Retrenched Employees can explore entrepreneurship in the gig economy

The covid 19 pandemic has had negative impact on business operations across all sectors in Kenya. Most organizations have had to take appropriate measures to keep their heads afloat with human resource first on the chopping blocks manifesting in unpaid leave, partial pay and in worse case retrenchment.

Although most companies have a cocktail of innovative strategies for coping with the covid 19 pandemic such as value based cost management, business remodeling, consolidation through merger and eco system building, attractor state based strategic planning among others; most have chosen the easy way out of cutting employee cost mind you it’s the human resource that provides organisations their competitive advantage especially for service based organizations meaning by laying off employees the companies are actually digging their own graves.

Be that it may; the affected employees will find themselves between a rock and a hard place. On one hand is the reality of personal obligation of rent, fees, loans among others and on the other side is the diminishing opportunity to secure formal employment due to the fact that companies in the same sectors and across board are generally cutting back.

They say necessity is the mother of invention hence the pandemic may be the opportunity for such persons to reinvent themselves by leveraging on; social capital they have built over years in their specific industry, skills and experience they have acquired that is still needed in the industry and savings (if any) among others.

The opportunity to create and capture value lies in the gig economy an instance where a person with certain skills offers their services to a corporate on a project basis. The advantage for the corporate is that they don’t incur fixed overhead and related liabilities such as pension, leave days among others but still is able to get the job done while the gig worker enjoys higher remuneration as compared to a full-time employee as well as flexible working hours.

Good examples in Kenyan media sub sector are; John allan namu as well as Alex Chamwada both who departed from mainstream media but continue to provide content not only the same media houses but other institutions. Other examples of gig work in play is Andela which provides remote software engineering personnel.

Persons who desire to plunge themselves into the gig economy must adhere to fundamental business practices of establishing their business models by reflecting on; value proposition, target customer, customer channel and revenue model among others.

Secondly focus must be made to communicate value to customers either through personal or corporate website, social media as well as through traditional physical channels. Alternatively one can register with platforms that offer gig work such as Lynk, Upwork among others

Finally, business just like a baby takes time and patience to grow and mature hence entrepreneurs must be willing to sit out the challenges that comes with it