Are You Falling into the GIG ECONOMY?

Do you find yourself taking on extra tasks at work because you enjoy the specific task, even if it may not be in your job description? Do you wish you had more flexibility with your job? Are you finding the tasks throughout your daily life repetitive or mundane? This could be a sign of an inner desire to transition into the gig economy.

Gig economy is a new term people are using to describe a form of work that has always been around. The term refers to the individuals that are independent employees known as contractors or freelancers. These workers have the ability to pick and choose the jobs they want, their hours, and even amount of vacation time, all in a responsible manner of course. The reason this sector of the workforce is finally being given a name is because of how prevalent this industry has become. People are looking at their lives and reevaluating the way they think of the hours they spend in a day. Life is becoming less and less about money and material items and more about how what they do daily makes them feel and how passionate they are about it.

With that being said, Americans have not completely switched over to the gig economy. We are in the mid-section of a changing economy where many people have what some may call a “side-gig”, usually a part-time source of extra income doing something a person is passionate about. For example, a very popular side gig today is ridesharing through services like Uber or Lyft driving. People get to choose the hours they commit to this task and they get to hear interesting stories and meet interesting people. Another mid-section of the gig economy are employees that work remotely from home. We see this happening more and more and these tend to be the people who go to those co-worker spaces to fill the need of human interaction.

OstermanCron has seen co-working spaces become increasingly popular. A co-worker space is an office design with large “conference” tables and office chairs where anyone can come and grab a seat and work. People like co-working spaces because of the creativity that can be inspired from them. You are essentially in an office with people from all different walks of life, with completely different interests, doing completely different jobs… you never know what you will learn in a particular day. To see the many possibilities co-workspaces offer, check out National Office Furniture’s Kozmic collaborative collection.