Fluid workers and fluid work arrangements in the age of digital technologies

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Introduction

The “standard working relationship” has been declining in many countries and the contractual statuses of workers have become more varied (Cappelli and Keller, 2013; ILO, 2016). Moreover, not all employment relations today take place within a bounded space, a structured time, or with a clear task-based job description (Minbaeva, 2021). These conditions in many working environments have triggered the emergence of a workforce of gig/app/platform workers, freelancers/independent contractors, paid-crowdsourced workers, moonlighters, or hybrid/remote workers. This heterogeneous group of workers has also been labelled a “fluid” workforce” (Altman et al., 2021; Capgemini Research Institute, 2020; Vaiman, 2021; Caza et al., 2022). Yet, still, there exists no single definition of “fluid work”. Many scholars and practitioners acknowledge, however, that a growing number of people today do essential work for organizations that cannot be easily subsumed under the classical employee–employer relationship that is typically performed in an employer’s office or at another regular workplace. This fluid workforce constitutes nevertheless an integral part of the broader workforce ecosystem, which includes also regular, on-promises employees, and creates value for organizations (Altman et al., 2021).

Fluid work is overall not new but has significantly expanded in scale. Digital technologies have become an important driver in enabling, shaping and managing such fluid work relationships and arrangements (Alfes et al., 2022). Especially, the Covid-19 crisis and the rapid developments of digital technologies have rushed the proliferation of fluid work, together with the advent of a new broader “Future of Work” (World Economic Forum, 2020). The line between who is an employee, and hence part of the classical workforce, and who is not, has also become blurry. These developments potentially offer many desired benefits, such as more flexibility in working arrangements and work performance, but they also pose challenges to workers, teams, organizations, and managers.

Fluid work and its implications are being widely discussed uncritically in the practitioners’ circles (e.g., Altman et al., 2021; Capgemini Research Institute, 2020), which provides a rather one-sided view on this matter. Despite growing media attention and public debate about the consequences of an expanded use of digital technologies for the Future of Work (e.g., misclassification of workers, discrimination, harassment, and differences in access to wage and social security benefits), academic research in the area of Human Resource Management is still relatively scarce. As the diffusion of fluid workers and relevant digital technologies (ILO, 2021) has generated many legal and ethical concerns (e.g., Tursunbayeva et al., 2021), we believe it is important to get a better understanding of the implications that arise from fluid work arrangements for workers, teams, enterprises, and managers so that we can organize and manage fluid workforce for the “good life” and happiness of all of these actors.

Therefore, we invite conceptual and empirical contributions that have been inspired by the multidisciplinary, multi-level, multi-stakeholder, multi-method, and culture-sensitive approaches (Caligiuri et al., 2020) on the working fluid in the age of digital technologies, especially if these can provide learning for its organization and management, as well as contribute to a good quality of fluid workforce life including their well-being, job security, and engagement.

List of Topic Areas

A non-exhaustive list of relevant research topics includes:

• Fluid workforce: Fluid workers in different sectors, their occupations, roles, distinctive characteristics, and needs.   
• Fluid work arrangements and their implications: The evidence on the prevalence of fluid work arrangements in the 21st century; the role digital technologies such as Artificial intelligence and data-driven tools in the emergence and facilitation of such arrangements; as well as implications from fluid work arrangements (e.g., on workers with different diverse characteristics).  
• Theoretical Frameworks: Identifying and developing appropriate theoretical frameworks to understand and explain the fluidity of todays’ work arrangements. 
• Fluid workers’ experiences and perceptions: Physical and digital experiences and perceptions of the fluid workers, analysing how these arrangements affect their job identity, interactions, socialization, collaboration, and overall job satisfaction and life.
• Organizational Strategies, Processes, and Practices: Organization and management of the fluid workers and fluid work arrangements  including their planning, job design, redeployment, HRM, career management, and well-being?
• Ethical and Responsibility Considerations: Identifying and addressing the ethical and responsibility issues arising from the organization and management of the fluid workforce

Funding Information- Open Access

This special issue is generously supported by the International Labour Organization (ILO), whose mission to promote rights at work, encourage decent employment opportunities, enhance social protection, and strengthen dialogue on work-related issues aligns closely with the themes of this publication. The ILO covers the open access fees for articles that have been authored by scholars from developing and emerging economies.* If you are unsure about your eligibility, please contact Emma Ferguson: [email protected] and Daniel Samaan: [email protected].

*(Developing and Emerging Economies are low-income, lower middle-income, and upper-middle income countries according to the World Bank classification 2022)

Submissions Information

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Key Deadlines

Submissions close: 30/05/2024