INSEAD: The gig economy is changing today’s work life “It frees you up and it freaks you out”

“It frees you up and it freaks you out” (not only if you are an independent worker!)

The gig economy is here to stay and now also gets academic attention. INSEAD has studied how independent workers manage and perceive their work life and how their criteria for success differ from traditional success criteria when working as a permanent employee in an organisational context.

While these differences for success, identified by INSEAD Associate Professor Gianpiero Petriglieri, are interesting to take a look at, there is another finding that is actually more surprising and has a wider impact on society: the gig economy is not only changing work life for those who are independent workers, it is actually also having an impact on the way many permanent employees approach and perceive their professional life. Or maybe it is the other way around: because we have put so much focus on making our jobs meaningful and personal, the choice of becoming an independent worker makes sense to more and more people and has boosted the gig economy. We are what we do and therefore, we want to be the CEO of our professional lives.

Work in the gig economy is both something personal and precarious

Back to Petriglieri, who states that for independent workers, work becomes personal and precarious at the same time – or in popular terms “it frees you up and it freaks you out”. Petriglieri says, since work becomes a part of you and your identity to an even higher degree than it already is for permanent employees, as an independent worker work life becomes a matter of life and death. Hence, also one of the things to consider as an independent worker is who they will be once they stop working – if they stop working. Surely, the classic concept of retirement is also under pressure in the gig economy and independent workers will have the freedom to adjust their working style and workload to match the different phases in their life. This last part is purely on our own account, but I am sure Petriglieri would agree.

Success criteria in the gig economy

While the traditional criteria for success in an organisational context were security and status, success is something quite different for independent workers. Petriglieri names it viability of identity. Freedom to seize the opportunities that (work) life offers is a major reason for being an independent worker, but a certain stability is still perceived as necessary and valuable. Viability of identity is the sweet spot where the worker has a certain structure and security in life, but not more than that there’s still openness to opportunities. This is success for an independent worker.

Independent workers also need structure

While freedom is a very important reason for being an independent worker, and something that is often stressed as extremely valuable in the rhetorics of independent workers, the need for stability, structure or connections as Petriglieri names it, seems to be a basic human need that independent workers also long for.

In his study of independent workers, Petriglieri observed how these freelancers took pride in their independent life, but still spent a huge amount of time creating connections that would give them a hold. He has divided these connections into four different categories:

• Routines: Creating rituals that are followed strictly – in a way miming what permanent workers are forced to in a 9-to-5 job, just with the (important) difference that an independent worker has the freedom to choose which routines he or she wants to create.
• Places: The freedom to work from anywhere is often seen as a huge advantage of freelancing, but many independent workers define the places where they go when they want to work. This can be a co-working space, specific cafes or just a home office created for the purpose.
• People: Being your own boss also means that you lack the structure normally given by having a boss who tells you what needs to be done and when, colleagues to cooperate with and fellow team members to get feedback from. Independent workers seek people who can partly fill this spot by encouraging and emboldening them.
• Purpose: With the independent work also comes the need to personally define and create purpose for the work that is done. This is also a way of figuring out what should or should NOT be done, which can be an even harder task for the independent worker.

At the end of the day, the influence seems to be going both ways: modern organisations are increasingly inspired by the gig economy (and need to be so to be attractive and competitive), but the independent work force is also inspired by traditional work life because most people need a certain degree of stability and structure to thrive.

Thanks to INSEAD and Petriglieri for this perspective on a topic that is at the heart of our business. Please note that the above is Right People’s interpretation of Petriglieri’s findings.

You can read the original study in full at the Administrative Science Quarterly, where it is available for free download until 2 April.

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