Bonding
without the Break Room
Traditional Work Friends
Maybe you connected over a love of coffee and make a point to get one together once a week. Maybe you both started on the same day and have been looking out for each other ever since. Or maybe you just think the same memes are funny.
Gig Work Relationships
When the work is temporary, finite, and outside of traditional part- or full-time employment, you don’t typically experience the same scenarios that lead to work friendships—so the chances to vent, laugh, or simply catch up aren’t baked into your day-to-day experience.
With no water cooler, and no central physical space for workers to build comradery, compare notes and kvetch, many gig workers go online to seek out communities of folks with similar work lives.
With no water cooler, and no central physical space for workers to build comradery, compare notes and kvetch, many gig workers go online to seek out communities of folks with similar work lives.
In her dissertation, “Understanding Belongingness in the Gig Economy: The Uplifting and Undermining Effects of Online Communities on Lonely Gig Workers,” Sophie Pychlau, PhD ’23 (management), examines those online communities, their behavior, and how their members feel (or don’t feel) a sense of belonging among peer community members doing similar work. It’s unsurprising that “fit” is a critical factor in job satisfaction—that feeling of being part of the group. So how can gig workers carve out or increase a sense of belonging?
“I propose that loneliness at work motivates gig workers to engage in online communities in different ways that can either impede or facilitate belongingness.”
Pychlau, now an assistant professor of management at Iowa State University, further explains, “Specifically, I hypothesize that gig workers feel less belongingness when engaging in ‘lurking’ behaviors, more belongingness when engaging in contributing behaviors.”
Using a sample of 95 gig workers over 10 days, Pychlau’s observations lead to practical advice on how to increase belongingness as well as an intervention designed to increase contributing behaviors that enhance belongingness.
When being asked to imagine the further potential of social exclusion in online communities, lonely gig workers should be more likely to adopt a prevention focus centered around avoiding loss, which will ultimately strengthen their lurking behaviors and thereby depress feelings of belonging.
In contrast, messages that prime a promotion focus centered around gain should increase contributing behaviors and thereby strengthen the positive indirect effect of loneliness on belonging.
“Against my predictions, lurking behavior—or reading comments in online communities but not adding one’s own—appeared to have a positive impact on belongingness, at least when accounting for the influence of the overall level of relational challenges at gig work,” Pychlau explained.
“The results of my study suggest that nonstandard workers should engage in online communities related to work to increase their sense of belonging. Even lurking behaviors and passive usage of these communities may facilitate a sense of belonging. In short, it appears that merely spending time in online communities is beneficial.”
“To some degree, my research question on how nonstandard workers develop belongingness at work is answered: gig workers experience a heightened sense of belonging on days when they actively contribute in online communities. However, given that I did not find support for loneliness as a predictor, it remains unclear what precedes their engagement in these communities. Considering the practical relevance of online communities for gig workers, this question highlights the need for further research on the engagement of gig workers in online communities.”
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