What are the disadvantages to contingent work?

The term contingent worker refers to a broad category of workers whose business relationship with the organization for whom they perform the work operates on a restricted-time basis founded on a contingency such as peak workload or special projects. The use of contingent workers allows employers to maintain a core workforce and supplement that group of employees according to changing business needs. Contingent workers fall into several classifications, such as temporary agency worker, seasonal worker and freelancer, among others.

Advantages: Employer

In almost all instances of contingent workforce engagements, except with the direct hire of a contingent worker for a seasonal interval, the organization that contracts for the work has the benefit of someone else managing such things as payroll, paid vacation time, health insurance and other administrative responsibilities. Self-employed professionals manage their own benefits. In other circumstances, while the worker does work as an employee, it is through a third-party employer such as a temporary employment agency or employee leasing firm which handles payroll and benefits administration. This provides the company contracting for the work with considerable personnel-related cost savings.

contingent employee

Advantages: Worker

The strength of the advantage profile varies with circumstances and, indeed, can vary vastly for the same contingent worker during the course of her career's evolution. Flexibility is a key advantage. Contingent workers may have highly structured work times at certain times and in certain circumstances, such as that of a seasonal worker in a greenhouse during the summer or a retail store at Christmastime, or that of a temporary receptionist who must operate the switchboard on a strict schedule. However, even in these instances, the worker has the flexibility to take time off between assignments or to use the present work as a springboard either to a full-time job or to build a more profitable freelancing or consulting business.