May Day, World Labor Day

Since the advent of technology in our traditional workspace, the growth in the economy has knew no bounds. Digitization has come with its own opportunities and challenges for workers all over the world. So, in this workers day celebration, it’s only fair if I share my views on the challenges and opportunities faced by workers in this digital era.

Before going ahead, let me invite @basil20, @vickyson and @gbenga01

• Work life balance

During the little time I spent doing fiverr and upwork, one major challenge I faced was that, I actually don’t have any free time of my own. Like the traditional way of work, we stay from 9-5 and you know you’re done for the day, free from everything that concerns work and can rest as much as you want. The reverse was the case doing freelance work. You can be called upon any time of the day to give report, answer mails, do voice and video calls because you are always “online”. This could lead to burnout, fatigue, mental exhaustion etc.

• Workers right

With the introduction of AI in workspace, job losses has been on the increase. Even people who work as freelancers are under paid compared to their counterparts in the traditional work environment because they are not under any protection and right.

• Data privacy

Companies are getting worried that vital documents might be compromised by hackers and are looking for ways to stop documents from been stolen or leaked by attackers. They keep looking for measures to heighten cybersecurity. From surveillance tools to data breaches, workers often find themselves grappling with the trade-off between productivity and privacy.

With all this challenges laid out, it’s important that governments or labor unions come together or come up with a fair and inclusive workers right protection especially for online workers;

• There should be laws that will mandate employers to be fair in their payments of gig workers.

• There should be policies that promote work-life balance in the digital space.

• There should also be rules that will protect employees from unnecessary termination of unemployment by the employer. This will bring about job security.

• There should also be policies that will enforce employers to invest on employees by training them with the updated skills in order to thrive in the digital world.

In conclusion, The era of digitalization in workplace has provided not only opportunities for gig workers and freelancers in online space, it has also enabled flexible work arrangements

all images are “AI GENERATED” from bing