How does the rise in the gig economy benefit startups while hiring in the initial stage?

This article is contributed by Girish Kukreja, Founder and CEO, FlexC

Today, working gigs is no longer considered as an alternative to a full-time job but rather accepted as a viable means to earn a living. According to industry experts, there could be more than 130 million gig economy workers in India.

A gig economy is a free market system where independent workers and organizations set a specific time frame for an on-demand short-term professional relationship. Freelancers, contractors, and part-time employees, all together make up the gig economy. People working gigs enjoy benefits such as a flexible lifestyle, challenging assignments, no long-term commitments, extra money, and many more.

In recent years, startups have been eyeing and onboarding talent from the gig workforce to achieve their short-term and long-term goals. But with the pandemic on the rise, startups’ dependence on the gig workforce has increased tremendously because of the number of additional benefits gig employees bring to the table especially the latest digital skills in the technology sector.

Benefits of Hiring Gig Workforce -

1. Cross-off Milestones Faster by Hiring Gig Employees
2. Fewer Responsibilities and Expenditure
3. Increased Efficiency and Performance
4. Enhanced Productivity
5. Benefits of their Expertise

5 Benefits of Hiring Gig Workforce

Cross-off Milestones Faster by Hiring Gig Employees

The process of finding and hiring a freelancer is much faster and easier than hiring a full-time employee. Since gig workers are more likely to have the skill set needed for the project, it helps startups expedite execution and training costs as well. This does require planning and processes as the task assigned by startups to a freelancer is one of the many lined-up projects they need to complete within a given time frame. They may have other ongoing projects as well and more tight deadlines to meet.

Hence, they are strictly here for business and are more likely to adhere to the given deadlines, helping startups achieve their milestones faster. Hiring a Gig workforce improves the speed and quality of deliverables while professionalism and planning need to be managed.  

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Fewer Responsibilities and Expenditure

If startups hire a gig employee, they don’t have to spend time managing the employee’s accounts, provide the insurance coverage, and other benefits that startups may typically provide a full-time employee. Since most gig workers prefer to work remotely and are probably from some other corner of the world, startups won’t have to worry about allocating them designated office space or providing them with any supplies such as a laptop. Since this saves a lot of time and effort, hiring freelancers will make much more sense for startups. Also, the percentage of money businesses save by hiring gig workers can be invested in other aspects.

Increased Efficiency and Performance

Startups can hire gig employees to take some pressure off their backs. Freelancers can be hired to meet short-term important deadlines. Startups can hand them a single task or even outsource a complete project. This will help the founders shift their focus on more important tasks, hence working more efficiently. Increased efficiency will automatically improve the overall performance of the business. Since freelancers mostly work independently, startups can completely rely on a freelancer’s professionalism and efficient work ethics to get the job done, instead of micro-managing everything. This will positively impact the overall performance of the workplace.

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Enhanced Productivity

Startups can hire gig employees across the globe. Since the gig employee probably is working in a different time zone, the tasks are being completed while you’re asleep. Another benefit of hiring gig workers from different parts of the globe is that startups can provide their customers 24X7 support and improve customer relationships. Also, there are a lot of resources available that can help startups track the productivity of their gig employees. Startups can use platforms like FlexC that will not only help them find top talent but will also break the project into small milestones. This will make it easier for startups to see how much of the overall project is left and analyze real-time productivity data.

Startups can also use productivity tools like Google meet/Zoom, employee monitoring, and cloud workspaces for better communication and management.

Benefits of their Expertise

People usually start working gigs in a niche they are skilled at. And many gig workers also love to work with startups since startups provide them more creative freedom and an opportunity to brush up their skills.

By adding gig employees to their workforce, startups can use the employee’s expertise to their best advantage. Startups can also take the gig worker’s suggestions regarding any particular issue they may be expert at, and also ask them to train the rest of the staff with that particular skill.

Gig employees provide the kind of flexibility that a startup needs to grow. Startups, especially the ones at the early stage can take advantage of the talent pool across different skills such as copywriting, web development, graphic designing, etc., and grow their business. They can also hire talent from tier-2 and tier-3 cities and work on ways to expand their business.

Figuring out a way to provide a permanent spot to gig employees in the overall workforce structure is becoming crucial for start-ups. Changes in the workforce trend and advancement of technology have opened new doors for gig employees. Both startups and large-scale businesses can benefit from this flexible workforce by keeping their costs manageable and engaging with experts across different cultures and creative levels.  

Even, startups in their early/MVP stage can look at a partial gig workforce for functions like UX Designer, web development, marketing, legal, etc. Even for initial permanent hiring, there is no need to go through the empanelment of HR agencies, founders can just post it on platforms like FlexC and have multiple agencies work on the same.