‘Future of Work’ is expected to be a function of technology acumen, robotics, artificial intelligence and digital penetrations leading to a very different working atmosphere, where pertinent skills of workers will be most sought after. With technology dependant start-ups, hybrid working space, work from home schedules, nine-to-five jobs for a single employer is also seeing a mind-set change. The new reality is, that the skilled workforce is balancing out various income streams and work portfolios, job-by-job. Inadvertently, this process also implies that this gig population will have to keep updated with the new technologies, current demand for skills and go through upskilling progression on a continuous basis.
A greater flexibility to work and survive in a competitive market will need inherent upskilling of the gig workers. Even as technology platforms has aided gig workers to kick off and see growth, the same technology proliferation creates hindrance for the workers to catch up with advancement of processes. Skills of the gig workers need same rate of upskilling to keep up with the advent of technologies. As the companies for whom they are working is only on project basis, unlike traditional methods of engagement; these companies are also generally not invested in skilling the workers. Here comes the most interesting part of gig economy---as the establishments use gig workers from case to case basis and use the gig set-up as the stepping stone to save on fixed overhead costs, it is also to their benefit that timely upskilling happens.
Thus the scope of natural upskilling—motivated by oneself or by the organisational requirements is the underlying reality for the gig economy to survive. It is also in-keeping with the current rate of change in technology and its applications. Platform-enabled gig workers can be categorised into high-skilled and low-skilled individuals. As high-skilled workers are always lesser in the market they are more sought after and has better bargaining power. However, the blue collared gig workers, who are not very highly skilled are left out of the market without upskilling programmes. Dissatisfaction with work and undefined labour market is one of the bane for sustainable development of gig economy.
In emerging markets, like India where the informal economy is still large, platform work can offer a more secure and professional alternative to the unemployed. By reducing barriers to entry and expanding the pool of available workers, platforms may push down prices for services, in turn expanding demand. Platforms also provide access to a larger pool of potential customers for independent workers, and greater opportunities to market their skills. In fact, such platforms that aggregates the gig workers to bridge the demand-supply network in gig economy is in perfect position to understand the requirements of skill in the market and help upskilling of the interested workers at a certain cost. This will not only help them to maintain a steady pool of workforce, but on the hindsight, create more ownership among the workers and getting quality work done.
Be it gig workers or self-employed or salaried personals, human resource is always one of the most sought after reserve that any economy depends on. The digital industrialisation has brought about many social changes influencing most major aspects of consumer behaviour, including cash flow availability and expenditure patterns, data consumption, technology literacy, and the future consumption of information and knowledge. Gig economy has led to establishing the groundwork for formation of dynamic communities of learning just because of the demand of the projects.
The robust upskilling and reskilling opportunities for individuals engaged in gig economy happens through multiple channels where they are holding these projects. The multilateral upskilling process, especially as it is digitally enhanced, affordable and accessible; creates a skilling ecosystem that otherwise could have been absolutely unattainable. Gig economy partners actually embrace a learning curve where a substantial amount of empirical knowledge is absorbed and understood through professional experience. The journey of acquiring skills in this manner helps to also measure and substantiate the level of improvement in professional efficiency of the worker, thus leading to better acknowledgement and better paid projects in future.
The gig economy has actually led to a build-up of learning communities, driven by the kind of projects that the individuals are handling. This involves peer group interaction and many times an exchange of opportunities and skills leading to organic transfers of knowledge. The experience and push behind such upskilling builds up resistant and acquired skills, which gets validated on a digital platform when the individual goes back to work. The process of upskilling in gig economy has unintendedly become a certified way of independent skilling that is building up a trained but unique workforce, who cannot be categorised under a certain HR process but will have to acknowledged because of their interest and abilities.
Gig economy, today or tomorrow, will bring in the question of labour force remuneration and categorisation of services, as more and more population gets engaged on the parallel platform of employment. Thus it is in the interest of the aggregate platforms to conduct or advise on upskilling opportunities to both the service and customer partners. They have effectively bridged the gap and in future, will also be able to develop as a knowledge exchange platform between the employers and the service providers. It is indispensable for gig economy platforms to understand the need of upskilling and integrate it into long term planning.
(Himanshu Kumar is Co-Founder, MyMobiForce)
