Unlocking the potential of the gig economy

How gig platforms can improve diversity and inspire business growth

By Ashmita Das, CEO of Kolabtree

March 13, 2023

About Kolabtree: Kolabtree is the world's largest freelance platform for scientists, helping organizations hire experts on demand. The company has a global network of 15,000 scientists and subject matter experts, offering consulting, research, writing and analysis services. Project owners can post a project for free and receive quotes from experts before deciding on a freelancer to work with.

For further information, contact:

Darshan Somaiah, Kolabtree

Devonshire House, 60 Goswell Road, London, EC1M 7AD

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Website: http://www.kolabtree.com

E-mail: darshansomaiah@kolabtree.com

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Press enquiries: Martin Deakin or Stacie Plast

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A recent survey from recruitment firm Robert Walters found that over 70 percent of technology employers experience skills shortages, a significant shortfall when we think about how many SMEs and start-ups now rely on high calibre IT and tech professionals. Getting the right skills and having a healthy, diverse workforce is key to business growth, and the gig economy is playing a pivotal role in this area. Here Ashmita Das, CEO of open talent platform Kolabtree, explains how gig platforms can strengthen teams and inspire business growth.

After a turbulent two years in a pandemic, security and stability are still on the minds of most business leaders, especially those running SME and emerging start-ups. However, many are also looking to the future and planning their next steps. There are many reasons a business may want to grow, just a cursory Google search finds that motivations range from survival and a boost in sales to an increase in profit turnover. 

The wish to grow is hardly surprising, and there are some real benefits to expanding. Former Apple Co-founder, Chairman and CEO Steve Jobs even remarked that: "Incredible things in the business world are never made by a single person, but by a team." However, any growth must be sustainable, and the gig economy can play a vital role in connecting aspiring professionals with businesses that are looking to develop their teams.

Bridging skills gaps

It’s widely accepted that the UK faces a technical skills shortage, with the UK Commission for Employment & Skills finding that 43 per cent of science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) positions are difficult to fill. The reason? A shortage of applicants with the skills and experience needed. Being unable to access vital skills is problematic because it can prevent businesses from taking on new projects or, worse, compromise the work they do. For instance, MedTech companies that lack in-house content writers may struggle to prepare documentation for regulatory approval and, if they do, they risk it lacking quality — reducing the chances of their device or product being approved.   

By registering with a gig platform, businesses can recruit freelance specialists for one-off or a series of projects. Because this is a temporary measure, businessowners and entrepreneurs don’t need worry about long-term recruitment or contracts and can benefit from a more flexible process. Returning to the MedTech example, the company could hire an experienced freelance content writer to prepare the necessary documentation ready for submission, rather than relying on already-stretched research and development (R&D) teams to step in. 

Improving diversity

Simply hiring more people is one thing — building a diverse and productive workforce is another. Teams with varied backgrounds, cultures, genders and experiences are more likely to solve problems or find new ways to be innovative, empowering business leaders and entrepreneurs to make better decisions. Diversity is important because, for STEM and technology companies, improving female representation and diversity in other areas can be challenging. One Deloitte Insight analysis even predicted that female representation in technical roles in large technology companies would only increase by 0.6 per cent between 2019 and 2022 — showing the severity of the problem.

Reasons for a lack of diversity vary between industries, but maternity leave and taking time out to raise a family can be a significant hurdle for some female professionals. All we need to do is look at perceptions towards the impact of paternal leave to see why there is apprehension to take on specialist roles. According to research by Ipsos Mori, almost three in ten women (29 per cent) believed taking maternity leave would have a negative impact on their career, while less than half the number of men (13 per cent) predicted the same effect after taking paternity leave.

The proliferation of gig and open talent platforms like Kolabtree has opened-up new opportunities to improve the industry’s diversity — benefiting both experts and the businesses they work for. Freelancing gives female tech and STEM professionals the flexibility of choosing when they work, the projects they do and how they want to progress. Such choice just isn’t available in traditional in-house roles, so freelancing is often considered a more desirable option for people that would otherwise be put off. Meanwhile, rather than struggling to recruit one in-house person, business can select freelance technology experts or other specialists with a varied background and range of experiences by simply posting a project on the platform. This also avoids the need for restrictive long-term contracts, so businessowners can recruit specialists when the need arises.

Stepping into the gig economy

Growing a company involves a period of transition, and the knowledge and expert economies can provide a valuable lifeline for businessowners looking to expand their teams. Yes, there are hurdles when onboarding the first external specialist, but this is only temporary and, after this, hiring freelancers will only get easier. Adjusting payroll processes and HR policies may be required as part of the business development process anyway, and business owners will need to alter these to cover temporary employees.

