Rashed Sheik-adan Student ID:13124963

Principles of Organization and Management

Essay

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Introduction

Precarious work is non-standard employment which is often poorly paid, unreliable, unprotected,

in recent years there has been a dramatic increase in precarious employment fuelled by such

factors as globalization, global financial crisis, the rapid increase of information and

communication technology, these factors have created another economy which relies on

adaptability and flexibility in the labour market. Therefore, caused the decline of the standard

employment relationships with fulltime open-ended contracts. although those working in

temporary position, agency workers and zero hours contract holders. are at greater risk of

precariousness. Precarious employment is not a new phenomenon is being around for long time,

however is has dramatically increase in recent years. “Precarious work is associated with and

characterizes the effects of neoliberal policy—the transference of economic risk onto workers,

the erosion of workers’ rights”, (Lopes and Dewan 2015)

There has been much discussion recently about the challenges facing management practices in a

business organisation. The growth in precarious work and the ‘gig’ economy is considered as

one of the major strategic challenges that face management practices today. Organisations are

increasingly seeking to replace the standards of employment from the stable employment system

to a non-standard employment system where the employees have fewer rights than normal

(Campbell and Price 2016). This type of working procedure is referred to as precarious work.

The precarious workers in most occasions end up suffering from the poor working conditions

they are subjected to. The rising ‘gig’ economy is influenced by the short-time engagements of

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workers in business organisations. Precarious workers who tend to work in temporary positions

influence greatly the rise of the ‘gig’ economy. Through a critical discussion of the challenges

faced by management practices, this essay aims at analysing the impacts of the growth in

precarious work and the ‘gig’ economy on management practices.

Precarious work and challenges for management practises

The coordination of business activities with an aim of achieving the set objectives of a business

is greatly affected by the evolving ‘gig’ economy in the business world (Huang et al. 2017).

Many businesses are on the run in seeking to relieve themselves the responsibilities of having

permanent employees that demand a whole lot of needs from these businesses. Permanent

employees often tend to demand better salaries, security from the business organisations, stable

employment, and generally good working conditions. Unlike the permanent employees, the

precarious workers are normally subjected to lower wages, unstable employment, are offered no

security by the organisations they work for, and generally, work under poor working conditions.

According to the Trade Union Congress (TUC), “precarious low-paid work - low paid self-

employment, agency work and zero-hours contracts now affects one in 10 workers in the UK.

This represents a huge increase of more than 80% in the last decade”. According to ILO (2012)

World of Work Report, in many countries where growth of employment has resumed after the

economic recession, the majority of the new contracts are short-term, Having precious workers

such as zero-hour contracts and other forms of precarious employment contracts benefits the

employers . By adopting this type of contracts, allows employers to keep the cost low. as they do

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not have to offer workers standard employment rights such as, national minimum wage, sick pay,

Paid holidays and other in work benefits, subsequently this can benefit the consumer as business

are able to pass on those savings to the consumer by keep the costs of goods and services low.

Therefore Businesses thus tend to consider this as a better option and thus adapt it to the system.

The precarious workers are only sought when needed and once the business organisation has

achieved their set objective, then the precarious workers are forced to find a job elsewhere. The

evolution of precarious workers has led to the ‘gig' economy. The ‘gig' economic environment

influences organisations to seek to work on contracts with independent workers who are flexible

and can work under a short-term engagement. according to the guarding newspaper “more than

7.1 million people in Britain face precarious employment conditions that mean they could lose

their jobs suddenly” with the bulk of these people working for technology innovative

multinationals such us Uber and Deliveroo. businesses are always seeking to boost their profit

margins by reducing their cost, “We must have cheap help, or we cannot sell cheap” frank W

Woolworth wrote to his store managers in 1892, globalization and the deregulation of the labour

market has provided businesses with opportunity to find cheap labour, however the management

of this type of employement is becoming even more challenging. Managerial strategies of

governing a business are highly affected by the growing precarious workers since it tends to be

challenging to work with a new group of people after a short while (Stewart and Stanford 2017:

429). This becomes a challenge to managers in achieving their set business objectives and goals.

Becasuce gig workers may feel less part of the business and thefrore less loyal to the company

and its value than their permentant colleuges. So it is important for managers make precarious

gig workers to feel part of the business as much as they can, such as offering them training,

keeping them updated about the business and other incentive to help them feel part of the team, if

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they feel part of the team they are more likey to be productuctive and buying into and promote

the company values.

Management skills challenge

The growing precarious working conditions and the evolving gig economy set the managers to a

challenge of improving their skills in the industry. Having an organisation seeking to have

workers on a short notice for a short period of time becomes a challenge as a business

management team to locate the necessary workers. The management team is in a position to find

workers on a short notice if they have a reliable system to help them in the process. To support

the growing precarious worker's system, digital platforms have been developed (Campbell and

Price 2016: 316). These platforms have to be well managed and coordinated to ensure that the

regulating system is not left behind during times of need of workers' compensation. The

managers thus have to develop and learn how to manage online systems and locate the most

qualified personnel during times of need of labour. This suggests that online management

systems are a major concern in the growing ‘gig' economy. These extra online managerial skills

to be added are a liability to most managers as some feel like it is an increase in their workload

(Huang et al. 2017: 99). In some cases, online communication is not reliable as a precarious

worker could agree to show up for a job after an interview and choose not to show up. This leads

to more challenges inflicted ion the managers as they have to find another worker to replace

those who did not show up. These activities could take place within a short span and thus limit

the standard way to carry out interviews to determine the legibility of the workers (Stewart and

Stanford 2017: 432). Thus, the business function could end up with inexperienced personnel who

become a liability for the managers as they have to monitor their activities and provide extra

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training. Therefore, management becomes challenging as the managers and management teams

look for ways to work with the precarious workers with limited information about them. This

subjects the managers to be careful with these short time workers as are they are not familiar

with their personality traits or their backgrounds. The gig economy, therefore, subjects managers

to straining more than they should make sure that the business runs with a limited number of

employees and that it still achieves its desired objectives.

