Some corporations have implemented types of crowdsourcing work or crowd work in order to stay flexible in their operations and for financial reasons. As research shows, currently, there is a polarization of the work environment. On the one side, there is the traditional employer and employee relationship. This provides security long-term planning and reliability; however, the downsides are flexible organisational structures and high labour costs. On the other side, there is a growing interest in the gig economy. This gig economy consists of part-time workers, temporary, independent and contract workers. The motivation for people to join the gig economy is basically summarized into three points, those being autonomy, flexibility and purpose. Although these three points should be part of a regular employment relationship, the reality is very different. Management has evolved in the growth economy towards managing the growth of an operation and not managing people or staff towards the growth of an organisation. Thus, in recent years, the focus has shifted from individual, people and human-centric to objective, output and performance management. It is clear that under these circumstances a certain amount of people will not be interested in providing time and resources. This is why the gig-economy is increasingly interesting in a new labour force seeking autonomy, flexibility and purpose. Large enterprises have been slow to adopt a new type of labour work organisation and there are numerous reasons why large enterprises find it difficult to implement a gig-economy workforce.
Considerations for implementing a workplace of the future
The underlying reasons for organisations to adopt a New Work philosophy and implement sourcing platforms are comprised by the scholar Corporaal into the following three distinct reasons: An easy and scalable solution to find talents, skills and expertise; a non-bureaucratic process in terms of human resource management; a reduction in costs for training, set up and overall transaction (2017) Although these benefits strongly suggest a reduction in cost and resources, adopting online freelancing platforms requires new skills and bares new challenges according to Corporaal. This can be the alignment of internal workers and external workers, learning new processes and procedures, increased cost with coordination of employees and external workers, increased resistance from internal staff, developing new platforms to work with legacy systems. These new challenges can result in a financial burden for an organisation seeking to utilize the advantages of a crowd work environment. (Corporaal, G.F., & Lehdonvirta, V., 2017).
Thus, Corporaal provides five recommendations for enterprises seeking an enterprise social media platform to support crowd work (2017). The following have been comprised as follows:
- Decide for what freelancing platforms will be needed, such as for specific tasks and divisions or for whole enterprise as a new solution to draw customers closer.
- Define the anticipated value received through flexible sourcing via freelancing platform.
- Develop a strategy for introducing a sourcing platform in divisions and the whole organisation.
- Provide for trainings to members.
- Create an experimental space that allows managers and users to test and find new practices.
In summary, Corporaal suggests that leaders need to prepare an organisation to adopt a new platform that has its own management layer, a platform that enables space for experimentation and a platform that has enough financial resources allocated as well as the endorsement of the entire leadership team. Apart from laying the foundations for the platform, it is essential to define the strategy on which tasks and work will be sourced via the platform. And as organisations are facing more freelancers available with skills and experience, pre-vetting strategies have become important. Organizations need to curate a selection of freelancers in order to meet their expectations. When having freelancers on board, organisations need to create a community with these few talented freelancers and complement employees in their internal positions. (Corporaal, G.F., & Lehdonvirta, V., 2017)
Simplification and collaboration with New Work
The dimensions of personnel and organisation, as well as automation and digitalization, need to be grouped into one consideration about work of the future. On the one side work performed will become simplified. Companies are working to implement design thinking, to change the work environment, and to assist workers to focus on their deliverables and provide a setting that is conducive to rest and pleasure. As pointed out by scholar Bersin, the new world of work leads to an era of doing less but doing it better, rather than doing more with fewer resources (2015). This implies that machines will support people in tasks and, thus, people and machines need to collaborate instead of competing for work. Machines are becoming better at reading, analysing and making decisions that impact work. Human resource responsibility rests in how to revise jobs so that collaboration with machines is possible. (Bersin et al., 2015) The combination of simplification and collaboration leads to platforms that provide this synergy. As the scholar Jabagi suggests, enterprise social media platforms should provide three basic functions, which are developing relationships, providing feedback and managing status (2019). In more detail, managing status is regarded to have an impact on the perceived prestige of working for an organisation. Providing feedback has an impact on the perceived competence of a gig worker. Developing relationships have an impact on the perceived relatedness of work performed by a gig worker. Both relationship development and feedback have an impact on the intrinsic motivation of the gig worker. Therefore, with intrinsic motivation and prestige perceived, Jabagi suggests, therefore, that OID can be positively influenced. With the increase in commitment and autonomy as well as feedback from social interaction an increase in OID can be anticipated. (Jabagi et al., 2019)
Definition of a future vision and identification of a starting point
In order to achieve the surrounding that is fruitful towards an employee-centric organisation supporting the new world of work concept, there are numerous criteria is to fulfil. To a certain extent, scholars have not been able to list and summarize the criteria required to implement a new world work and New Work. The new world of work still seems to be a conceptual topic that is well understood in its singularity but not well documented in its implementation. Basically, there is a trend towards a paradigm shift in how work will be conducted, but there are few implementations to draw upon that also have been studied upon. Thus, New Work remains a concept and an individual approach for each organisation is necessary. A lengthy process due to a need for cultural adaptation and change that is lived by all members of a company. Aspects drawn from literature can be summarized into:
- Reshape leadership skills to support a genuine human intrinsic motivation approach
- Leadership qualities that enforce a human centric organisation
- Build on and invite new talents while utilizing individual competencies
- Live and work by the circle of influence and circle of competence (Covey, 2004)
Remuneration in the new workplace of New Work
Other supporting traits are a trend for companies to implement a form of “pay to play” which is identified by scholar Jones. To analyse the balance between basic salaries, bonuses and benefits geared towards individual preferences. This means the workforce should also be able to readdress their salary and benefits and define new forms based on individual preferences and life stages. In the new world of work and its followers, money is not the sole remuneration possibility. The modern workforce can provide benefits along the lines of sabbaticals, family care, housing support (Jones, 2019). Also, non-monetary benefits of autonomy, feedback and social recognition are key benefits desired by the new world of the workforce.