The Emerging New Order: Exploring New Ways to Build an Internal Gig Employment System for IT/ITES Organizations

The IT/ITeS industry has had an impressive growth trajectory over the past two decades. However, it continues to be plagued with talent shortages, managing employee satisfaction, and growth aspirations while trying to reduce employee attrition. COVID-19 has presented an unprecedented opportunity for IT Service organizations to transform the established paradigm of working. The industry has been exploring non-linear growth models that address the talent demand–supply gap. With skilled talent shortage continuing to limit the industry growth, non-linear initiatives of growth are urgently required. Based on the self-determination theory and the dynamic capabilities framework, we propose a model of “Internal Gig” worker (I-GIG) for the IT Services industry. The new I-GIG workforce would be providing non-linear outcomes without increasing costs significantly. We also argue that this model would be motivational for employees who opt for it, with commensurate reward motivations to engage them. Additionally, this model would enable the work-anywhere, anytime, and leverage talent availability on a global scale. We adopt a qualitative research approach to understand the mechanisms to institutionalize internal gig working, the potential issues such a system may face, and then suggest an internal and external enabling framework that organizations need to adapt to support internal gig work.