Chapter 15: Human Resource Development, Professions and Precarious Workers

This chapter focuses on Human Resource Development (HRD) in relation to two distinctive groups of workers that fulfil increasingly prominent roles in contemporary organisations: ‘precarious’ workers and professional workers. Precarious work is linked with non-standard employment relationships and is now a ubiquitous and contentious feature of the world of work. It is most often associated with the rise of the ‘gig economy’. However, the use of smart technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in work-related settings are predicted to trigger a ‘new wave’ of outsourcing, offshoring, and automation that will normalise precariarity in labour markets across the world. Traditionally precarious work has been associated with routine of low-skill occupations (Norris-Green and Gifford, 2021; Rubery et al., 2018). However, data suggest that work traditionally carried out by those who regard themselves as professionals, for example, in the fields of medical diagnostics, sales and marketing, and education and training is increasingly likely to become precarious (Frey and Osborne, 2017). These developments, exacerbated by the COVID-19 global pandemic in 2020, look set to irreversibly change the experience of work for millions of people and organisations. The prevalence of precarious work, therefore, raises substantial challenges for HRD, specifically with regard to job quality, workplace relationships, availability of fairly paid, stable work opportunities, worker well-being and skill and career development opportunities.