Even The Economist is in on the issues of multiployment:

“The on-demand economy is already provoking political debate…
Society gains because idle resources are put to use.
…
The truth is more nuanced. Consumers are clear winners; so are Western workers who value flexibility over security, such as women who want to combine work with child-rearing. Taxpayers stand to gain if on-demand labour is used to improve efficiency in the provision of public services.
…
This sense of nuance should inform policymaking. Governments that outlaw on-demand firms are simply handicapping the rest of their economies. But that does not mean they should sit on their hands. The ways governments measure employment and wages will have to change. Many European tax systems treat freelances as second-class citizens, while American states have different rules for “contract workers” that could be tidied up.
”

http://ift.tt/1wBntnC

and

http://ift.tt/1wADcTS
Workers on tap
“IN THE early 20th century Henry Ford combined moving assembly lines with mass labour to make building cars much cheaper and quicker—thus turning the automobile…”

Cross-posted from Facebook on January 06, 2015 at 01:08PM

Trebor Scholz, Associate Professor for Culture & Media at The New School and chair of The Politics of Digital Culture conference series writes

“There isn’t just one, inevitable future of work. Let us apply the power of our technological imagination to practice forms of cooperation and collaboration. Worker–owned cooperatives could design their own apps-based platforms, fostering truly peer-to-peer ways of providing services and things, and speak truth to the new platform capitalists.

I have been part of cooperatives all my life; I lived in communes, I experienced first hand how they can put people at the center of the equation. But you’d be mistaken if you think that I have an idealized view of everything cooperative. To start with, millennials might stress their individual careers over an allegiance to any given co-op, and then the problem of competition with global corporations that are rolling in money is a key challenge. And while Silicon Valley’s turbo capitalists are zipping ahead, social movements as well as regulators can be slow. For hackers, “long tail workers,” and labor activists, now is the time to step up their efforts before the network effect chisels brands like Uber into stone.
”

He talks about Platform Cooperativism, which I would describe as the organization’s viewpoint of how work is being done under their banner. Crowdsourcing models fit under this concept I think. Some of the models of Tapscott’s Multi-Stakeholder Networks (MSNs) also seem to fit here.

I look at it from the opposite end, the individual’s viewpoint, and their ability to do work where they want for different entities or organizations, in a state of multiployment.

Whichever view, he is correct in that there are many pitfalls that favor and heavily the organization over the people who do the work.

http://ift.tt/1wG4Gxx

cc: Jeremiah Owyang, Lance J Richards, Bill Jensen, Don Tapscott
Platform Cooperativism vs. the Sharing Economy
“The backlash against unethical labor practices in the “collaborative sharing economy” has been overplayed. Recently, The…“

Cross-posted from Facebook on January 05, 2015 at 01:10PM via IFTTT

To add to my continuing research on Multi-employment and how the Employment Relationship is changing, it is good to take a look at what is currently considered innovative reward mechanisms. This is a list of award types or models, or ways how to deliver alternative or non-cash rewards.

http://www.tlnt.com/2014/09/01/11-non-traditional-ways-to-reward-innovative-employees/
“Where end-of-year bonuses once stood as the gold standard, today’s reward programs are more varied and reflect an organization’s unique culture and creativity. From peer-to-peer …”

Cross-posted from Facebook on December 30, 2014 at 12:31PM via IFTTT