Gallup gig worker sat chart 2018Today's post is courtesy of Joyce Maroney, executive director of the Workforce Institute.

I recently had a conversation about the gig economy with my colleague, David Creelman.  David is the CEO of Creelman Research and writes on a broad variety of human resource topics.  His recent book, Lead the Work: Navigating a World Beyond Employment , explores the future of work in a world where the traditional employer-employee relationship is only one route to productivity.

How big is the gig economy? An August Gallup report said that 36% of U.S. workers are participating in the gig economy.  A 2018 survey by Airbnb indicated that 1 in 10 US teachers supplemented their income by hosting guests in their homes.  Gallup defines the gig economy to include "multiple types of alternative work arrangements such as independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers and temporary workers."

The Gallup report distinguishes between truly independent gig workers who have autonomy and control over their schedules such as contractors and those who offer their services via platforms like Uber and Airbnb vs. contingent workers who don't have this autonomy and control.  They surveyed workers in both categories, as well as salaried employees about their attitudes toward their work.  (See chart above.)

Not surprisingly, their data shows that the attitudes of the low control contingent workers are much closer to their salaried counterparts on most issues except security, stability, and timely and accurate pay.  The truly independent contractors score significantly higher than salaried or contingent workers on many fronts including flexibility, passion about their work, control over the work, etc.  Timely and accurate pay is still more challenging for them than is the case for salaried workers, but they otherwise appear pretty satisfied with their independent gigs.

So, is the future of work going to look a lot more like the gig economy?  Is the traditional employer-worker relationship truly changing?  How can organizations provide a more gig-like experience to the top talent they want to attract and retain? David and I take on these and other questions in the podcast below.  Please listen in, and let us know what you think in the comments section.

Conversation with David Creelman about the gig economy?

 

I just came across this very interesting presentation from Mary Meeker, a former Wall Street analyst and now partner at venture capital  firm Kleiner Perkin.  This 88-slide behemoth contains a lot of market data about the growth of mobile technology.  More interesting, it asks a lot of questions about how this technology will continue to transform the way we live.

It won't be surprising to many reading this post that retail, banking, book publishing, music distribution, entertainment, and many other businesses have already been radically transformed by the emergence of visionary disrupters who saw the opportunity presented by the internet beginning over 20 years ago.  From Berners-Lee to Bezos to Jobs to Zuckerberg, the notion of an information superhighway has morphed from Star Trek fantasy to assumed convenience.  (This may be urban legend, but I read somewhere once (though can't find it on the googlemachine today) that the inventor of the first cellphone was inspired by Star Trek.  Whether it's true or not, I'm using the picture here because my 45-year crush on Captain Kirk remains unabated).

Check out slide #74.  The supposition here seems to be that we are on the cusp of Workforce as a Service (WaaS).  I haven't heard that particular term before, but the notion of the internet-enabled freelance economy has been around at least since the 90's when I first heard it.  The idea is that those with skills that are in high demand can sell those skills in the open market on a temporary basis, rather than tying themselves down to a single employer.  In 1999, when unemployment was 4.2% and employers were handing out BMW's as signing bonuses, the idea of the freelance economy looked pretty attractive.  In 2012, according to the Freelancers Union, nearly one in three or 42 million Americans is an independent worker.  I suspect that number is driven as much by unemployment, under-employment, and employer strategies to manage expenses as it is by worker preference.  On the other hand, the infrastructure to support telework also makes freelancing more feasible.

What do you think about WaaS?  Is this increasingly the wave of the future?

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