Confidentiality and data protection are other areas to consider, both when expanding internal teams and when bringing a freelancer onboard. We often recommend asking a freelancer to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) and only permitting restricted data to certain documents. For small MedTech, biotech and other highly regulated firms, taking these steps will provide extra reassurance that the business is expanding and evolving in a safe, secure way.

With nearly three quarters of technology employers experiencing skills shortages, onboarding the necessary experience and knowledge is clearly one of the major steps when growing a business. As well as getting the numbers, entrepreneurs must try to build a healthy, diverse workforce that innovates, and entering into the gig economy can help them do this. 

To get the skills your company needs, post a project for free on Kolabtree and get started https://www.kolabtree.com/ 

What Happened When Gig Workers Became Heroes

By Lindsey D. Cameron, Curtis Chan, and Michel Anteby

February 11, 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic transformed service work, especially for surrogate shoppers. During that first year, when simply going outside was a scary proposition, consumers turned to gig workers on platforms such as Door Dash, Instacart, and Shipt to bring household essentials and creature comforts right to their doors. Suddenly, these low-wage earners were celebrated alongside highly paid doctors and nurses, with appreciative consumers leaving them generous tips, handmade thank-you notes, and signs of gratitude. The adulation flattered Instacart workers like Gerald Timothee, who told The New York Times, “It’s all about us right now. We are holding this city together. I feel like a hero.”

But not every shopper felt the same way. In our published study, we examined how individual workers reacted to the sudden moralization of their jobs and the consequences for firms dealing with a fast-shifting public narrative. We conducted extensive interviews with 44 Instacart workers at two different points in time and combined those coded interviews with additional data to reveal three distinct responses. Workers either blithely accepted the hero label and the accolades that came with it, believing that their work was morally worthy. We called that group “Skippers” because they skipped over the typical struggles along the hero’s journey. Even though the skippers had a generally positive view of Instacart, they didn’t stay on the platform once the hero narrative died down.

Another set of workers we called “Stallers” flatly rejected the hero label and saw nothing morally exceptional about shopping for others. They held Instacart in low esteem, as they did most of their customers. But they kept on working beyond the worst of the pandemic because they needed the money.

Finally, there were the “Strugglers.” As the name implies, these workers lived with ambiguity and struggled to make sense of becoming overnight heroes. They often went the extra mile for customers in order to rationalize their work, yet their mixed view of Instacart and their customers worsened over time.

All three of these reactions have important implications for platforms such as Instacart, which must constantly acquire new workers, and shows how a moralized public narrative can backfire. Our study also helps deepen understanding about gig workers – a growing segment of our economy – who must make meaning out of their tasks without the social structure and defined physical space of traditional work.

Revisiting The Fig Tree of Sylvia Plath: How You Can Explore Idiosyncratic Deals At Your Workplace To Venture Into Gig-Work?

By Sargam Garg

December 19, 2022

Keywords: gig work, employment relationship, idiosyncratic deals, negotiation

In her novel The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath imagined life as a fig tree with a fig on every branch of the tree promising a different possibility.  She bemoans the fact that she wanted to follow every open path, but choosing one meant losing the rest.  When she is unable to decide, the figs start to wrinkle and drop.

Welcome to the current times when you can work with your employer to explore different possibilities that call out for you. How can you do it? The answer is through idiosyncratic deals.

Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) are individualized employment arrangements. Employee and employer negotiate to customize a work arrangement in such a way that it benefits both the parties involved. Organizations use these arrangements to attract, retain, and reward talent. Sometimes, they are also offered as a way to remedy performance problems. The key is – it is about customization – ask for what will help you venture into your dream gig work!

As an employee, for some of us it can be daunting to let go of the security and certainty that Human Resource (HR) practices of an organization provide. For example, in an organization you may know exactly the training you need to undergo in order to progress in your career. As a gig-worker you are responsible for everything.  You can be hesitant to venture into gig work. What if you find yourself  standing on a rugged terrain by the sea, watching surfers and imagining them joyfully inhaling the salty air, and you find yourself longing for the waves they ride?  Now is the time to act! Now is the time to take the first step!

Talk to your manager to explore the possibility of flexibility at work, or to work in a different part of the organization, or to explore opportunities for training that are more aligned with your gig work aspirations. For example, if you work in Finance, but you dream of becoming a freelance writer, could you attend the training offered to employees in the advertising division? Or could the flexibility i-deal help you explore creative writing classes at a community college? Idiosyncratic deals can offer you time and opportunities to hammer out your gig-work plan.

