In a recent article, I explored how veterans are often viewed as heroes in the workplace, which is a title they wear uneasily. Research from Wharton suggests that gig workers have similar reservations about the status heaped upon them during the Covid pandemic when delivery drivers were hailed as heroes for keeping society fed.

The research highlights the various ways in which gig workers at Instacart reacted to the hero status they were granted during the pandemic, and whether this impacted their job performance at all. The study identified three types:

• Skippers, who typically embraced the hero narrative and viewed their work as worthy. This didn’t tend to translate into doing more for customers, however, because they already felt worthy before the extra praise. There was also minimal loyalty to the platform among this group.
• Stallers, who tended to shrug off the hero label and were more inclined to view their job as a means to an end. They didn’t assign any moral worth to the role and so didn’t view it as heroic in any way. As a result, they also tended to have a negative and transactional view of Instacart, with a cynical view of the “Household Heroes” campaign the platform launched. Unlike the skippers, they stay on the platform so long as the money stacks up.
• Strugglers, who had difficulty reconciling what they saw as unfulfilling work with that of the hero label. This was especially so when set against doctors or nurses. This group would often go above and beyond for customers in order to feel like they earned the label.

The authors highlight that Instacart tried to play on the newfound hero status of workers during the pandemic, but in the period after the pandemic this waned and they struggled to retain workers. As a result, they believe that the moralization of work that was thrust upon the sector during the pandemic was not only shortlived but also backfired on them in the longer term.

“Not all heroes wear capes, as Instacart officials, media, and customers claim. But telling workers they have capes does not necessarily make them heroes,” they conclude. “Instead, workers must wrestle with moralized narratives, making them their own, to truly embody the narrative of being a hero.”