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Top Trends in HR and People
Management 2020 – The Surge of the
Gig economy

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2020 is set to be a momentous year. We , at Pexitics (People Excellence Indicator Analytics) bring to you the
important trends in the way People Management will evolve in the near future.
The Surge of the Gig Economy: As you are aware the term “gig economy” was popularized around the height of the
2008-2009 financial crisis – mostly to refer to task based labour. With chunks of the population facing
unemployment or underemployment, many workers picked up temporary jobs which were flexible. Some workers
were able to hold down a full-time or part-time job but needed to shore up their income. Others cobbled together an
income by working a few gigs at once. Being able to choose working hours was paramount. Many of them took up
with Uber and other such services.
A decade later we are seeing more gig workers than ever. According to the CEO of Intuit, Brad Smith: “The gig
economy [in the U.S.]…is now estimated to be about 34% of the workforce and expected to be 43% by the year
2020.” For a more concrete picture, Harvard Business Review reported that 150 million workers in North American
and Western Europe are engaged as independent contractors.
In India, we have seen the jobs created by Swiggy , Zomato, Dunzo , Uber etc.
Gigs run the entire spectrum of pay scales, from senior executive types who travel to major cities to ply their trade to
the workers who make a little extra income by picking up ride-hailing fares in his or her community.
The two major segments are
1. knowledge-based gigs (such as independent management consultants or machine learning data scientists)
2. service-based ones (such as tradespeople and delivery drivers).

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What is fueling the Gig economy ? It is technology – which helps manage the Quality, Time and Money elements of
the jobs . Thus , delivering on multiple fronts has become possible for the same person . This increased usage of
technology helps people manage the VUCA world effectively too .
VUCA is an acronym used by the American Military. It stands for Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. It
was the response of the US Army War College to the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s. Suddenly, there was no
longer the only enemy, resulting in new ways of seeing and reacting.
Neither an organisation’s leadership nor its strategies are spared in today’s VUCA world. An organization has to learn
to be “agile and nimble” to survive in the VUCA world but has to have “scale and size” to make in impact in the
economy / business world.
Thus, instead of growing one department into a very large SBU (Strategic Business Unit) it makes sense to have
Intrapreneurs. An intrapreneur is an employee who is tasked with developing an innovative idea or project within
a company. The intrapreneur may not face the outsized risks or reap the outsized rewards of an entrepreneur.
However, the intrapreneur has access to the resources and capabilities of an established company. He is the
company’s very own Entrepreneur, using the resourcefulness associated with entrepreneurship to navigate “fast and
smart “in the VUCA world .
While both intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs share entrepreneurial DNA and have a very deep passion for
innovation, they are very different in the sense that they require different set of skill sets to be successful in their
respective environments as depicted in the following diagram.
The culture of a company may not be able to modify itself to accept the disruptions proposed by Intrapreneurs. This
can happen at the Leadership stage or with the co-workers who are not in Intrapreneur led units – who resent the
divergence from the main company culture. This can cause internal conflict and strive – a lot of which can be
expected in 2020 and beyond – because this concept of Intrapreneurship will only grow .
The most obvious impact of the Surge of the Gig Economy will be the clear accountability of Performance in a job
role . The Employees / consultants / freelancers will have lower loyalty to the company and higher loyalty to the

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job they can perform and the company will also want to hire predominantly for tasks and goals – which are
measurable.
This will lead to a greater adoption of an objective, framework driven, number driven working style in People
Management as well as a greater transparency in hiring and firing decisions – all driven by Technology. We can
expect more emphasis on Talent Assessments and Quantification of qualitative feedback with Machine Learning and
AI algorithms allowing for real time decisions in People Management. Employees – whether full time or part time-
will urge organisations to help them perform better while also aim to remain happier in a world where family
support systems are dwindling.
This Surge of the Gig Economy is a natural outcome of having more Millennials in the workforce. As per a study,
nearly 50% of the workforce will be a Millennial by 2020.
What Millennials Value in the Workplace: Gallup indicates millennials want benefits much like other generations do:
things closely related to quality of life such as good health insurance, paid vacation, and retirement plans. Where
millennials differ from their predecessors is in just how much they value these things, as this generation is often
willing to change jobs just for a specific benefit.
What does all this mean for employers? They need to create a culture that addresses what millennials seek in a job.
So, it would benefit us to get some insight into the way millennials think about work and the expectations they have.
• They want their work to have purpose. They are passionate about making a difference through their work.
Volunteering is also a top priority for this group.
• They want to learn and develop. They expect their roles to be continually challenging and ever changing.

