Key Takeaways
- The steady growth in the Gig workforce across Latin America and Southeast Asia demands an optimized solution for managing the workforce.
- Managing your Gig workforce manually can bring down the efficiency and productivity of the team.
- Workforce management software automates attendance tracking, improves accuracy of contractor performance tracking, and reduces payroll errors.
- Streamlining scheduling, time tracking, and contractor management are the key functions of workforce management software.
- Having workforce management systems in place can improve productivity of the workforce and also help employers track contractor performance.
What is Workforce Management Software?
Workforce management software is a solution that helps organizations streamline and automate the processes that manage the time, organize and deploy their workforce efficiently. Field workforce management software enables employee and manager self-service and ensures employee safety. Especially when it comes to managing the Gig workforce, there is a greater necessity to streamline workforce management processes, in order to have better control and deeper visibility into contractor performance.
Distributed gig workforce may comprise freelancers, contractors, part-time workers, or independent workers who are working from distributed geographical locations. Tracking such a distributed workforce can be a nightmare, especially when you rely on archaic workforce management methods.
What you need is a workforce management software that empowers you to track your gig workforce in real time. Through this blog we will look into the challenges of traditional workforce management systems, need for a streamlined workforce management process, and best practices in managing the Gig workforce.
Challenges in Managing a Gig Workforce
Did you know that over 200 million people worldwide are a part of the Gig workforce?
Managing a Gig workforce comes with inherent challenges including income fragmentation, legal compliance, contractor work management, and tracking leaves. While the Gig economy offers flexibility and independence, it also presents challenges that affect the stability of the workforce. Managing the gig workforce comes with unique complexities due to its flexible, decentralized, and often remote nature.
The main challenges in managing the Gig workforce include –
1. Lack of worker loyalty and high turnover
Gig workers frequently switch between work opportunities for better pay or conditions. Since the workforce is geographically scattered, it is difficult to engage workers effectively.
2. Unpredictable workforce availability
Flexible nature of work for the gig workforce entails choosing their own work timings and schedules, which leads to staffing gaps. Added to staffing shortages, seasonal demand spikes can worsen the situation.
3. Compliance and regulatory risks
Labor laws vary according to different locations. The tax and benefits obligations also vary by country. This makes it challenging to maintain and adhere to compliance laws while managing gig workers scattered across various geographical locations.
4. Inconsistent worker classification
One of the most pressing challenges in managing the gig workforce is varying skill level among independent workers. Varying levels of skills makes it difficult to classify workers. Difficulty in classifying and distinguishing employees from independent contractors complicates tax obligation calculations and ensures compliance with labor laws.
5. Communication and collaboration
Effective communication is critical to manage a distributed workforce. Business owners or HR professionals find it challenging to establish clear communication channels when the workforce is distributed.
6. Engagement and inclusion
Fostering a sense of belonging and inclusion is challenging while managing a gig workforce. Gig workers come from varied cultural backgrounds and distributed geographical locations. Deliberate efforts need to be out into foster engagement and inclusion of gig workers.
7. Onboarding
Onboarding gig workers efficiently requires a seamless onboarding so that they can start contributing to projects without delay. Coordinating the onboarding process for gig workers can be challenging given their varied locations.
Key Statistics on Gig Workforce Management
- According to Cognitive Market Research, the global Gig Economy market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 17.20% to reach over 170 million USD by 2031.
- North America held the major share of the market share for more than 40% of the global revenue.
- Latin America accounted for a market share of 5% of the global revenue with a market size of USD 280062 million in 2024.
- According to Business Standard, India’s gig economy may add up to 90 million jobs that contribute to 1.25% to GDP.
- According to StatCounter Global Stats, in emerging markets (India, Brazil, Indonesia) Android’s share in gig workforce management exceeds 85%.
- According to Gartner – Future of Work Surveillance report, 44% of gig platforms enforce device level controls for contract workers.
Why Do You Need a Gig Workforce Management Software?
Understanding the multi-faceted challenges in managing the gig workforce is crucial for business owners looking to gain the benefits of a gig workforce. The gig economy is an economic model that is based on the exchange of resources, goods, services among each other. For effective sharing of resources, goods and services, you need a streamlined method for tracking the gig workforce. Traditional workforce management methods are designed for the regular, full-time workforce.
Tracking and managing the gig workforce requires workforce management systems that provide features that are specific to the nature of work carried out by gig workers. Traditional workforce management systems cannot track time and attendance, and other parameters that are unique to the gig workforce.
Here are top 5 reasons why you need a workforce management system curated for managing the gig workforce.
1. Time tracking
Tracking workers time effectively is a critical requirement for running a business. Inaccurate or incomplete time tracking can have a direct impact on the business’ bottom line. The most commonly used time tracking method is biometric tracking. While this may work for a traditional, full-time workforce, tracking the time of gig workers is not feasible with traditional methods. You need a workforce management software that caters to unique time tracking requirements of the gig workforce.
2. Flexibility and scalability
The gig workforce allows for on-demand talent, managing a diverse pool of workers across different projects and skill sets requires a system for tracking availability, project assignments, and skill-based matching.
