Bhubaneswar, Aug. 19: The Xavier School of Human Resource Management organised a national-level HR Summit called Kshitij 2017.

The summit discussed the Gig Economy, a labour market characterised by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs.

HR stalwarts such as Maharana Ray of Bajaj Auto, Ankita Poddar of Amazon and Swati Yadav of Himachal Futuristic Communications Limited were in the panel. The institute's associate professor Sasmit Patra moderated the discussion.

Yadav introduced the concept of gig economy and stressed on the importance of transformational and evolutionary HR. "The need of the hour would not be employee value proposition, but contingent employee value proposition," said Yadav.

Poddar She also emphasised how the worker's right to fail might be taken away by organisations. <>She ended her speech describing the anxiety faced by the contingent workforce in the gig economy due to the lack of job security. "While we have been stressing on reducing stress at work place, are we ready to introduce a new lifestyle disease?" she questioned.

Ray said the "gig" concept had existed in the Indian workforce for over past five decades. He advised students to focus on strategic differentiation - being a specialist and create personal brand equity, lean operations - look at things minutely and focus on one's strengths. "Innovate, improve, invent, focused, fearless, fun, fail fast, learn fast - these are the key words to be successful in any given sector," said Ray.

Awards were presented on a national-level article writing contest on the same theme. Abhishek Singh of IIM Trichy was felicitated with the runner's-up certificate, while the winner's award was presented to Swapnila Moharana and Manvendra Singh from the institute of Xavier University, Bhubaneswar.