But what is in it for employers? Employers care about attracting, retaining, and rewarding employees with diverse backgrounds and interests. I-deals have been associated with many positive outcomes for employees and employers. As an example, a study revealed the positive impact of i-deals on collective employee commitment within units and on client satisfaction. Explore the elasticity of your employment arrangement to spur forward your gig-work dreams!

So, I urge you, go back to Sylvia Plath’s fig tree. Don’t let the figs drop, pick each and every one of them to taste what life has to offer you, if and only if you dare to ask!

Gig Workers Managing Risks During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Lindsey Cameron, Bobbi Thomason, Vanessa Conzon

July 23, 2022

Keywords: gig workers, Task Rabbit, risk, COVID-19 pandemic

If you’re like most Americans, food delivery services such as DoorDash and Instacart, and handyperson services such as TaskRabbit and Handy have become part of your everyday vocabulary. Indeed, during the pandemic, more and more individuals have turned to these platforms for essential services to avoid the risks of conducting transactions in-person. But in doing so, the risk of in-person interactions is shifted, from those hiring gig workers to the gig workers themselves. How do these frontline service workers manage the physical risk of working during the pandemic?

In a recently published article in the Journal of Applied Psychology, we examine how gig workers are managing the physical risk associated with the COVID-19 pandemic while, at the same time, appearing as “ideal workers” (i.e., devoted, always available and willing to take-on risks, in the name of customer service). From our research, we identified four tactics workers use to manage risk. When passing, workers present as ideal workers while protecting themselves in ways that are not visible to the customer (e.g., switching to only remote services). When revealing, workers openly protect themselves in ways that deviate from customer expectations (e.g., asking customers to leave the room while working). When covering, workers deviate from customers’ expectations, but refocus customers’ attention on how they are otherwise ideal workers (e.g., reframing their own mask and glove wearing as care and concern for the customers). And, fearing for their health, some workers withdraw by leaving the platform altogether.

This research provides insight into the complex world of frontline service work, which includes in-person gig work. While prior research has focused on individuals’ availability as the central mechanism to signal that they are “ideal workers” we identify a different mechanism: taking on physical risk. Additionally, implicit in workers’ accounts was a risk trade-off between physical and economic risk. For instance, refusing to be in the same room as customers could lower ratings and diminish workers’ chances of being hired in the future. In contrast, when workers wanted to earn more money– and, by extension, mitigate economic risk– they often took on any physical risk even if it jeopardized their own health through potential exposure to COVID-19. Although the pandemic has highlighted this risk trade-off for gig workers in particular, it is, in fact, faced everyday by many other workers who are potentially exposed to the virus through routine contact, including couriers, counselors, and teachers. Our research also suggests several practices that can mitigate the negative consequences of risk, such as forming communities on

Facebook and WhatsApp to share strategies and experiences or customers and organizations minimizing the “hero” labeling of lower-paid essential work that can mask the riskier aspects of the work. Our study shows that risk is becoming part and parcel of work, and workers need to be equipped to manage it.

Moral Reckonings and the Allure of Independent Work for Professionals

By Erin Reid and Lakshmi Ramarajan

May 19, 2022

Why do some professionals choose to leave traditional employment in organizations and move into independent, gig-based work? Our study of more than 100 journalists suggests that the experience of moral reckonings—realizations that working in an organization can prevent one from doing moral work—can be an important trigger.

Morals matter in people’s careers: autobiographies from fields as diverse as finance, politics, and rock and roll attest to people’s deep desires to build moral careers (e.g., Lewis 1989, Richards and Fox 2010, Power 2019, Obama 2020). Lawyers hope to serve justice, physicians to heal, teachers to educate. The journalists we studied joined the profession with the moral aim of doing work that allows them to report the truth to the public.

Yet, work is also the key means through which people secure money to fund both the material necessities and the pleasures of life—shelter, food, family, entertainment, travel, gifts and donations. Thus, people’s pursuit of moral aims in their careers are intertwined with the satisfaction of their material aims.

For many people, a crisis occurs when they find themselves working for organizations where salaries help them pay the bills but where hurdles prevent them from doing work they regard as moral. The accounts of the journalists we studied revealed that in these circumstances, people can experience reckonings: transformational, individual experiences by which they come to view working in an organization as preventing them from building a career that is simultaneously moral and financially sustainable.

