Solutions for Gig Workers, How to Overcome Common Gig Economy Challenges

Solutions for Gig Workers: Overcome Common Gig Economy Challenges

The gig economy has become a crucial part of the modern workplace, where millions of workers worldwide take advantage of this gig economy. The fact that these people want more flexibility and independence with gig solutions that encourage them to work fairly and independently. You have many opportunities through the gig economy, even if you work as a freelancer at certain platforms, e.g., Upwork, Fiver, or you work as a driver or deliver food to home, etc., through various platforms offered in your country. Although you have opportunities through this gig economy, on the same side, you face some challenges that need solutions for you as a gig worker.

Let’s have a look at these challenges with solutions for gig workers

 

1. Access to Fair Compensation

One of the primary concerns that we found in gig workers is fair payment for their jobs. They must know exactly how much they earned for any specific task and how much the tax is deducted from their earnings. The fact is the gig worker only gets payment for specific tasks without any further future benefits.

There must be fair compensation for their jobs that can help them not just earn but also save for the future. Another issue is that the companies that offer jobs to gig workers are getting high commissions for the task, which should be lower and reasonable to give more benefits to gig workers rather than deducting a higher commission from their earnings, which they feel is unfair.

 

 2. Healthcare and Other Benefits

Unlike traditional employees, gig workers don’t have any facilities to get health care and other related benefits that traditional job holders have.

For example, if you work for a company, they pay your tax, health insurance, pension fund, etc., while the gig worker unfortunately does not have such facilities. Suppose you are sick and not able to do your task or job, then you would not pay for this, which means you only get paid when you complete your task without matter of being healthy or sick, while if you work for the company and you get sick or on sick leave, you will definitely be paid even if you are sick and resting at home. Here the question is:

 

How to bring healthcare and other benefits to gig workers?

The companies should design a system for gig workers based on the commission they deduct from their earnings and even make some additional deductions that they may save for the future; for this, they have to give choice to their gig workers for such deductions for any other benefit, e.g., health care, insurance, etc.

 

Let’s take two examples

For professionals: if you are professional and giving services on Fiver, Upwork, or other freelancing platforms, you don’t have any option of health insurance or any additional benefit.

For non-professionals: In some countries, if you are driving with apps like Uber or Bolt and doing delivery jobs with such companies, you don’t have many options to get medical treatment and compensation if something happens to you, which is quite unfair.

 

3. Legal Protections and Rights

When you talk about legal protection and rights for legal gig workers, then you would be surprised to know that they often operate in a gray area. If something happens to them during work, they do not fully get protection on the legal ground; they don’t get much right, which is unfortunate. Here the question is:

 

How do you protect the legal rights of gig workers?

To protect their legal rights, first, there should be clear regulations that are designed by gig platforms under the labor law that protect the rights of ordinary labor. Gig workers should have fair protection regarding their termination because the gig platform terminates their contract and suspends their account due to complaints that may be unfair or not authentic. The government and international lawmakers should collaborate with gig workers and their platforms and ensure that these gig workers are protected from any unfairness in the future.

 

4. Financial Management Tools for Gig Workers

As a gig worker, you are aware that your income is not always constant, meaning one day you have earned a reasonable amount of money, but there is a possibility that you may earn less or even zero in the day. This means this irregularity in your income is also challenging for you. Here the question is

 

How to overcome income irregularity challenges for gig workers?

Companies that offer tasks to gig workers should design and implement solutions that allow gig workers not just to track their earnings but also allow them to make settlements for the future with their current earnings. Furthermore, these companies can design or adjust some features with their current app to let their gig workers get credit or loans with a low interest rate in case of any emergency, which they can adjust from the earnings.

Although this is challenging to do for such gig companies, such policies should be implemented sooner or later as the gig economy is growing over time. gig companies should have a plan to support their gig workers with loan schemes when they are going through financial crises.

 

How do gig economy design options, like loans for gig workers, accommodate their unique financial needs?

In the gig economy, gig companies have to design options like loans for gig workers in a way that is linked to their irregular income patterns. For instance, if a gig worker needs a loan and companies have a concern about repayment. To overcome this issue, you can design a system where you allow gig workers to sign a legal agreement that is full of law and regulation, not just domestically but internationally, where the loan they took should feature flexible repayment terms that adjust based on their fluctuating income. The fact is, gig worker earnings are not stable, just like salary-class individuals. Such agreements allow them to make higher payments during peak earning periods and lower payments when their income is lower or does not reach a specific level where they need repayments. This flexibility through agreement helps your gig workers manage their finances despite inconsistent earnings.

 

5. Training and Skill Development of Gig Workers

When we talk about financial rewards, which are crucial for gig workers, but at the same time, non-financial rewards also help gig workers to earn better in the future, e.g., this includes their continuous learning and skill development through online courses, etc.

 

How do gig companies provide skill development options to their gig workers?

There are many ways that such companies can use to advance their gig worker skills, e.g., by offering them a free training program and advanced short courses with certificates that help them to compete in the age of AI and bring value even through these advanced AI tools.

 

6. Online Community Support for Gig Workers

Isolution is not helpful for your gig worker when it is long-term, as the gig worker mostly works from places where they don’t have any interaction with other people. If you don’t socialize for longer, you will not be able to adjust yourself with the worker on-site with other people due to your long isolation, and this will affect their mental health and performance. Here you might have a question:

 

How do you provide community support to gig workers?

You can design and build communities even online where they can share their experience with each other and get advice from others because such an environment also helps them to open their minds and lets them do brainstorming. The common practice is online forums and online support groups where they make some engagement with peers to develop their sense of belonging.

 

7. Leveraging Technology

Technology can be a powerful ally for you as a gig worker. After the arrival of many advanced solutions and AI in every area, you should invest in your system that should give real-time support to your gig worker and bring fairness to the system that helps the gig worker to match their skills with the job fairly. Although the technology benefits both gig workers and gig platforms, it is also challenging to select the right candidate for a specific task.

As per our research, many loopholes were found in the manipulation of many gig platforms with algorithms and other unethical acts, e.g., fake reviews to get on top, using fake technology, etc. These loopholes should be fixed to bring integrity to your system.

 

To sum up with keynote

The gig economy is growing and has great potential in the future as well, but it brings challenges to gig workers. Companies should understand the challenges of gig workers that we discuss and implement these solutions to create a fair and sustainable gig economy that allows gig workers to get equal benefits that just like ordinary workers getting in the corporations.

Although it’s not something that is easy or simple, gig companies with government guidelines bring some policies that actually benefit the gig workers and let them enjoy their lives just like other sectors.

 

What is the bottom line?

The bottom line is that gig companies should understand the challenges that gig workers face and also bring solutions to overcome these challenges due to the fact that the gig economy is vastly growing and needs much attention.

 

What do we hope from you?

We hope that the blog post helps you to understand the challenges of gig workers and the solution for the gig workers to empower them further.

If you have any questions to ask, you are welcome to leave a comment below or get in touch with us at support@workwisdoms.com.

 

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