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Source: Gallup
"Millennials want to learn and take in information at a quick pace. Our goal is to challenge them,"
- Carla Enzinger, Batesville Tool & Die
• They want stability. The survey found that the more stable they view an organization, the more likely they
may be to see a future with that company. Poised for growth? Great! Emplify’s Q3 Employee Engagement
Trends and Indexes report showed a high positive correlation with higher growth orgs and employee
engagement. They want to be a part of something, remember?
• They want ongoing feedback. They want to talk to their managers, often. They want collaborative goal-
setting, gone are the old days of high power distance. . Only about 1 in 5 employees strongly agree that their
performance is being managed in a way that motivates them to do outstanding work (Gallup).
• They want flexibility in when and where they work. They want work-life balance. The 9 to 5 is dead, as
millennials search for jobs that fit into their lives. Work doesn’t end when they leave the office, and life
doesn’t end when they step foot into it. A Gallup study on benefits and perks found that 51% of employees
would switch to a job that allows flexy-time, and 37% would switch for the ability to work off-site part of the
time. This is especially hard to accommodate given the nature of manufacturing.
“Manufacturing companies are going to have to figure out how to staff their operations while allowing the same
work schedule flexibility offered by IT/Software companies”
- Joe McMurry, Leadership expert at Purdue MEP
• They are connected. They do not USE technology; it is an integral part of their daily lives and the way they
interact with the world. Having grown up with technology, they could be a great advantage to employers by
realizing new and unique ways of approaching and utilizing technology.
Given that 50% of the people employed will follow the above values in 2020, there is no doubt that the Gig
Economy is the only way out to cater to this workforce. It is the only way to string together Technology Comfort
(especially Smartphones) + Connectivity (telecommunications) + Flexibility (work life balance) + Work for a
purpose + Continuous Feedback on work and its impact + Continuous Learning and Development + Stability. Its all
about creating a workspace where they – the millennials- are King … their Work and Life are of paramount
importance . They are ready to work really hard on jobs that give their life meaning and for employers who help
them learn and become better at their life work. In such a workspace, they live their life with flexibility and in a
space of stability – working and delivering while being true to their own happiness.

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So what does this mean for People Managers? How are we to navigate this new Surge of the Gig Economy?
The given are HRMS / HRIS systems, which are compliant with the Legal framework and compliance norms. These
include modules on Hiring, Compensation and Benefits, Learning Management System, Attendance management
system, Employee policy portal, Performance management and Attrition Management. One in three companies have
around 10 HR / People management systems that each employee has to access .. and with advent of AI and Tech
bots, there is a high chance of some of these systems being old (legacy) systems and some new smart systems.
With 50% of the employees (millennials) in 2020 wanting everything on a smart phone with anytime access, it’s
difficult to get them to engage with and respect the HR systems. Thus, we need to focus on building a smart way to
integrate decisions across the many legal compliant systems and make employees willing participants in the process
and become willing feeders of data into these. After all, no data-based decisions can be made if the quality of data is
not good, with some people not feeding the required data at the required time into these systems.
The carrot and stick approach work best. Now that we know what “Employees” want, we can use that to build a set
of frameworks that can help us in stringing together a lot of these requirements.
1. We need to use technology based smart systems which help us honestly (unbiased, peer- comparison enabled)
assess talent to make unified, quantifiable decisions across all aspects of Talent Quantification and management.
Such a Talent Assessment system should be used across the different levels (hierarchy) of the organisations so that it
can help make
i. Transparent hiring decisions based on fitment of skills, values, behavior, maturity and mindset,
interests and potential for growth
ii. Learning needs identification per employee based on the same matrix of skills, values, behavior,
maturity and mindset, interests and potential for growth
iii. Promotion / Performance Management and Succession Planning based on the same matrix of
skills, values, behavior, maturity and mindset, interests and potential for growth
iv. Internal Job Movement (IJM) and Career Path Definition per employee based on the same matrix
of skills, values, behavior, maturity and mindset, interests and potential for growth
v. The Compensation and Benefits team will create compensation parity (annually) based on the
same matrix of skills, values, behavior, maturity and mindset, interests and potential for growth
How this will be implemented:
• The Process will involve each employee to engage with a Talent Assessment Platform for a series of assessments
(investment of approx. 1.5 hours every 6 months / 1 year) . The same platform will be used at the point of Hiring , for
candidate evaluation.
• The Qualitative Feedback on the same parameters on the same Talent Assessment Platform for a 360 degree
appraisal process will also be acquired – which means another investment of approx. 30 minutes (average) per
employee.
• The data will be stored in a central repository where the Hiring / IJM team, the L&D team, the Comp & Ben. Team,
the Reporting Managers, the Performance Management and Succession Planning teams will have access to the same
• A unified, per employee, dynamically updating (every time an assessment is taken) set of information will thus be
created for common use in HR which will allow for the following outcomes
o Hiring Benchmarks (Performer Competency Scores) across Jobs in the organization – Hire / Internally move people
who meet these scores

