Hybrid Model: Performance & Permanence
- The companies today are strongly considering performance and deliverance in addition to permanence. While permanence includes steady employees with organizational wisdom and experience, it has been often experienced that gig workers display stronger performance and faster delivery. Driven by the need to ensure strong BCPs (business continuity plans), companies are reinventing their models to leverage the positives of both traditional employees and gig workforce for sustaining business operations more cost-effectively.
- Hybrid working models, including a mix of employees on payroll along with contractual, gig or remote workers, are becoming a reality. Gig workers are proving more advantageous to entrepreneurs many of whom find it difficult to maintain a large employee base, helping them save on overt and covert expenses of full-time employees. Gig and remote workers are coming across as more deadline-oriented, and therefore, more productive and efficient.
- The trend does not appear to be a temporary one. Going for a hybrid model has been the key for employers to address their human resource needs. The industry is witnessing a paradigm shift only to be accelerated by the pandemic. As for the gig workers, it is a more favorable time to be and working.
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Sahil Sharma is an Indian Entrepreneur and Co-founder of Gigindia. GigIndia empowers businesses to scale effectively by providing on-demand work completion at scale via 750,000+ gig workforce across 200+ cities in India. Sahil completed his Bachelors in Computer Science from PICT, Pune and has expertise in Sales, Team Building and Fundraising. In 2019, YourStory.in recognized GigIndia as one of the top upcoming Tech30 startups. A foodie at heart, Sahil’s other interest remains sports. He played basketball in high school at the national level and follows football
