I signed up for as many sharing economy jobs as I could, but they’re not really jobs. I was never an employee; I was a “partner,” or a “hero” or even a “ninja” depending on the app. Sharing economy companies are just middlemen, connecting independent contractors to customers. When I signed up to work with (not for) these apps, I was essentially starting my own ride-sharing/courier business.
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The Two Emotions That Can Save Your Brain From Burnout | Fast Company | Business + Inno... - 0 views
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There are two emotions that you can control to prevent burnout and increase the likelihood of success: excitement and empathy. Empathy is for your customer and for the problem you are trying to solve. Intimately knowing the problem or the customer you are trying to serve helps remove some of the startup risk, minimizes the time to market and cost before you even begin. Be your first customer. Excitement is for the psychology of you and your team and to create an environment that obsesses over detail. Genuine excitement from the team fosters this type of detail. It comes from the labor of love.
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shared by Aurialie Jublin on 29 Jan 13
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Une organisation ni People ou customer Centric mais capacitante - Bloc-Notes de Bertran... - 0 views
www.duperrin.com/...tomer-centric-mais-capacitante
tictravail travail innovation entreprise empowerment
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Résumé: l'entreprise de demain sera t-elle "people centric", "customer centric" ? Cette notion de centricité est une évolution majeure dans le rôle que l'entreprise accorde aux individus. Mais il est facile d'en rester au stade des bonnes intentions. Écouter, laisser une place, être attentif… et ensuite ? Pour que cette nouvelle posture ait des effets concrets il faut davantage qu'une nouvelle vision de la place et des rapports entre les uns et les autres. Il faut mettre l'individu, salarié ou client, en capacité d'agir, de faire preuve d'initiative, dans le cadre de ce nouveau contexte. Ce qui implique des changements beaucoup plus importants et profonds que la seule posture.
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shared by Aurialie Jublin on 24 Aug 16
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Apploitation in a city of instaserfs | Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - 0 views
www.policyalternatives.ca/...apploitation-city-instaserfs
sharing economy economy économie exploitation individu uber emploi plateforme
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The standard ride-sharing or courier app’s business model looks something like this: When introducing your app into a new city, take heavy losses by over-paying drivers and under-charging customers. Offer drivers cash bonuses to get their friends to sign up. Once you’ve got a steady supply of drivers invested in the app, start lowering their pay.
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The idea is to reward loyalty and prevent drivers from having Uber and Lyft open at the same time. The thing is, if you’re working 40 or 50 hours a week with one company, that looks a lot less like a gig and a lot more like full-time employment.
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In Los Angeles, September 2014, a group of Lyft drivers burned their pink mustaches in protest of the pay cuts. These kinds of actions aren’t very common because most of us don’t know our co-workers and there is no physical location to congregate. Lyft doesn’t allow their drivers at the head office. The main place for “sharing economy” workers to connect is through online forums and Facebook groups
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Yes, people have been kicked off Postmates for complaining. I’ve talked to them. And yes, the official Postmates courier group on Facebook is censored to erase anything that could be perceived as a complaint. But more importantly it’s clear that Postmates is not preparing its workers for the realities of life as an independent contractor. Many are shocked about how much they have to pay in taxes and how little they’re making doing the work. There are plenty of screenshots showing that some are making less than minimum wage.
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I ended up having to take on all kinds of little expenses like these. It’s part of the risk of starting your own business. That time, I just had to buy a $3 froyo but it can be a lot worse (parking tickets in San Francisco can be over $80). Oftentimes you have to choose between parking illegally or being late with an order.
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All the risk falls onto the worker and the company is free of liability—despite the placard being an explicit suggestion that it’s okay to break the law if that’s what you’ve got to do to get the order done on time.
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Postmates responded by “updating” the app to a “blind system” in which we could still accept or reject jobs, but without enough information to determine whether it would be worth our time or not (e.g., a huge grocery store order). To make sure we accept jobs quickly without analyzing them, the app plays an extremely loud and annoying beeping noise designed specifically to harass couriers into submitting to the algorithm.
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One of the best companies I worked for is called Washio. I picked up dirty laundry and delivered clean laundry. It was the best paying and least stressful of all the apps I worked with that month because there was no illusion of choice. Washio tells you exactly what to do and you do it. It is simple and honest. But it also betrays the spirit of the independent contractor, and that’s important for a number of reasons.
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Plenty of people requested that I drop off their food at the door. Customers grow to love apps that make the worker anonymous. That way, you don’t have to feel guilty about having servants.
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Enjoy Custom Desert Safari Tour for New Year by Travel Saga 2023 - 0 views
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It sounds like you are interested in taking a desert safari tour for New Year's Eve. Desert safari tours are a popular activity in many countries around the world, particularly in desert regions such as the Middle East, Africa, and the southwestern United States. These tours typically involve off-road driving through the desert, with the opportunity to experience the natural beauty and unique culture of the region. Many tours also include activities such as sandboarding, camel riding, and traditional meals.
