Many corporates and startups in Myanmar are now more open to the use of non-traditional workers than ever before because they are inexpensive and flexible. Non-traditional workers cover three common kinds of employees: interns, part-time workers, and freelancers. The common thread is that the commitment to the worker is lower impact in contrast to a full time employee. Accordingly, using these non-traditional workers is often cheaper and more adaptable to the immediate business needs without much legal complications or contractual requirements. Listed below are the pros and cons of employing each kind of non-traditional workers in Myanmar’s business environment.
1) Interns
Interns can be one of several kinds of non-traditional workers a company would employ for multiple reasons. Interns are usually college-bound or freshly graduated, have just entered the workforce and are trying to seek out career opportunities at either startups or corporates. Some companies are open to the use of interns as a means of staffing while some may have limited capacity to employ interns. Interns are a valuable source to trade a lesser amount of experience for immediate help on certain time sensitive tasks that can be a great asset to a company’s business, although they’re not without shortcomings.
Pros
Low Pay - Interns are usually employed for a small stipend or no pay at all (usually remunerated in college credit). This applies even when they have to work the same amount of hours as full time. This can be an effective way to spare the company’s staffing costs and yet score amazing recruits upon graduation; equipped with essential skills to drive the company’s progress. In Myanmar, companies traditionally provide internship programs to students and fresh graduates. Most of those recruiting cycles are based on specific application windows while a few businesses open such posts on a rolling basis. Myanmar companies usually do not offer salary to interns; however sometimes you will see foreign companies with high reserves be able to offer some sort of financial payment.
Fresh Perspectives - Interns can work on new or exploratory initiatives while thinking outside the box. They’re comfortable with approaching problems from different angles and more technologically capable than their entrenched counterparts. Myanmar millennials are more exposed to quality education, international environments, and professional experiences than ever before. Their business and leadership acumen make them a good fit to be employed as interns and their extended understanding of global markets adds definite value to the companies recruiting them.
Full time Offers - Interns are usually incentivized by much more things than monetary benefits; that is the path to a career. If companies find some of their interns valuable or outstanding team members, they can conveniently extend full time employment offers to an exceptional intern without having to invest in expensive recruitment marketing. In Myanmar, some employers even allow the student interns to finish their tertiary studies first before coming back to the company for full time jobs. However, companies may have certain conditions toward some university and college programs because of their extended years of study needed. For example, local public universities specializing in medicine and engineering require five to seven years to complete their studies as opposed to the traditional four years, making the employers think twice about their conditional offers due to possible time gaps.
Cons
Minimal Experience - Interns are often rookies in the workplace and employers would be better off placing no expectations on them. Student interns usually have very limited industrial exposure except their coursework which might not be adequate to embark on any operations critical to the business. In Myanmar, many employers offer tasks to interns such as content writing, graphic design, accounting, and research positions, most of which are usually can be sufficiently fulfilled with college work or independent studies.
Academic Commitments - It might be tough to recruit an intern for more than a two month commitment due to the semester break designations of Myanmar universities and colleges; many Myanmar universities have different academic calendars and the semester break periods vary from institution to institution. Sometimes, students are even required to engage in research projects or faculty-supervised professional experiences on campus, thus further limiting the interns’ capacity to commit to any company for three or more months.
Training Requirements - Interns are not always fully equipped with the skills or attributes to seamlessly accomplish a series of tasks without potential errors or shortcomings in terms of how the business completes them; so companies would hopefully offer structured or spontaneous training resources for interns to enhance their working aptitudes. This can lead to spending a portion of the company’s funds for training the interns. Although many Myanmar companies are able to spend a certain amount of their financial resources for training interns, startups and non-established business ventures may be hesitant to using their limited funds to train the interns, thus making interns a financially unsustainable means of staffing the company.
2) Part-time Employees
Part-time employees are usually assigned similar job descriptions to full time employees but are not committed to the company as long as full time employees in terms of working hours. Part-time employees can be a flexible kind of employment, making it possible for both the employers and the employees to make necessary adjustments, thus increasing the employment efficiency. Here below are some of the unfavorable aspects of using part-time employees as well as their silverlinings.
Pros
Lower Compensation - Part-time employees are comparatively offered about half the salary as full time employees and it can be a wise HR practice for many companies that do not need to employ some people on a full time basis, yet need them to fill some of the posts. Part-time employment in Myanmar is not a popular choice of HR recruitment due to the many administrative and logistical problems that it creates, nevertheless part-time employment can be a great option for employers willing to spare their staffing expenses yet in need of someone equally competent as a full timer.
