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How to start an in-house gig economy marketplace

Iryna ChornaContent Writer22. December 20215 min read

It feels like the gig economy has taken the world by storm, and we’re not looking back anymore. It has had a profound influence on corporate business structures over the last decade, and thus, has brought changes to the workplace.

The traditional 9-5 job is gradually becoming irrelevant. Besides, as remote work gains traction, fast-paced digital change has increased on-demand talent to fill the skills gap. Increasingly, the workforce is moving away from hierarchical company structures, where a professional must be visible at an office to get things done.

With this in mind, today’s companies must restructure at a blistering pace, and they need a smart way to place the right people into the right roles. Here’s where a gig economy marketplace fits in to become the answer to these needs.

What is an internal gig marketplace?

In a nutshell, it’s a technology-enabled platform that connects employees with gig opportunities inside the organization. The key part of the internal gig marketplace concept is leveraging internal talents.

Similarly to how the gig economy works in the world of freelancing, in the corporate world, it’s becoming less about “careers” and more about “experiences and skills” as well.

Why embrace an internal gig marketplace?

Dan Pontefract, best-selling author and leadership strategist, shared in one of his Forbes bylines: “There is a treasure trove of hidden talent inside our organizations.” The author is certain that giving employees the chance to dedicate 10-20% of their time toward in-house gigs will bring improvements in such factors as:

absenteeism
retention
internal networks
job satisfaction
psychological commitment
customer satisfaction
employee engagement

With an internal gig marketplace, organizations get transparency on skills availability, can close skill gaps, and see ways for developing their employees for the future. If the company gives its employees an opportunity to develop their skills and support them through different projects, they will be better suited to provide their own unique contributions to the company.

Additionally, an internal gig marketplace allows business and HR leaders to be more agile, letting them more quickly respond to rapid shifts in strategy and goals without losing established talents.

Bringing an internal gig marketplace in-house helps companies redefine their efforts on the talent acquisition side. With insights into the company’s knowledge base, organizations accelerate time-to-hire and can save on recruiting expenses by offering their employees exposure to gigs and opportunities within the company.

Enable the gig economy with smartPeople

smartPeople is an internal talent marketplace and skills management platform that helps you detect skill gaps and enable workforce transformation.

Download a datasheet

How to start the ball rolling towards an internal gig economy marketplace

1. The first step you need to take even before the gig marketplace program rolls out is to make sure that management is on the same page. If you don’t get much support from leadership, you’re less likely to succeed with your program. That’s why it’s essential to raise awareness among management: introduce targets, metrics, and KPIs which the business side can rely on when making quantitative assessments of the internal gig marketplace’s performance.

2. As a next step, make sure that employees understand what the whole gig program is about, what is expected of them, and ultimately get everybody on the same page so that you can hit the ground running. For this, employee resources groups are a great way to spread the word about the internal gig marketplace. They spot ambitious employees that’ll set a positive example and lead the way.

3. And of course, it’s essential to have a clearly outlined plan in place. Think of such things as:

Who will create gigs?
Who will participate in the program?
What are the types of gigs that are going to be posted?
What preparation efforts will you need to go through?
What type of software will you need to make all this happen?

As a side note, make sure you’ve equipped your team with some training materials that will guide them through and help ensure the system is clear and transparent.

How to embrace the gig economy with HRForecast solutions

Of course, embracing the gig economy won’t happen overnight. It takes companies to go through several stages towards internal talent mobility. This is how it works with adopting smartPeople internal talent marketplace:

Discovery stage: We start by helping you document your company’s skills, ensuring a transparent foundation to build on.
Creating a forecast: Based on the available skills and the ones your company requires to address current and future business challenges, we identify the skill gaps and formulate future skills.
Connecting the dots: Next, we break the silos and build connections between your employees and skills, in order to provide you with insights you can use to close currently open positions with your internal talents, outline learning and development strategies for your employees, and construct a transparent framework for the future
Transformation: With all the data connected, you’ll have a full, unbiased look at your current skills picture, enabling you to make accurate forecasts and accelerate the skill transformation at your organization.

Final thoughts

Gigs are the perfect opportunity to get work done in your organization, as well as keep employees engaged, by offering them something new and exciting to turn their myriad talents to. If you want to learn more about the gig economy and how you can use it to enable skill transformation in your organization, check out this datasheet or contact us.