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The Future of Work - livre blanc de Esselte - 0 views
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"As a result of the internet, new technologies, the huge increase in mobile or home working, part-time jobs and today's 'always on', 24/7 culture, we found that most people now spend more time working than sleeping. In fact by 2015 around 40% of the total workforce will be mobile. The reason for this is that work is no longer where the office is but for mobile workers it is wherever they are - be that their car, home, coffee shop, the airport, customer site or even on holiday. This is just one area our report identifies as having a massive impact on the way we work;" explains Richard Watson. Other factors covered in the paper include: Ageing workforces: By 2050 over 65's will represent around 50% of the working population in Europe Millennials and Gen Y: More tech-savvy than any other generation The generation gap: Millennials think senior management do not relate to them and use autocratic command and control structures Gender: The huge economic impact of getting more women in the workforce especially at senior levels. Eliminating the gap between male and female employment would boost GDP by 9% in US, 13% in Eurozone and 16% in Japan (Goldman Sachs). Mobile working: By 2015 new technologies mean 1.3 billion (or 40%) of the total working population will be mobile Security of Information: Workers will have their own devices (BYOD) and potentially work remotely creating huge security and data storage/retrieval challenges. Where will new talent for workforce come from? Talent scarcities worldwide mean that by 2030 the USA will need to add over 25 million workers to its talent base to sustain economic growth and Western Europe more than 45 million.
The 5 Types Of Innovation For The Future Of Work, Pt. 2: Customer Innovation - Forbes - 0 views
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The Real Reason On-Demand Startups Are Reclassifying Workers -- techcrunch - 0 views
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When examining each business that has reclassified, we tend to discover a mix of three distinct operational characteristics: - the ability to scale service with a high customer-to-worker ratio; - build a specialized workforce required for high-quality service; - and deliver services to the customer with a greater focus on convenience than timeliness.
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Hyperconnectés, sur-sollicités, débordés… : il faut sauver le salarié numérique - 1 views
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Faut-il pour autant passer par la loi pour préserver les employés, à l’exemple de l’Allemagne qui essaie de se doter d’une législation anti-stress ? Le but d’un tel recours législatif : restaurer des temps et des lieux dédiés à autre chose que le travail et éviter que les salariés hyperconnectés ne fassent un burn out. Pour Dr. Mark, il s’agirait plutôt de changer la culture du travail tant au niveau des employés que des entreprises.
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Pour se déconnecter des réseaux sociaux, ne pas bondir à chaque notification de son smartphone, rediriger des e-mails “push” indésirables, organiser et hiérarchiser les tâches, quelques outils servent à simplifier son environnement digital de travail : Utiliser un service, comme Notify Me Not, qui classe les emails de notification et permet de se concentrer sur les emails professionnels envoyés par des « vraies » personnes. Mettre ses e-mails en pause avec Inbox Pause qui bloque les emails le temps voulu. Utiliser des applications pour lutter contre les technologies qui font perdre du temps et gagner en productivité : Any.do, un gestionnaire de tâches, Asana, un outil de collaboration sans email, Due, une application pour fixer des rappels de tâches, ou comme Do, une application qui permet de rester concentrer sur les tâches importantes. A situation désespérée, mesure extrême : installer l’extension Strict Pomodoro sur le navigateur pour bloquer tous les sites désignés comme indésirables pour un moment voulu, le temps de rester concentré sur son travail.
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Amazon, Uber: le travail en miettes et l'économie du partage des restes | Sla... - 1 views
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Dans un contexte de pénurie d’emploi, les services qui permettent à des jeunes, des étudiants, des retraités, des femmes au foyer, des chômeurs de trouver un petit revenu peuvent constituer, faute de mieux, un rempart contre la pauvreté. Cette «fonction sociale» est d'ailleurs toujours mise en avant par ces entreprises de mise en relation entre offreurs et demandeurs.
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Au rayon des semi-bonnes nouvelles, l’entreprise Instacart, un service de shopping en ligne sur le modèle de la mise en relation d’un client et d’un «picker» qui fait les courses et les livre, vient d’annoncer que ses contractants indépendants seraient désormais salariés de l’entreprise: elle a invoqué pour expliquer sa décision le besoin de former et de superviser ces derniers, ce qui n’était pas compatible avec leur statut d’indépendants.
