by Alison Krumm
It’s incredibly difficult to write authoritatively on the strategies that businesses can employ to make it to the other side of COVID-19 intact. It’s also a reach to assume that they all will.
With a cause-and-effect as novel as the virus that triggered it, we can’t know where business, world economies, or households will be in the next few months to years. This is why it’s also touch-and-go whether the recommendations given now will still be valid in a week, two weeks, or a few months’ time.
To mitigate the likelihood that your business strategy, employment strategy, and best-laid plans will change immeasurably over the coming months, it pays to look to the gig economy for support, and to see where you can start supporting it through the economic rapids.
Gig workers to the rescue, again!
The Best Thing About Gig Workers…
In an economic crunch, using contingent workers, or the gig workforce, allows a much more flexible approach to staffing, allowing businesses to access skills (or food delivery!) when and if they need them. In addition to this, the amount that can be saved on employment-related costs is impressive.
They come fully trained, expect no benefits or pension funds, and can help your business to thrive during busy periods, letting you continue on a leaner budget as you need to.
…is also the Worst Part for Gig Workers:
The disadvantages are a direct reflection of the advantages of using contingent labour:
In an article by Reference for Business, the benefits of gig work include the “padding” that gig workers provide to your permanent staff – if things go south, as they just have, your core team will remain employed while your contract workers can be laid off with little to no fuss. This sounds incredibly callous – and it is. However, the nature of business in this day and age leaves us with few alternatives.
Money for nothing? Let’s look at the challenges that COVID-19 has brought to the gig economy:
We’re in dire straits, with nearly 70% of contingent app-based workers left without income. This is a crippling blow to a sector which was booming just a few months ago, where growth in countries like Portugal, Malaysia, and Denmark was creating unprecedented opportunities for employers and employees alike. While the market demand for certain positions may have increased, by-and-large the global contingent workforce is left more vulnerable than before.
ILO’s research tells us that COVID-19 will impact economies worldwide, reducing the number and quality of available jobs, and causing massive impacts on vulnerable populations. This will be the case in many countries, cities, and businesses. The same study cites that gig workers are among the most vulnerable populations worldwide:
Unprotected workers, including the self-employed, casual and gig workers, are likely to be disproportionately hit by the virus as they do not have access to paid or sick leave mechanisms, and are less protected by conventional social protection mechanisms and other forms of income smoothing.
The ILO adds on the UN News:
“Workers in four sectors that have experienced the most “drastic” effects of the disease and falling production are food and accommodation (144 million workers), retail and wholesale (482 million); business services and administration (157 million); and manufacturing (463 million).”
This is NOT what we were aiming for with the Future-of-Work Revolution™.
With corporate uncertainty and so many variables impacting the employment practices of global business, we could be entering a new phase in human history, where our workforce may not need to be commuters, office-bound, or paid by only the visibly-worked hour. The hundreds and thousands of people now working from home are discovering the “corporate LITE” version of their jobs that may well become a norm.
That sounds like a line out of futuristic utopian fantasy, and it would be if we were not amid a global pandemic that is forcing the transformation.
In the perfect world, the gig economy should thrive in the new working conditions, and anyone who is struggling to make ends meet can simply switch their employment choices in-app.
The challenges we have now, though, don’t care about perfection – only pragmatism.
It should come as no surprise to our jaded and world-weary selves that “Dream World” is just an amusement park… for toddlers.
What dashes the dream of a bright, freelance, gig filled future is that the competition for contingent work of all types will grow immensely in these uncertain and bruised economies, and the demand will drop from all quarters (although I suspect that food delivery will drive a roaring trade as we all eat what’s left of our feelings).
Proactive steps to keep businesses running with a burgeoning gig economy:
Alok Alström, CEO of AppJobs, has a positive outlook which helps us to temper our corporate doom and gloom:
“Now both companies and individuals are getting a ‘crash course’ in working remotely. This, combined with the fact that companies in a recession want flexible labour, will lead to the gig economy accelerating even more than before. In the long term, the corona epidemic will advance the industry”
To ensure that freelancers – of which there will be many more – can still make a living and that your business can accommodate the fluctuations and variances in demand, your employment practices should be structured to accommodate contract, contingent, or gig workers.
The outcomes of this, and the state of the global economy after COVID-19 has had its time in the sun, are not the kind of things we should place bets on – but our human resilience, agility, and ability to help each other out is something we can back all the way:
What can we do, when can we do it, and how?
Starting within businesses, and moving outward to employees, contractors, home assistants, and the gig workers who supply luxuries, consider the organizational structure in terms of the new way of working:
We’re taking these tips straight from the horse’s (The International Labor Organization’s) mouth:
1. TAKE CARE OF YOUR OWN:
Protecting employees from COVID-19:
This shouldn’t need to be said, but we’ll say it anyway: Ensure that all employees, whether permanent or gigging, frontline or engine-room, are protected in their lines of work. PPE, reduced team sizes, and stringent hygiene practices are critical.
Coordinating policies and efforts to support and mitigate the impact on the permanently employed workforce and the gig economy:
This speaks entirely to protecting business and its employees from destruction. Taking care of business interests is also critical. There is little sense in ensuring that full-time employees stay employed, in a business that no longer exists, so structuring employment and team strategies must be done with business longevity in mind.
It is a balancing act; one that will take a great deal of thought, planning, and analysis.
2. New ways of communicating
Monitor, adapt, and adjust – and embrace the gig economy
Nobody reasonable can expect to know what tomorrow will bring, so careful monitoring is required. If our workplace strategies need to change, we need to consider how to facilitate this change with the least upheaval and negative impact possible. Digital transformation, change management planning, and risk mitigation must play equal roles.
…careful monitoring of the direct and indirect effects of all interventions are crucial to ensure policy responses are and stay relevant. – ILO Monitor 1st Edition
Keeping a vision in mind can be difficult when so much change and re-shuffling is going on, so working out your best-case scenario with worst-case controls is necessary. This means that a restructuring phase is unavoidable, and working out the mechanics of building a complement of gig-workers and permanent employees who drive the business strategy and achieve objectives as a cohesive unit should be a number 1 priority.
Sherisa Rajah, a labour lawyer and consultant to the South African Presidential Commission on 4IR, suggests an ongoing assessment using real-time intelligence, which means embracing being a learning organisation, and developing a “culture of shorter feedback loops to employees and generally, learning from this to effect a culture of change and to pivot in response, as the case may be.”
Changing how we interact
Remote working relies on a state of faith and trust, as Sherisa Rajah mentions in the reference above:
This relies on your business developing “the skills to manage remote workers, adopt and adapt the platforms for remote work and look at the tools of the trade to support remote work”.
If businesses are going to survive the immediate and future impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the gig economy model is one to emulate. Simple selection and hiring, effective workforce engagement, agile and variable teams, and driving task-based outcomes will subsume the current, static workplace culture.
The old adage is true: teamwork makes the dream work. What’s new? Now, gig work makes the team work, the flexibility of the gig economy can make businesses work harder, better, faster.
