People with Complex Lives
A third of US adults seek employment but not a job. Work must fit around day-to-day uncertainties in their medical issues, caregiving, parenting needs, studying, or existing partial-employment they want to retain. Barely showing in official data, they can be overlooked.
Channels connecting these breadwinners to the labor market are terrible. "Gig work" apps are task-driven silos. They invest in overturning worker protections, secrete data, drive down labor costs, and mislead work-seekers. They can retain 30% of earnings, or more.
Attempts to mitigate the impact of Silicon Valley's extractive global platforms for "gig work" are barely curbing their consequences. That's one reason so many workers find their personalized employment in the off-the-books economy, now 10% the size of GDP.
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Wasted Assets
When we see someone on a bicycle with a box on their back it's worth reflecting on that person's wasted potential. They will have competencies, lived experience, and aspirations way beyond deliveries. But they have a complex life; shuttling other peoples' food is the best their current labor market has to offer.
Adults able to fit into a traditional job take supportive labor market infrastructure for granted. Jobcenters and state job banks are alternatives to for-profit staffing agencies and job boards. Philanthropies enable apprenticeships, reskilling, and job creating initiatives. Unions negotiate collective bargaining agreements. Educators use job data to tailor courses.
If labor market stakeholders are willing to think beyond jobs to also support Workers with Complex Lives, these resourceful people could be in childcare, behavioral health, building, or multiple other labor pools, better supporting their households, paying taxes, and developing or formalizing skills.
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Deployment to Workforce Development
Countless apps and systems exist to deploy workers as required for specific tasks. Many aim just to drive down labor costs, others are more humane, providing W-2 employment for workers for example.
Our GoodFlexi platform for all types of hour-by-hour labor in any region was built from the ground up around protections (including W-2 status), control, and personalized progression for anyone outside traditional 9-to-5 employment. It enables an ecosystem of regional agencies and employers. Ongoing work relationships are incentivized. Personalized paths into full-time are offered as it captures uniquely granular data on hour-by-hour market activity. The system is under local control in each region.
Nonstandard workers need actionable data, skills, portable benefits, peer support, and other facilities. GoodFlexi supports all such interventions, seamlessly within its priority; to get each individual the highest pay for whatever hours they can be available for work; today, tomorrow, or weeks ahead. It is seamless across all types of work an individual can do. We are happy to arrange demonstrations.
About Us
GoodFlexi started in Britain, funded by the National Health Service, Tesco (the UK's biggest private sector employer), and 20 regional governments. After significant outcomes, it became a cornerstone of the Universal Credit, an ambitious overhaul of the UK welfare state. The technology now sits in our nonprofit for open sourcing. We have a network of US workforce professionals working with us.
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Our leadership ran the UK programs. With funding from Annie Casey, Walmart, Kauffman, Wells Fargo, and Irvine Foundations plus other philanthropies, our first US launch part-funded by City of Long Beach, CA, has completed a formal 12-month initial proof-of-concept. (Averages: pay $27.74 p.h, 19 hrs p.w., all for nonstandard workers.) Our planning won USCM's prestigious prize for best economic or job development initiative in America. The regional market is now spreading to L.A. County and into unions. Portland, Or, is the next public agency scheduled to launch its own hour-by-hour labor market. ​
Workers with Complex Lives skew heavily towards communities of color, women, the young, and lowest income households.
We are keen to talk with labor market innovators around the US who are ready to go beyond jobs to also systemically support local breadwinners unable to fit traditional labor market pigeonholes.
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