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o Learning Gap (difference between Performer Competency Score vs Employee) will give the personalized Learning
Needs – Provide Learning and Coaching Intervention based on this Gap – which will identify Urgent and required
interventions.
o Compare Potential (for next level of jobs) Competency Scores of a pool of peers – Use the best Potential
Competency Scores to decide on Promotions and Succession Planning
o The percentage of Fitment to the Job Role and therefore, higher productivity potential – Use this to decide the
compensation at the point of Hiring as well when working on Pay Parity decisions (post hiring)
• A repository of Job Descriptions and Job KRA / KPI should be created by the HR in the same Talent Assessment
Platform. This will be especially useful to create the Percentage Fitment Score. It will allow for Competency
Benchmarks to be realistically set – based on current start performers – and these benchmarks will keep getting
updated when the attributes change – since the assessments will happen annually / bi-annually.
2. We need to measure the engagement, the drivers of engagement and the values that the employees hold dear to
them. This will not only help us understand the relevance of the existing policies but will also help define how to best
spend the Engagement budget, today. The Values that employees espouse and want support on changes over time .
And all this needs to come through in 1 Survey in the year which combines all of this.
Each employee would end up spending about 20 minutes on the anonymous survey. The outcome would help
understand the engagement and which values drive which section of employees in the organization. It also helps
understand the policy level actions that will enable the employees to be engaged and productive in the organization
The above 2 are examples of frameworks that can enable the organization to maintain a uniform thread in its
decision making across the Employee Lifecycle. Unified frameworks across People Management coupled with clear
ways to improve the Employee Experience and create for the Short Term Job roles with stability – which is what
they want from the Gig Economy – are the types of well thought through initiatives that HR and People
Management functions need in 2020.
PexiScore is one such organization which enables Smart HR and People Decisions using unified, 1 data platforms for
People Management. With cloud based technology integrated with HR analytics and proven Competency
frameworks and Survey Frameworks, we assist organizations to use a uniform yardstick for measurement and actions
across employees. The use of such measures help meet KPIs in the space of People management (Create talent
benchmarks for Hiring, Learning Path creation, Promotions for better Talent management, increase Revenue per
employee, Reduce Absenteeism, create Mental wellness programs, etc.) We do this with a combination of
Assessments and Surveys followed by analytics, giving clear insights and roadmaps for organizations and teams.
(Please view sample reports at https://pexiscore.com/assessment)
• PexiScore Assessments and Reports - for higher Quality of hiring and for Learning Needs Identification. Our
reports work at a 95% accuracy and aid make Effective Decisions in hiring, reduce competency gaps and reduce L&D
costs by accurate Learning need identification (functional skills, communication skills, soft skills or coaching)
• PexiScore Surveys - These are Employee surveys around 360 degree feedback, Happiness at Work, Engagement
and Values Surveys. Each Survey is backed by certification and detailed analytics with segmentation across
organizational and employee demographics.
What gives us an advantage is our capability to merge Qualitative feedback with Quantitative scores from the
Assessments to give a holistic output which helps organizations make best People decisions for growth and
profitability.

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PexiScore (Pexiscore.com) is our product website which enables all our Assessments and Surveys are online with real
time results and dashboard support. All assessments are available in English and Hindi, with the option to convert
into any other Indian language. The following features are free on the PexiScore system - It is cloud based, mobile
friendly, dashboard driven decision system.
REACH OUT TO US
• Reuben Ray, CEO & Founder | +91 7349 66 2322 | reuben@pexitics.com
• Subhashini S Tripathi, Chief Data Scientist & Founder | +91 7349 66 2320 | subhashini@pexitics.com
• https://pexitics.com | https://pexiscore.com
(Note: Customers we work with include Saudi Telecom Company, Crowe Mak, RSWM Ltd. , Parijat Industries, Hitachi
Metals, Samasta Microfinance, Saltside, Tardid Tech, GHCL Ltd, Manipal Global, Jain University, Symbiosis University,
Redpine Signals, Worxogo, Glass Onion, Equiskill etc.)
Sources :
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/jobs/the-economic-times-india-dialogues-gig-economy-not-best-model-for-job-creation/articleshow/71750416.cms
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnfrazer1/2019/02/15/how-the-gig-economy-is-reshaping-careers-for-the-next-generation/#1da70d4349ad
https://www.vuca-world.org/
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/intrapreneur.asp
http://blueowlz.com/2018/06/10/intrapreneurship-vs-entrepreneurship-dilemma/
https://apac.aonhewitt.com/home/insights-at-work/millennial-workforce-increase-employee-engagement
https://mep.purdue.edu/news-folder/how-manufacturers-can-attract-and-retain-millennial-talent/