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The pandemic has influenced the way we live, interact, and work. With the infectious nature of the disease and its debilitating consequences, people have been forced to stay indoors and maintain protocols like social distancing. The precautionary measures undertaken by governments around the world in the form of lockdowns have hit the economy hard with mainstream activities coming to a standstill. However, even in such dire circumstances, some sectors have seen growth, especially where going to the workplace is not considered necessary anymore.
These include sectors like eCommerce, Information Technology, Education and Skill Development Training, among others. During the pandemic, the stay-at-home or the work-from-home model came as a savior as it kept the wheels of the economy moving and brought in myriad benefits. It broke the long-held shibboleth that working from home can never be an alternative to the co-location model where employees work together in a common physical space. The work-from-home model allows flexibility and freedom as people can save time from commuting, and business can cut down on overheads.
Besides, with technologies like cloud computing facilitating remote distributed working, businesses have found the work-from-home model to be seamless, cheaper, and convenient to adopt. Even educational institutions, which have been toying with implementing the blended learning system model for some years, had to adopt the online teaching model. Also, the work-from-home model has given a boost to the specially-abled people who are able to utilize their skills and deliver outcomes more than ever before.
The Gig Economy
If the work-from-home model has found acceptance during the pandemic and became a lifeline for many sectors of the economy, the gig model has been making noise for quite some time. It is defined as a work arrangement where there is a service seeker on one side – a consumer or business with specific job demand, and a service provider on the other – a gig worker or professional who can address or perform that job. In the tech-driven ecosystem, there are platforms (websites or apps) to connect the two. The gig professionals may include freelancers, self-employed, part-time workers, and independent consultants. In this model, the service seeker can cut overhead costs whereas gig professionals get paid for the specific task instead of getting a fixed salary. In fact, the gig economy is expected to grow by a CAGR of 17% and contribute around $455 billion to the world economy by 2023.
In this flexi-staffing model, India became the 5th country after the USA, China, Brazil, and Japan. According to a report by McKinsey Global Institute, digital platforms for labour are likely to boost the GDP of the USA by 2.3% in 2025. The reasons for growth in the gig economy are the reduction in the transaction cost for outsourcing certain non-core activities thanks to the rapid advancements in technology. As a result, the size of traditional business firms is seen to be gradually shrinking as opposed to an unprecedented growth witnessed in the start-up ecosystem.
These start-ups are driving the gig economy by outsourcing many activities to professionals on a contractual basis. Not only has the gig economy become popular among the blue-collar workers (drivers, plumbers, electricians, masons, etc) but holds huge potential for the white-collar workers as well. Today, the gig economy has a demand for project-specific consultants and professionals such as web developers, logo designers, and content writers, among others. In fact, more people are availing vocational education programs to join what may be called the mainstreaming of the gig model.
Work-from-home or gig economy – the future beckons
The benefits of the work-from-home and gig models have become apparent to businesses, more so during the pandemic. The flexibility and cost advantages offered by these models will certainly weigh uppermost in the minds of most decision-makers in the future. In a competitive global economy where superior user experience driven by quality products or services is going to be the accepted business goal, both work-from-home and gig models are going to stay. In the event of the pandemic getting over and the world returning to normalcy, the gig economy will continue to exist and give an option for businesses to stay competitive. The same logic would push the work-from-home model even further.
Conclusion
With a growing army of skilled workforce and consumers reaching out for on-demand services, businesses would find it cheaper to employ gig professionals to execute specific jobs. Thus, the work-from-home and gig economy models will continue to exist in a symbiotic relationship giving the service provider and service seeker greater flexibility and freedom.
