”We had assumed couriers were being treated fairly throughout the network. It turns out in some cases they weren’t.”
This is a quote from the director of legal affairs at Hermes, a British courier service while under questioning by the House of Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. It betrays a fundamental problem with on-demand work: Workers are treated as outside the system of protection or even awareness of company standards for treating people humanely. The brand implications of on-demand include taking responsibility for the person who fulfills a transaction, including their behavior toward the customer and their personal well-being.
Someone being treated badly by a brand is not the right representative of that brand. The only way to remedy this is to treat people well. It will pay off in great customer experience, and the ability to sleep at night.
Source: Hermes boss is ‘shocked’ at the courier’s treatment of gig economy workers | The Independent
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