Flexibility comes at a high price, not just in the gig economy

Good news for people who dislike the gig economy: Uber last week failed to overturn a UK legal ruling that it should treat drivers as “workers” rather than independent contractors without any employment rights. Cue jubilation from trade unionists, who say companies such as Uber create dire working conditions while eschewing any responsibility for them. But critics will miss an important lesson if they do not ask themselves why millions of people choose to work in the gig economy at all.

It is true that, for some people, gig work is a last resort. Others have found themselves locked in by financial commitments such as car leases. But it is plain wrong, not to mention patronising, to assert that everyone who works in the gig economy is either desperate or a dupe. In my experience, gig workers are under no illusions about the downsides. But many want the flexibility over their working hours that the likes of Uber offer, and they have sacrificed employment rights in order to achieve it.

This does not mean the law should get out of Uber’s way. It serves gig companies’ interests to give the impression that flexibility and security are mutually exclusive, but there is no fundamental reason why they should be. Uber says it cannot pay people the minimum wage while also allowing them to “log on” when they want. But creative solutions can be found. The fact so many people have signed up for these apps demonstrates how much desire there is for flexible work. The next task is to make sure people do not have to sacrifice too much in exchange.

That applies just as much to “traditional” employers as to the new gig platforms. Too often in the UK labour market, if you want flexibility, you have to accept lower pay or worse progression prospects in return. Analysis of job adverts by the consultancy Timewise has found that, of all the roles on offer that pay £20,000 or more a year, only about one in 10 offers some degree of flexibility. As a result, the economy is underutilising the skills of people who have settled for jobs that are too easy for them. Official statistics show there are about 1.5m people with good qualifications (A-levels or above) working in low-paid, part-time jobs. At a time when employers are wailing about skills shortages and poor workforce productivity, that seems like an own goal.

The retail sector is a classic example. Flexible or part-time jobs are plentiful at entry-level, but the further you try to move up the managerial ladder, the harder it is to take that flexibility with you. Not everyone wants to progress, of course, but a fair proportion do. The British Retail Consortium, the retailers’ trade association, surveyed about 1,000 low-paid retail workers recently and found 54 per cent would like to be promoted, but only if they could retain their part-time status.

Pets at Home, a national chain of pet shops, noticed last year that twice as many men as women were moving up from the shop floor into assistant manager jobs. The company worked on a pilot project with Timewise to see if it was possible to redesign the assistant manager roles into job-shares or four-day a week jobs. It meant unpicking the role and examining each responsibility in turn to see whether it was a real operational barrier to flexibility or not. Was it necessary for the manager always to be the “key holder” who locks up, for example?” The pilot was a success and this year retailers B&Q, COOK, Dixons Carphone, Tesco and the John Lewis Partnership signed up too.

Trying to redesign job roles is not a glamorous task. It is fiddly and tricky. It requires interrogating assumptions about how things have always been done — not easy when you are also running a complex, fast-moving business day-to-day. But there is a lot to be gained. Critics of the gig economy are right to want flexible jobs to be made more secure. But that is only half the challenge. We should make the secure jobs more flexible too.

sarah.oconnor@ft.com

Letter in response to this column:

New dimension to the job security/flexibility debate / From Pritam Singh, Oxford Brookes Business School, UK