3. Cost tracking
In order for gig workers to be a cost-effective alternative to traditional employees, accurate and real-time tracking of their time must be done. The workforce management solution must track time accurately so that payments are done only as per the time spent on the project/task.
4. Performance management
Tracking the performance of gig workers and performing analytics can be challenging when you use traditional workforce management systems. A curated workforce manager software designed with the gig workforce’s requirements in mind can effectively track worker’s performance.
5. Onboarding gig workers
In order for gig workers to start contributing immediately to the project, they need to go through a quick yet thorough onboarding process. From signing contracts to setting project expectations right to providing virtual orientations, the workforce management solution must take care of all the components of onboarding.
6. Absence management
Traditional workforce management systems are ill equipped to manage the absence of gig workers. Organizations need to address the diverse and complex requirements that arise from managing absence policies across the globe.
A workforce management software designed with gig workforce in mind helps overcome the inherent drawbacks of traditional workforce management (WFM) software. A mobile workforce management software like Quflo is designed keeping in mind the unique requirements of gig workforce management.
Key Benefits of Workforce Management Software
Workforce management softwares can make life easy for business owners especially when managing a gig workforce. The key benefits of a workforce management system are –
Improve productivity of the workforce
Manual processing is eliminated by WFM software. This enables managers to establish a broader array of policies governing time and attendance. The deeper visibility into gig workers like the hours worked, availability, and overall workforce productivity helps prevent staffing shortages and enables better adaptation to changing project requirements.
Deeper transparency and visibility
A workforce management system helps promote transparency in managing the gig workers. You can create a safe and reliable workplace where worker’s productivity can thrive. Managers too can get deeper visibility into time and attendance, absence, availability, and overall productivity.
Timely and accurate data capture
A comprehensive workforce management software can offer managers an intuitive way to capture, report, and analyse data pertaining to gig workers. Real-time time tracking allows managers and business owners to track worker’s performance and automatically be alerted of any compliance or SLA violations.
Reduced costs and risks
When the time is accurately tracked and managers get deeper visibility into worker availability and budgeted hours, it becomes easy to calculate costs. Also accurate tracking of time, ensures that workers are not over-or under-paid. The risks associated with over or under payment is avoided when the workforce management is streamlined.
Managing your Gig Workforce with Quflo
Quflo is a mobile workforce management software created exclusively for managing the gig workforce. Unlike traditional workforce management solutions, Quflo has been created for strategic gig workflow management.
Key features of Quflo –
- Complete gig workflow management – With Quflo, you can track work progress, allocate work dynamically, and automate work management workflows.
- Comprehensive contractor work management – All facets of contractor work management can be effectively automated in Quflo. From contract allocation to contract settlement, and all the steps in between we have you covered.
- Reports and analytics – You can get real-time reports and analytics on worker timing, work status, and contractors through email.
- Flexible profile management – With Quflo, you can create multiple worker profiles, choose the default profile, and also share and switch between profiles.
- Simple request log – Logging a leave request, customizing time entries, and issuing automated notifications and approvals is greatly simplified in Quflo.
- Intuitive workflow management – Gig workers are provided with advanced work tracking and request tracking features.
A mobile first workforce management solution like Quflo can simplify gig workforce management at your organization. The intuitive user interface enables seamless omnichannel user experience. The interactive and engaging mobile app is super easy to set up and use. The app is equipped with features for smooth gig workflow management. We give utmost importance to application security and data privacy. End-to-end encryption safeguards workforce data across multiple channels.
Conclusion
You are here because you want to build a highly engaged gig workforce that scales the highest levels of efficiency and productivity. With more than 200 million gig workers across the globe, the gig economy is shaping up into a market force to reckon. When you think about managing the gig workforce, you need to think beyond traditional workforce management solutions.
Managing the gig workforce presents a unique set of challenges that even the top workforce management software cannot address. Which is why you need a workforce management software exclusively for the gig workforce. A mobile workforce management software like Quflo specifically addresses the pain points faced while managing a diverse gig workforce.
You don’t need to go through complex setup processes nor do you need any training to use Quflo. All you need is your Android device to set up our gig workforce management app.
Setting up and using Quflo is a simple process that can be easily done on your Android device. We have exclusive workforce management solutions curated for small businesses and Enterprises as well.
Ready to explore strategic gig workforce management with Quflo? Contact us at support@quflo.app today.
FAQs
What are the main challenges in the gig economy?
The main challenges faced in managing the economy are worker classification, regulatory compliance, and managing a distributed workforce.
What are the functions of a workforce management solution?
Time tracking, work scheduling, labor optimization, demand forecasting, and absence management are some of the key features of a workforce management solution.
What are the key functions of workforce management?
Measuring working time and absences, integrating with HR systems, and creating schedules are some functions of workforce management.
What are the main challenges in managing a gig workforce?
Diverse workforce, varying labor laws, complex skill sets, and unpredictable availability are some of the challenges of managing a gig workforce.
How to choose a workforce management software?
Defining the business requirements first, reviewing current challenges, and mapping out objectives are the criteria based on which you can choose a workforce management software.