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En revanche, on ne voit guère de propositions de rupture ni de résistance ferme face à ce système injuste qui accumule des fortunes colossales tout en imposant de nouvelles règles du jeu anti-sociales et irresponsables. Après le processus d’évolution historique vers une sécurité accrue des travailleurs, mouvement d’amélioration quasi-continu des conditions de travail et des rémunérations, le retournement serait en marche, nous faisant risquer collectivement de revenir à des régulations du travail régressives: travail à la tâche, «au jour la journée», avec quelques guildes de travailleurs en guise de contre-pouvoir et de force de négociation vis-à-vis des plateformes. Et on peine à voir ce qu'il y a de si enthousiasmant dans ce modèle.
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Why On-Demand Shipping Service Shyp Is Turning Its Couriers Into Employees | Fast Compa... - 0 views
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Shyp involves multiple layers of complexity—once it picks up an item, it takes it to a warehouse, packs it up, then hands it off to a major courier such as UPS for delivery—but it's the couriers who define the face-to-face experience for customers. "Our service has so many touch points—showing up at your home and shipping anything anywhere in the world," says CEO and cofounder Kevin Gibbon. "It could be really expensive, like a painting or something like that. We felt that given how complicated the actual job is, the best course is to transition these folks."
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Still, by moving away from the contractor model, the company gains the ability to exert more control over the Shyp experience without fear of legal repercussions. It can get more involved in training and coaching couriers, managing the hours they work, and generally treating them like full-blown team members rather than freelancers. It will also begin to pay workers' compensation, unemployment, and Social Security taxes for couriers. They'll continue to use their own vehicles, but Shyp will cover costs such as fuel.
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Aren't employees more expensive than contractors? Sure, which is one big reason why on-demand startups have shied away from hiring them. But Gibbon says that Shyp's satellite drivers and warehouse workers are already employees, so hiring couriers isn't a dramatic departure. And its profit margins are such that there's room for the extra cost. "We felt that with everything we can bring operationally, it'll be a net positive," he told me. "If someone has a better experience, they're much more likely to tell someone else about it."
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"But that's about to change. Shyp is shifting from signing up couriers as contractors to hiring them as staffers, with the closer ties and legal obligations that such a relationship carries. The new approach will start in the next city Shyp enters: Chicago, where it plans to be up and running this summer. Couriers in the company's current markets-Los Angeles, Miami, New York City, and San Francisco-will transition from contractor status to employees on January 1, 2016."
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shared by Aurialie Jublin on 18 Aug 14
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In the Sharing Economy, Workers Find Both Freedom and Uncertainty - NYTimes.com - 0 views
mobile.nytimes.com/...h-freedom-and-uncertainty.html
travail tictravail précarité économie collaborative liberté
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In a climate of continuing high unemployment, however, people like Ms. Guidry are less microentrepreneurs than microearners. They often work seven-day weeks, trying to assemble a living wage from a series of one-off gigs. They have little recourse when the services for which they are on call change their business models or pay rates. To reduce the risks, many workers toggle among multiple services.
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Certainly, it’s a good deal for consumers. Peer marketplaces democratize luxury services by making amateur chauffeurs, chefs and personal assistants available to perform occasional work once largely dominated by full-time professionals. Venture capital firms seem convinced.
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In July, 9.7 million Americans were unemployed, and an additional 7.5 million were working part-time jobs because they could not find full-time work, according to estimates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.There are no definitive statistics on how many people work in the gig economy. But according to a report from MBO Partners, a company that provides consulting services to independent contractors, about 17.7 million Americans last year worked more than half time as independent contributors, among them project workers.
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Jamie Viggiano, senior director of marketing at TaskRabbit, says the company is trying to improve the situation for its 30,000 contractors in 19 cities in the United States. It recently instituted a sitewide minimum wage of $15 an hour. It also adopted a $1 million insurance policy, covering both clients and contractors, for any property damage or bodily harm that occurs while performing a job. Still, Ms. Viggiano says that “across the industry, we have only scratched the surface of helping freelancers work in the gig economy.”
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Technology has made online marketplaces possible, creating new opportunities to monetize labor and goods. But some economists say the short-term gig services may erode work compensation in the long term. Mr. Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, argues that online labor marketplaces are able to drive down costs for consumers by having it both ways: behaving as de facto employers without shouldering the actual cost burdens or liabilities of employing workers.
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Labor activists say gig enterprises may also end up disempowering workers, degrading their access to fair employment conditions.“These are not jobs, jobs that have any future, jobs that have the possibility of upgrading; this is contingent, arbitrary work,” says Stanley Aronowitz, director of the Center for the Study of Culture, Technology and Work at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. “It might as well be called wage slavery in which all the cards are held, mediated by technology, by the employer, whether it is the intermediary company or the customer.”
