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The gig workforce continues to boom as organizations cope with the post-pandemic economy in recent years. There’s a skill and labor market shortage worldwide as some members of the workforce experience shifting career priorities. And that’s where it might be useful to start hiring gig workers.
Many workers have embraced gig and contractual positions for greater career flexibility. The rising workforce trend also includes low-income employees who lost their jobs during the pandemic. These people turned to gig economy jobs as a temporary means of survival, eventually becoming a lasting lifestyle.
While gig workers lack conventional job security at first sight – fixed monthly wages and benefits from a single employer – it also means escaping the risks of an unexpected layoff.
Why should you be hiring gig workers?
There are many operational and cultural benefits to hiring gig workers. For starters, hiring these workers is a great way to scale up your workforce during peak season cost-effectively. This is especially beneficial for small businesses with tighter human resource budgets for maintaining full-time staff.
You may realize that having all hands on deck for a stressful audit period still lacks the necessary effort to complete the job. So, a qualified gig or contractual worker can swoop in as a reinforcement to boost your team’s productivity. Gig workers often come from industries and roles, including IT, content creation, administrative work, graphic designers, and transportation.
One big advantage of temporary workers is that you don’t have to spend time and effort training them. Gig workers usually have lots of experience from working in different industries and companies. So, you can expect them to do a good job without needing extra training.
However, you’ll still need to introduce gig economy workers to your culture so they can collaborate well with your full-timers. This helps ensure they perform according to workplace protocols and expectations.
The Challenges of Hiring Gig Workers
Gig worker recruitment might seem like the golden solution for workforce shortages. But, it comes with new challenges. Mainly, you’ll need to switch up the structure of your recruitment campaigns to appeal to gig workers’ career goals and priorities (rather than regular full-time employment).
You should implement the shift in talent perspective across every aspect of the hiring and recruiting process. These include interview structures, CV reviews, skill sets assessment/testing, and job descriptions (JDs).
Talent Strategies For Successfully Hiring Gig Workers
It is important to note that contingent workers typically have different practices from regular hires and candidates. These include how they establish their resume, accrue testimonials, and even apply for jobs. Boosting your gig talent acquisition strategy requires understanding these underlying differences while shaping your outreach method.
We share the proven methods of hiring trustworthy and qualified gig workers for your company to keep operations undisrupted.
#1 – Leverage The Right Platform When Hiring Gig Workers
Hiring gig workers may require venturing beyond your company’s official recruiting or job listing website. It is strategic to thoroughly consider the type of role and its demands. This comes in handy when shortlisting the most suitable sites that connect you with the best hires.
Your company could consider hiring from freelance marketplaces like Upwork, Instawork, and Fiverr. Alternatively, you could explore specialized gig worker portals like Scoopshot for photographers. Or you can use ServiceNow for help desk hires. These websites offer a transparent talent vetting process that enables you to review past assignments, feedback, and other performance indicators to narrow your choices.
A freelance hiring platform can help your team centralize and streamline payment and tax management. These websites usually handle the paperwork, such as taxation matters (e.g., 1099 forms for freelance gig workers). Also, they securely manage payments in escrow based on milestones agreed between gig employees and their clients.
#2 – Establish a Common Understanding
The most crucial step in hiring gig workers is clearly understanding their concerns and priorities compared to traditional employees. Market research shows that 80% of roles worldwide are deskless – where roles do not require employees to remain at a particular workstation. More than half (51%) of these 80% of employees would leave their current jobs for flexibility and autonomy.
The behavioral trend of these deskless employees suggests the rise of the gig economy, where individuals can choose their work hours. As such, flexibility should remain vital when hiring a talent from the gig economy.
It could prove advantageous to emphasize flexible work arrangements in your JDs and support gig workers in their roles without enforcing rigid workplace policies and codes of conduct (e.g., strict internet access rules).