Exemption from Mandatory Provisions - In many countries, full time employers are entitled to several monetary benefits like commissions, allowances, bonuses, and share options as well as non-monetary benefits like leaves and sabbaticals. Part-time employees are not be entitled to all of those benefits since some of them are exclusive to traditional full time workers. In Myanmar, apart from monthly salaries and some complementary work benefits, the government does not stipulate the employers to provide compulsory benefits such as in some industrially competitive countries, so the salary is not the only thing that makes a difference between part-time and full time employees in Myanmar.
Cons
Work Inconsistency & Distribution - It is sometimes harder to standardize and monitor the job description, workflow, and quality of part-time employees than their full time equivalents. Additionally, matters of bias may arise when it comes to comparing two employees undertaking the same tasks and responsibilities but differing in terms of employment classes. This leads to unequal distribution of benefits, allowances, or privileges among full time and part time employees, making the HR administration process even more complex. However, in Myanmar, it is noteworthy that part time employees generally receive less than half of the benefits offered to full time employees (although there is no singular stipulation on what is the right amount of benefit distribution for part time employees, and is offered on a company by company basis).
Less Control – Part-time employees cannot be controlled as extensively as full time employees. They likely enjoy more autonomy than full time workers; coming and going on a non-standard schedule. This can be a difficult characteristic of employing non-traditional workers. Nevertheless, proper onboarding processes and pre-employment agreement forms regarding employee management and control are some possible ways employers can mitigate this problem.
3) Freelancers
Freelancers (or contract workers) are a generic term for all professionals who do not secure permanent employment at any company or who do not owe a long term commitment to any employer. They practice an independent and flexible form of making money by working for different employers or companies and they also do not devote their time to traditional office hours, that is, most of them work from home. Traditionally they often maintain more autonomy in the project they undertake and the amount of work they want to do. There are various kinds of freelancers ranging from temp workers to moonlighters; business owners and entrepreneurs can also be reasonably referred to as freelancers. Freelancers are the most flexible contingency workers but their drawbacks exist too.
Pros
No Hiring Commitment - Employers are not expected to recruit the freelancers for an extended period of time. Freelance services may be terminated at any point of time without prior notice since there are no established regulations or labour laws in Myanmar that prevent the employers from dismissing freelancers without a solid or logical reason for employment discontinuation.
Flexible Pay Arrangements - There is no officially stipulated day of the month to pay for the services of the freelancers as there is for traditional full time workers. With a mutual understanding upon agreement arrangement, a flexible date of payment may be fixed between the employer and the freelancer, thus enabling the former to save the trouble of releasing funds early during budget deficits. In Myanmar, many freelancers bill for their services at the end of their job or necessary period of employment while some others would require a down payment first.
Higher Availability - There are many freelancers available in Myanmar gig economy. In Myanmar, the most commonly used freelancers include graphic designers, interpreters, content writers, and web developers. Apart from these functions, most other job segments may not be open to freelance employment as it might demand a more permanent hire. Notwithstanding the abundance of Myanmar freelancers in the aforementioned job verticals, their skills vary on a drastic level and Myanmar employers might not want to fall prey to recruiting the unqualified freelancers.
Cons
Intellectual Property Rights - Freelancers are not committed to any business entity for the long term and most of the time, they either deliberately or unintentionally reuse the internal resources like information obtained from a previous employer for the next one, leading the companies to suffer from potential copyright or patent breaches. This can even be more prominent in a country such as Myanmar where intellectual property protection policies are extremely tenuous and there are very few legal charges that can be pressed against IP violators, which could lead to more exacerbated problems down the line.
Lower Commitment Level - Freelancers have little to no face time with the employers. Although this is rarely a reason for the freelancers not to deliver their best to their employers, lack of physical presence and communication can be a reason for lower efficiency and productivity that can evolve into lower levels of commitment. Therefore, employers should be prepared to either meticulously monitor the freelancers they employ (not an easy task, as explained below) or expect them to be way more flexible than the rest of the employees in terms of dedication to the cause. Many freelancing professionals in Myanmar are not resistant to negotiation and compromising, making it convenient for employers to lay the ground rules and set out the expectations of employment before it begins.
Impossibility of Micromanagement - Close supervision or micromanagement is not often possible with freelancers due to the lack of office time or physical presence at work. Online office tools and management applications may not also be effective as much as on-site management protocols. In Myanmar, some of the employers who recruit freelancers solve this problem by setting predetermined office days per week or per month to ensure that there is at least a certain level of face time. For example, some employers may dictate in their freelance job posts that the freelancers may be required to come to the office twice per month for a meeting with the executives.