Ethical Crowdsourcing
What ethical considerations should businesses keep in mind when using crowdsourcing?
Much is written about the benefits of crowdsourcing for businesses. They include access to people with specialist skills at only the times they are needed, and indeed any extra pairs of hands that are needed temporarily to meet heightened demand. Also, outsourcing of mundane tasks through platforms such as Mechanical Turk. Entire businesses have been built on the back of workers in the gig-economy, including the legions of people who deliver our online shopping to our homes, or drive us to places in their own vehicles. Employers would do well to remember that when using crowdsourcing to complete tasks or solve problems, there are some ethical crowdsourcing considerations to bear in mind.
Businesses often talk of using gig-workers as helping them find a personal work/life balance, letting them fit work patterns around other responsibilities and interests. For?better-educated people, and qualified professionals, that may be the case. However, nearer the other end of the scale are many workers whose greatest aspiration is to be recognised as a??regular employee, with payment for some time off and when they are sick, with medical insurance (particularly in US), employment rights and even pension contributions.?For many of them, gig-work is taken on a needs-must basis, juggling numerous income streams with working hour opportunities handed out corresponding to various measures such as customer review ratings, and the ability to work long shifts with minimal washroom visits.
Piece-work, in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed, regardless of time taken, is often outside on any minimum wage legislation. Whilst the gig-economy can provide income opportunities to a more diversified workforce,?African gig workers, for example, grapple with concerns including depressed earnings, the absence of benefits and job security, and insufficient safeguards against occupational hazards
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