These reckonings arise from either acute events or accumulate through repeated frustrations. Their determining characteristic is that they make visible the lack of fit between the work possible within the organization and satisfaction of the professional’s moral aims. For instance, many journalists described how the industry’s movement towards counting website metrics and spinning out brief, superficial stories that would attract attention, made it difficult for them to do the important, moral work for which they had joined the profession. One person explained:

“More and more newspapers are consolidating, cutting staff, or becoming these aggregation type sites where it’s all ripping off other people’s content and adding your own spin to it as quickly as possible. That wasn’t why I got into the journalism job.”

Such reckonings are not only deep experiences, they are also important inflection points in people’s careers, orienting them away from organizations and towards independent work. In our study, we found that after experiencing such reckonings, many journalists chose to leave traditional news organizations and work on an independent basis, doing freelance work or creating their own news organizations. By working independently and outside the auspices of organizations, they hoped to gain exert greater control over the morality of the work that they do.

It is well-established that independent workers seek more control over hours, personal life and flexibility while living with the downsides of precarity. Our study shows that in a world where commercialism is rife, working independently is one way workers seek to assert both moral and material control.

What Does it Mean to Quit a Job You Were Never Required to Work?

By Michael Maffie

April 19, 2022

Keywords: Uber, disintermediation, labor relations

The popular press is full of stories about gig workers “quitting” at an astounding rate, with some claiming that more than 90% of gig workers “quit” within six months. Yet what does it mean to quit a job that you are never required to work? And why are there so many stories about people who get “trapped” in these jobs?

In my forthcoming article in the British Journal of Industrial Relations, I look at how and why ride-hail drivers leave the industry. From this research, I find that quitting a gig is much more complex than merely closing an app. In fact, I find that many drivers do not “quit” so much as they steal clients from these services and strike out on their own, becoming “pirate” (independent) taxi operators.

The cost structure of gig work is the heart of this article. I find that drivers immediately experience the benefits of working a gig – freedom from a potentially oppressive boss, annoying co-workers, or a set schedule. Yet in the background, there are delayed costs – cell phone plans, maintenance, self-employed benefit plans, and gaps in resumes. These costs appear over time.

In the article, I find that many gig workers underestimate these costs because gig companies “upsell” the benefits – freedom from a boss and emphasizing the gross, not net, pay – while downplaying the costs. Yet this illusion is unsustainable, and drivers go through what one of my interviewees called “the dawning”: they finally see how little they are actually making.

After “the dawning”, I find that those with other means of making ends meet stop driving and move on to another line of work. Yet for those that have come to rely on ride-hail income to pay the bills, I find they start to recruit clients to transport “off app” trips.

Or, in the words of one of my interviewees, they “become pirates”.

This research grants insight into the complicated yet booming world of platform work. On the one hand, platform workers appear to genuinely enjoy the ability to work outside of the time demands of a traditional employment contract. Yet on the other hand, companies that “oversell” the benefits of working a gig generate enormous turnover and workers stealing their clients for “off app” work. This underground “gig economy” is less well understood and needs further investigation.

Additionally, this study calls into question corporate surveys that find gig workers are happy. As most workers stop working when they realize the true cost structure of ride-hail, these surveys may be evidence of successful deception on the part of these companies.

Yet somewhat paradoxically, the “pirates” of ride-hail are fulfilling the gig economy’s promise of independent, empowered work.

How to Wear Multiple Hats . . . and Not Lose Yourself In the Process

By Brianna Caza, Heather Vough, & Sherry Moss

January 28, 2022

As the gig economy continues to boom, many workers are finding themselves wearing multiple work hats, whether it's engaging in a side hustle in addition to their full-time job or pursuing multiple types of work simultaneously. In fact, one survey estimated that 54% of Americans report having a side hustle. The COVID-19 pandemic has further fueled interest in multiple job-holding by forcing entire industries to change and allowing millions to experiment with working remotely. While working multiple jobs offers some financial stability, our research which followed 48 individual multiple job holders over a five-year period suggests that it can be logistically, psychologically, and socially challenging. The thing they struggled with the most was the threat they felt to their authenticity. The multiple jobholders we spoke with diversified their occupational pursuits in order to express more of themselves, yet the process juggle multiple work commitments led them to fear they were losing their sense of self. They wondered: who am I if I’m all these things at once? How do I develop a sense of coherence when I am being pulled (or have pushed myself) into so many different directions? As we followed them over five years, we learned how many multiple jobholders developed a sense of authenticity while juggling their multiple jobs, thriving in this seemingly unusual job structure. If you feel yourself being pulled in many directions, our extensive research suggests that you can feel more authentic when you:

1) Develop practices and routines that protect each of your work pursuits. Early on, it was essential for our multiple jobholders to segment their time and focus to concentrate on each of their jobs individually. They did this by portioning their time and relegating particular jobs to certain places. Doing so helped them to establish legitimacy within each of their jobs separately. Thus, when starting to have multiple jobs make sure to make time for each job individually and set boundaries around them.