Companies should also maintain clear and consistent communication with gig workers upon hiring. These include regular check-ins from multiple channels according to individual preference. Project management software, such as Kanban platforms like Trello, makes it easier for gig workers to track and share their progress with the rest of the organization throughout their collaboration.
#3 – Prioritize Gig Worker Needs
Understanding independent worker needs enables your organization to fine-tune job listings and hiring campaigns to target the interests of these specialized hires.
For the best response, consider enhancing your employee branding. News about employee credibility often travels fast among gig workers. Industry research shows that 44% of gig workers discover job opportunities from their peer networks. As such, establishing a strong positive employee profile can help attract the most qualified talent for your part-time positions.
Aside from identifying gig worker needs, it would help if you personalized the offering based on candidate needs. For example, your company could break down the type of health insurance offered, including telehealth consultation coverage for remote workers and linking hires with their preferred healthcare providers.
#4 – Strengthen Your Social Media Presence
Regarding employee branding, social media platforms remain an efficient channel for attracting and engaging talent. Employment statistics reveal that 62% of job seekers leverage social media platforms when assessing the legitimacy and credibility of potential employers.
Your company can turn the social media trend to your advantage by showcasing the significant benefits of joining your company as a gig worker. These may include wellness programs, health insurance, and exclusive learning opportunities that accelerate professional development. Consider posting your JDs and promotions across multiple digital platforms for the best results.
Targeting multiple social media channels can boost multi-generational workforce recruitment campaigns since each platform caters to a specific demographic. Specifically, young adults aged between 18 and 29 prefer Instagram and TikTok, and those between 30 and 49 prefer LinkedIn, while individuals aged 50 to 59 spend most of their time on Facebook.
It is also important to note that aside from the selected platform, the type of content matters when speaking to different age groups of candidates. For example, you can create quick promotional employment videos to attract younger candidates who focus on short and entertaining content.
But that doesn’t mean recruiting and hiring teams have to make new content all the time for different groups of people. Instead, they can change existing campaign materials to fit the interests of each age group. For example, they could turn a regular job description into a fun video showing what happens behind the scenes at work. And do the opposite too.
A multi-platform campaign can help broaden your recruiting and hiring outreach when attracting the right people for your next big part-time opening.
#5 – Rethink Candidate Evaluations
The career pathways of gig workers differ from standard hires, which affects their CV and overall applicant evaluation process.
For instance, you don’t need to consult previous employers for testimonies and commendations. You need to assess the quality of the candidate’s past work and short-term projects. So, gig workers deliver their services on a project basis. Therefore, recruiters can discount the years of relevant experience working for a former employee.
To check a gig worker’s qualifications and past jobs, you can look at the websites where they offer their services or ask their past clients for feedback. You can also check their online portfolio, which usually shows the projects they’ve worked on before.
#6 – Reframe Your JDs
Your JD is the gateway to your organization, regardless of whether you’re targeting independent contractors or regular full-time employees. A polished and inclusive JD ensures that your organization extends a shining reputation that entices candidates to join your company culture, including gig workers.
While your hiring and recruiting team could manually handle the editing process, some subtleties might escape detection, costing companies a valuable hire. These include gender-coded words and age-biased terms like digital native that could seem neutral at first glance.
Using Ongig’s Text Analyzer makes it easier to find and fix any biases in job descriptions. It checks the text using a smart algorithm to catch even small biases. The analyzer also helps improve your job description to attract candidates and follow the latest hiring rules and diversity standards.
In addition to making sure your job descriptions are fair, you should also make them attractive to gig workers. Instead of offering things like retirement plans, focus on benefits that are available right away and chances to learn new things. You could consider adding the following perks in JDs tailored to gig workers by focusing on freedom and work-life balance:
Reimbursements for remote work
Gig workers may operate from a deskless and remote position, requiring regular internet and phone access. As such, complementary data packages and mobile plans could prove highly beneficial. Some employers may also provide stipends for setting up a home office to offer gig workers the necessary support for achieving the best quality of work.
Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs)
Employers may consider HRAs for gig workers as an alternative to standard employee health insurance in the United States. HRAs are more practical options since they offer reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses regardless of employment status and protect them across multiple assignments and deployments.
Provide effective learning opportunities
While training and development are critical in any workplace setting, it is essential to consider their accessibility in the gig economy. Since gig workers may not necessarily have the schedule to routinely report to a physical classroom, consider providing online upskilling lessons and seminars via mobile apps. For example, you could provide elearning credits for massive open online courses (MOOCs) relevant to the hire’s role or industry.
#7 – Provide a Positive Gig Worker Experience
Ultimately, employees seek a positive employment experience, no matter their background. Your organization can leave the best impression by evaluating the needs and concerns of the gig worker and providing a relevant set of perks that meet and surpass their expectations.
It is important to note that hiring gig workers is often just the beginning of a potentially long-term professional relationship. Developing a lasting positive reputation helps to ensure that you can call on the service of a familiar face and reliable helping hand for future projects.
Acquiring consistent feedback from existing gig workers and improving your hiring processes based on their experiences can help fine-tune your recruitment efforts. These enable you to constantly attract top talent with attractive perks that draw them away from the competition.
The Challenges of Hiring Gig Workers
Gig worker recruitment might seem like the golden solution for workforce shortages. But, it comes with new challenges. Mainly, you’ll need to switch up the structure of your recruitment campaigns to appeal to gig workers’ career goals and priorities (rather than regular full-time employment).
Many times, gig workers are apprehensive of choosing a contract work with no stability, or fixed duration. Because the gig economy is not only competitive but also involves income instability, job insecurity, limited or no legal protection, fewer social security benefits, as well as long working hours, the least a gig should offer these contract workers is autonomy over their decisions, and appeal to their priorities, as well as career goals.
When you offer a gig job with short term work, most of the gig workers focus on earning some extra income, so keeping your pay rates at an optimum rate will help you attract a better talent pool, and hiring the top talent.
For instance, the need for social media managers and marketers is increasing in the digital world of 2024. Hence, a major part of the remote gigs economy is focused on providing services such as freelance writing, graphic designing, and social media management. Even social media statistics indicate that over 55% of users first come across a business and get to know about it through its social media presence.
This demand begs the question, is social media the new marketplace for the gig economy? If a majority of digital industries demand gig workers, then there should be a regulated protocol for hiring gig workers, just like regular full-time employees. To get the best of the best, you must focus on bringing a new perspective in your recruitment process.
You should implement the shift in talent perspective across every aspect of the hiring and recruiting process. These include interview structures, CV reviews, skill sets assessment/testing, and job descriptions (JDs).
Why I Wrote This:
Ongig gives modern employers the trusty technology of replacing dull and biased JDs with effective alternatives targeting the best hires. Our Text Analyzer solution can help more organizations hire the talent they need despite the most volatile and unpredictable job markets. These include passionate gig workers to fill urgent contract-based and temporary roles. Do you want to see Ongig’s Text Analyzer in action? Request a demo, today!
Shout-Outs:
- Mckinsey & Company – What is the gig economy?
- IRS – About Form 1099-MISC, Miscellaneous Information
- Skedulo – 2022 State of Deskless Work Report
- Indeed Editorial Team – 10 Examples of Policies and Procedures in the Workplace
- By Nadia, Siteefy – 101+ Gig Economy Statistics Showing Ultra Growth
- By Sagar Joshi, G2 – 55 Recruitment Statistics About Navigating the Future of Hiring
- Rapid – Health Insurance For Freelancers: Things to Know
- By Jacqueline Zote, Sprout Social – Social media demographics to inform your 2024 strategy
- LinkedIn – How can you create social media content that appeals to multiple age groups?
- Healthcare.gov – Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs): 3 things to know
- By Jeremy Kaplan, Fast Company – 7 Reasons to use Trello for project management
