India’s gig or freelance economy has grown rapidly especially in the last three to five years. With technology-driven workforce, India contributes 50% of global freelancers, according to a PayPal report. What has really changed the game in the freelance industry is the demand for freelancers over full-time employees by businesses. Hiring freelancers is becoming more acceptable for Indian businesses with 70% of firms hiring freelancers in 2018 as per the freelance aggregator platform, Noble House. There’s a huge buzz around the rising freelancing economy in India which many employees believe come as a boon to have a good work-life balance.

Many employees wish to join the bandwagon of freelancing but do not know when. So, we identified with a few freelancers, the workplace scenarios that motivated them to start freelancing. Here are the top 10 workplace scenarios that you might relate to:

1. Mr. Dependable at Work: You believe you are really good and stand out at what you do at your workplace. Things can’t move further unless it gets your artistic touch and that is what makes you special at the workplace. “In the US, young people think they are special because they are told that they are,” says Krassi Popov, founder of US mobile charging start-up Veloxity. “People who think they are special don’t want to sit in front of a computer from nine to five doing cubicle work.”
2. Me Time Missing: You lack personal time and space as you are slogging at work most of the day. Indian millennials put in the longest number of working hours per week, according to a staffing firm, ManpowerGroup. However, you know smarter ways of working and generating personal time but your traditional workplace processes just do not approve of it and it makes you wonder if your current job is right for you.
3. Underpaid: According to a report by Forbes, about 73% of managers and executives say that employees at their companies are “paid fairly,” Yet barely more than one in three (36%) of employees at the same companies agree that they’re paid what they’re worth. There have been scenarios when you realise that your under-performing colleague is getting paid 30% more than your salary. You can’t take the irrational benchmarking, which is a usual affair at many organizations. You know your worth and how to sell yourself as an independent consultant.
4. Expenses > Income: Your expenses are getting unbearable and your salary cannot suffice your growing needs. According to a report by CreditLoan.com, 65.9% of employees start a side hustle to earn extra spending money. An additional hustle can sort things up for you.
5. Boxed: You are so done working out of the same dull, boring cubicle every single day and just wish to be unboxed. You are a dynamic person and loves networking but your job has gripped you to an extent that at the end of the day you have to manage interacting with Alexa only.
6. Bossy Boss: The boss is always right, but you don’t believe in this. A Gallup poll of more 1 million employed U.S. workers concluded that the No. 1 reason people quit their jobs is a bad boss or immediate supervisor. You cannot take any more command and want to do things your way, which you believe is the right thing. This isn’t an attitude issue but a strong conviction in your actions.
7. Comfort Zone is Discomforting: You have realised that comfort zone at the workplace is evil for you; it is stopping you to take further actions, it has made you stagnant and weak. Vip Sandhir, CEO and founder of HighGround, an employee engagement software provider, says that standout employees set goals outside of their comfort zone often and tie them closely to the broader corporate goals for maximum impact.
   And any comfort zone anywhere will just bound you to slave as you remain unchallenged to get the better of you.
8. Time is Money: Most of your time is being wasted either in non-productive meetings, office gossips, non-engaging activities, and travelling to work. An anonymous survey by William Belk, writer on the platform Medium, concluded that 58% High Performing Employees require quieter office spaces for problem-solving. And 54% of them find the Office environment too distracting. For you, time is precious and you know how to convert every minute to money.
9. Killing Entrepreneurial Spirit: You have a strong desire to do something different for yourself and your people but your job is not letting you do it. According to a Randstad Workmonitor survey, 83% of the Indian workforce would like to be an entrepreneur, and 56% responded saying that they were considering leaving their own jobs to start their own business. You are an entrepreneur at heart but just a slave at work.
10. Who’s the Customer: You are stuck in the huge and complex process that you are only serving your supervisors and not the customers. A survey conducted by TINYpulse, an employee engagement firm, reported that 28% of the employees who aren’t allowed to make bigger decisions in the firm believed that greener pastures lie elsewhere in the corporate world. You are at the minuscule level of the big brand but the professional in you wish to have a bird’s eye view of the complete process and how you can add value at the macro level.

The corporate world is an endless chime of objectives, long hours and deadlines. People out there lead lives of screaming desperation working at jobs they hate, buying things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like. Many believe that freelancing gave them the freedom to weave their own work life but it has its own challenges too so one must put the best foot forward. Whether it’s a job or freelancing, at the end of the day, Good Work and Good Life matter.