Lonterm planning Challenge

Long-term planning of organisations in the strategies and policies governing the business results

to stability in the business activities for a considerable time span. With the growth in precarious

workers, businesses are challenged with the rapidly changing staff from time to time. It thus

happens to be a burden to business managers as they find it challenging to trust and develop the

skills of the workers from time to time. Businesses adopting the practice of precarious workers

do not consider the effect and challenges imposed by management. These management teams

end up having their goals and plans affected. Management practices are based on setting policies

and strategies that govern the business activities and procedures. The main focus of the

management team is to see into it that the business organisation achieves their stipulated

objectives and plans (De Stefano 2015: 471). In order to have the policies of the business and

strategies fully implemented, organisation managers need to have a reliable team they can train

and guide them through the process of achieving the business objectives. The ‘gig' economy

affects these management practices as they are subjected to work with short-term workers who

have little idea of what the business policies, rules, and regulations are (Stewart and Stanford

2017: 428). It becomes a challenge to have to train new employees every time one needs a

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workforce. The main objective of short-term contractors is to earn money and move on to

another job opportunity. Other precarious workers could be irresponsible and fail to do their

assigned work with caution. This leads to wastage of time on having to train the short-term

workers and supervise them. A lot of resources also go to waste with irresponsible and

unreliable workers. This, in turn, inflicts the management team with a burden and instead of

having the business working smoothly, they have to deal with losing and fixing customer

relations which could have been ruined with the same employees.

Fiding quuilified employees challenge

The increased prevalence of precarious workers and gig-based work is leading to challenges such

as dissolving the labour standards of employment. Different workers have different levels of

experience. Finding qualified workers to work for an organisation over a short period of time

tends to be a challenge. The management practices should be involved in providing their

employees with the best working conditions so as to realise maximum output from the workers

(Morgan and Nelligan 2018: 101). Instead, the growing availability of precarious workers

suggests the opposite. Precarious workers are instead taken advantage of and are oppressed in

terms of the wages and working conditions. The management team thus tends to violate the

rights of these employees. Policy makers are therefore subjected to recognising the challenges

posed by the growing ‘gig’ economy. Pressured workers seeking employment to sustain

themselves and families are more often forced to put up with the dangerous working conditions

in order to earn a living. The precarious workers subjected to low wages and dangerous working

conditions also work for long hours and unpaid overtime work. These conditions set these

precarious workers to health problems as they struggle to earn a living. precarious work can also

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affect a person’s physical health as well as their mental health, earning low wages can affect

their ability to buy sufficiently nutritious food. Low pay and insecure work can also lead to doing

more than one job and working long hours often in poor working conditions. Which in turn

could decrease their immune system and make them vulnerable to illness. precarious work is

more likely to involve health and safety risks . “Physically heavy work, poor working

conditions and higher risk of accidents have also been associated with precarious employment”

(Gash et al., 2007). These characteristics are likely to have a negative impact on workers'

physical and mental health, ultimately resulting in absenteeism. An organisation that does not

cater to the needs of its workers could be affected by the shortage of supply of labour in times of

need. As a result, the business activities are affected in the process. It is, therefore, necessary that

the management teams of the organisations learn how to treat the short time workers fairly in

order to qualify to have employees who work willingly for their interest.

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it can be seen that the growth rate in precarious work is quite a

challenge in the management practices of a business. Precarious work influences the growth of a

‘gig' economy in which, many individuals opt to work in. The freedom and liberty that a ‘gig'

economy provides to individuals, enabling them to determine when and what they do with their

time seems like a better option to them. Hiring temporary and zero workers can help secure the

jobs of the permeant employees. It can also help the firms to stay competitive in the tough global

market by adapting to the market fluctuations. however The management practices are

challenged by the growing 'gig' economy as the management team has to keep up with the

changing systems in order to achieve the set objectives of their organisations.

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References

. Booth, R. (2017). More than 7m Britons now in precarious employment. [online] the Guardian.
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/nov/15/more-than-7m-britons-in-
precarious-employment [Accessed 01 april. 2018].

Campbell, I. and Price, R. 2016. Precarious work and precarious workers: towards an improved
conceptualisation. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 27(3), pp.314-332.

De Stefano, V. 2015. The rise of the just-in-time workforce: on-demand work, crowdwork, and
labor protection in the gig-economy. Comp. Lab. L. & Pol'y J., 37, p.471.

Full Report - World of Work Report 2012: Better jobs for a better economy. (2012). World of
Work Report, 2012(1), p.i-110.

Huang, N., Burtch, G., Hong, Y. and Pavlou, P.A. 2017. Unemployment and worker
participation in the gig economy: evidence from an online labor platform.

Morgan, G. and Nelligan, P. 2018. The creativity hoax: precarious work in the gig economy.
Anthem Press.

Stewart, A. and Stanford, J. 2017. Regulating work in the gig economy: what are the options?.
The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 28(3), pp.420-437

TUC. (2018). 3.2 million UK workers (1 in 10) are now in precarious work. [online] Available
at: https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/32-million-uk-workers-1-10-are-now-
precarious-work [Accessed 4 Apr. 2018].

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