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TaskRabbit has started offering its contractors access to discounted health insurance and accounting services. Lyft has formed a partnership with Freelancers Union, making its drivers eligible for the advocacy group’s health plan and other benefit programs.That may not be enough. Dr. Standing, the labor economist, says workers need formal protections to address the power asymmetries inherent in contingent work. International rules, he says, could endow gig workers with basic entitlements — like the right to organize and the right to due process should companies seek to remove them from their platforms.
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Exploring portable ratings for gig workers - Doteveryone - Medium - 0 views
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Unlike the traditional economy, the gig economy doesn’t rely on CVs or letters of recommendation. You build your reputation on one platform at a time — and your reputation is often the route to higher earnings (A service user is more likely to choose someone with 100 five-star ratings than just one or two). Platforms don’t want people to leave, so they don’t let workers have ownership over their own ratings. Leaving a service means starting over.
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More recently, we’ve been exploring the “how” of ratings portability: what technology, data, user experience and investment might be needed to make this real.Our design team, along with our policy intern and developer James Darling, have been conducting user research and prototyping possible technical solutions for ratings portability. Here’s where we’ve got to so far.
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“Cab” drivers didn’t have visible habits around their ratings, weren’t checking them frequently and when we spoke about them, they told us that this wasn’t something they’d considered before or something they were particularly concerned about. They were confident in their skills and ability to find work outside of their platforms, and viewed ratings more as performance indicators for their platform owners — the main fear being a drop below 3.5 stars, where they might be dropped from the platform completely.
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This “performance indicator over ratings” feeling was even stronger with food delivery workers. They expressed even less concern about the issue, focussing more on their delivery metrics such as attendance and cancellations. The rider app screens we were shown support this.
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This makes sense for both food delivery and transit: the customer has little to no ability to use workers’ reputation data to inform their purchase decision. (When we press a button to order a cab or for food to be delivered, speed is the primary factor and platforms emphasise that in their design.)
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It was a radically different story for tradespeople. Their reputation data feels important to them, and they prefer to keep control over it. They preferred word of mouth reputation and recommendations, as there was no middleman who could take that away from them. Online platforms were seen as something to graduate away from once you had a sufficient “real world” presence.
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Alongside our user research, James Darling looked at the technical possibilities, drawing on the Resolution Trust’s initial work and the research that our policy intern did. They came up with five possible solutions and gave them names and some logos. They are in increasing order of complexity.
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Personal referenceThis is the status quo: when approaching a new employer, workers create their own CVs, loosely standardised by convention.
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Publicly hosted reputationsWhat feels like a technical quick win is to ensure that a platform hosts a publicly accessible web archive of all worker reputation data, including for profiles which have been disabled. This would allow workers to provide a URL to anyone they wish to provide their reputation data. How would this be encouraged/enforced?
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Profile verificationHow does a worker prove that they are the owner of a publicly hosted reputation profile? There are a few technical solutions that could be explored here, like a public/private key verification or explorations around OAuth. Is it possible to create something that is secure, but also usable?
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Decentralised open data standardA data standard for reputation data could be created, allowing automated transfer and use of reputation data by competing platforms or external services. Creating the standard would be the trickiest part here: is it possible to translate between both technical differences of different platforms (eg 5 stars versus 80%), but also the values inherent in them.
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Centralised data holderPerhaps one way to help standardise and enforce this easy transfer of reputation data is to create some sort of legal entity responsible for holding and transferring this reputation data. A lot of discussion would have to be had about the legal framework for this: is it a government department, a charity, a de facto monopoly?
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We also thought about ways to verify identity (by including an RSA public key), what a best practice data standard might look like (here’s an example in JSON), and what the import process might look like (via a mock competitor site). The code for all this is on Github, and everything above is available in a slide deck here.
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I worry that the concept of “owning” people’s ratings reflects some deeper, more systemic issues around who “owns” things more generally in society. In the coming months, we’d like to keep working with like minded organisations to explore that idea more, as well as how the cumulative effects of those systems affect us all.
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Startup Expensify's "smart" scanning technology used humans hired on Amazon Mechanical ... - 0 views
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The line between automation and humans blurs more often than Silicon Valley might like to admit. Facebook hired thousands of people this year to moderate content on its social network, after algorithms repeatedly failed to do the job. Uber depends on more than 2 million drivers worldwide to provide rides every day, as well as employees at headquarters to make sure enough of those drivers are on the road. Behind much of Google’s digitization of books and maps is random people on the internet, conscripted using reCaptcha. Expensify is just another example.
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The receipts on Mechanical Turk belonged to “less than 0.00004% of users—none of whom are paying customers,” Barrett said, adding that, at any rate, there is nothing important on a receipt, “that’s why receipts are so commonly thrown out—because they are literally garbage.” Also: “anybody concerned by the real-world risks of a vetted, tested transcriptionist reading their Uber receipt should probably consider the vastly more immediate and life-threatening consequences of getting into that stranger’s car in the first place.”