2) Learn to accept all of yourself, especially the paradoxes. Our participants expressed that sometimes they felt as though they had to sacrifice some parts of themselves and in particular their vocational interests, in order to become an expert or a master in another domain. This may be because certain characteristics or work roles seem paradoxical or even antithetical to others. But, over time as they came to interrogate and build a clearer understanding of why they were drawn to each of their jobs, many reported that their seemingly divergent work roles are actually perfectly shaped puzzle pieces that defined their true multi-faceted nature. This teaches us that while it may take a while to fully understand the complementary nature of your work roles, the synergy you gain from doing so pays off in dividends.

3) Give yourself permission to only selectively share pieces of yourself. The multiple jobholders we interviewed also expressed that the societal expectation for total authenticity sometimes led them to feel pressured to present their “whole selves” to everyone. However, along the way they learned that sometimes people are not fully ready to see the “whole” you, especially when it can be considered counternormative (like holding more than one job!). One of our participants explained that this time or context dependent sharing still allows her to be her authentic self because all of the work roles she inhabits are slices of who she is and so connecting to people from within the boundaries of a single role at one point in time is an expression of her true self. Accordingly, you may need to tailor how you talk about your work for different audiences, depending upon their readiness to accept multiple job holding.

A connection to routines: Successful independent workers find that, as one writer commented, “routines are the wardens of accomplishment.” They use routines to get into their workday and to transition out of it at the end of the day. Routines help them either getting the right headspace or simply get to work altogether. Routines bring focus and get them a way to get back to work when they lose a sense of where they were going.

Studying these multiple jobholders taught us that being authentic does not mean being the same across time and context. Humans are, by nature, many things, and even though it is logistically, psychologically, and socially demanding, working multiple jobs may bring us closer to understanding and expressing our true selves.

Making your way in the (gig) world today takes everything you’ve got!

By Sue J. Ashford

September 7, 2021

I love this first line from the theme song to an ancient TV show called Cheers; but I think it really applies to gig workers who operate on their own outside of organizations. Sure, they have their freedom and they avoid the frustrations of having a boss and a system to which they need to comply. But they also operate without a stable sense of place, a firm identity, a set of colleagues and even someone to blame if things go wrong. What can we learn from those who handle this independence best?

Independent workers were able to maintain a vital sense of self and a stable identity as a professional if they could maintain four different connections:

A connection to other people: whether it’s your editor you talk to once a week, the gallery owner you stop by to visit, your spouse, or others who do the work you do, having contact with other people makes a difference. It helps independent workers to stay on track in all their freedom and elevates their aspirations. Other people’s encouragement helps them to aim higher and their questions and comments help them to achieve focus.

A connection to place: The most successful independent workers we interviewed had a place where they typically did their work (for some it was a room in the house, for others a space at a particular library) and the place had some meaning for them. One writer populated the bulletin board in her workspace with every accolade she had ever received to keep her spirits up when the going got tough. Another said he worked in a 6’ x 8’ shack on his property because anything bigger than that, he lost focus.

A connection to routines: Successful independent workers find that, as one writer commented, “routines are the wardens of accomplishment.” They use routines to get into their workday and to transition out of it at the end of the day. Routines help them either getting the right headspace or simply get to work altogether. Routines bring focus and get them a way to get back to work when they lose a sense of where they were going.

A connection to purpose: As cliché as it has become, understanding and being in touch with why you’re doing the work you’re doing makes a difference. If you can see your work on a bigger canvas, it can help your motivation. Getting specific about your purpose is in the independent work you’re doing also enables you to attract certain work and turn down other work that doesn’t fit as well.

We titled our research: “Agony and Ecstasy in the Gig Economy ” and our workers certainly reported both feelings [1]. But those who were able to maintain these four connections expressed more of the ecstasy and also felt that they could use the moments of agony to enrich their work and their sense of a life well lived.

[1] Petriglieri, G., Ashford, S. J., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2019). Agony and ecstasy in the gig economy: Cultivating holding environments for precarious and personalized work identities. Administrative Science Quarterly, 64(1), 124-170.