The short-term experience of performing tasks by choice and getting paid immediately is gratifying. However, there may be less apparent long-term consequences
Artificial intelligence has disrupted traditional work structures worldwide. First, it has automated millions of jobs and forced skilled professionals into unemployment or underemployment. Second, employers can now fragment large volumes of skilled work into small, repeatable modules called gigs and use algorithms to control how workers perform them. Third, long-term employment becomes unnecessary: Why pay people long-term benefits and higher wages when they can be hired for cheap and on-demand using clicks on an app? Millennials, who comprise much of the gig workforce, appear to enjoy the flexibility and choice offered by this arrangement. When they get to select their work and deliver it how and where they want, they experience control over their time and eventually their professional destiny. Such autonomy—for employers and gig workers—is the cornerstone of gig work.
There aren’t easy solutions available, but reframing the situation may help. Plan out your career for the next five years and make an honest assessment of whether gig work paves a visible path to your end goal. If you choose the gig route, actively enforcing boundaries between life and work is vital. Building relationships with other gig workers through social media appears to be a common trend but with limited results. Learn new skills on your own, especially if your work is IT and management related. Finally, build solid relationships with the people in your life; this will keep you happy, healthy and productive.
Anjana Karumathil has received her PhD in organizational behaviour from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, MBA with Distinction from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow and BTech from the National Institute of Technology. Her research focuses on worker motivation in the gig economy. She has 15 years of industry experience in organizations including Deloitte Tax Services & Tata Consultancy Services Limited.
Ritu Tripathi is an Assistant Professor at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. She received her BA and MA in Psychology from the University of Allahabad, India, and another Master’s and a PhD in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago, USA, where she was also the recipient of the Dean’s Scholar Award. Her research focuses on how the experience and expression of common psychological phenomena such as achievement motivation, autonomy, and emotions, vary across diverse national cultures.
[This article has been published with permission from IIM Bangalore. www.iimb.ac.in Views expressed are personal.]