A gig economy is a free market system in which temporary positions are common, and organisations hire independent workers for short-term commitments. On 31 March 2021, Amitabh Kant, the Chief Executive Officer of NITI Ayog, released the report on Unlocking the Potential of the Gig Economy in India curated by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). The report states that the emerging gig economy has the potential to serve 90 million jobs across non-farm sectors and add up to 1.25% to Indias GDP. Kant was also quoted as saying, "This is a massive opportunity. I see the gig-economy as the future of work".

This can be further elucidated by the fact that over the last decade, the gig economy has channelised millions of jobs, both globally and within India. According to a PayPal report, one in every four gig workers is an Indian. You can read the full report by BCG here.

The Union Budget of 2021 also lays emphasis on formalising the gig economy in India. The Finance Minister, while presenting the budget, was quoted as saying, "For the first time globally, social security benefits will extend to gig and platform workers. Minimum wages will apply to all categories of workers, and they will all be covered by the Employees State Insurance Corporation".

In this background, consider the case of Swiggy, Indias largest online food delivery platform, which has close to 1.1 lakh gig workers. The proposal of formalising the gig economy is also being considered as an advantage to attract more women workers. Out of the more than 1 lakh gig workers at Swiggy, only about 1000 are women gig workers.

Swiggy not only has made its place as a consumer-focused company delivering convenience to its customers but also has been appreciated for its human resource management policies.

In February 2020, Swiggy came up with a childcare benefits and parenthood policy for its non-gig employees with a vision to assist a diverse workforce. Its gender-neutral childcare and parenthood policy emphasises on supporting the primary caregivers of children, including biological parents, adoptive parents, single parents and parents from the LGBTQ+ groups. Its parenthood policy also includes miscarriage leaves and leaves for medical termination of pregnancy. The policy also extends to providing support during other aspects of parenthood such as fertility care and surrogacy.

For the gig workers, Swiggy has introduced the Swiggy Smiles program that caters to its delivery partners. Under this program, the gig workers (delivery partners) are provided with benefits, including accidental insurance, on-call doctors for workers and their families, education loans and scholarships, rewards such as gift vouchers for shopping and entertainment, and support for upskilling. These rewards and benefits are offered according to different levels of the gig workers. According to a report by Business Standard, Swiggys delivery partners had claimed up to 14 crore worth of benefits as of 2019. Swiggy offers more incentives to the delivery partners who work on the busy days when there is greater demand. The workers get paid and incentivised according to the number of hours and effort they put in.

Fuelling the gig economy means that the nature of jobs itself is undergoing a transformation. This also means that the way in which human resources in organisations such as Swiggy are managed plays a key role in deciding the organisations success ratio.

Suppose Swiggy is looking to revamp its HR policy to reap maximum benefits out of the factors such as the announcement by the Government of India on formalising gig economies, the future of work and the flexibility enjoyed by workers. Keeping in mind the dynamic background against which this economy is emerging, the executives of the company have felt that there is still room for improvement in aligning the HR strategies with its business objectives. They have hired your company to send HR consultants to analyse the gaps and provide solutions.

Your firm has chosen you as the principal consultant for this project. After evaluating its HR strategies and business objectives for internal and external challenges faced by HRM, you are expected to submit a detailed report to the board of directors for the same. The format of the report has been given in the next segment. The questions in the report are given below:

Question---

1. Outline the link between strategy and human resource management in the case of Swiggy. Please answer in around 300 words.