What do Uber, Lyft, FedEx, Amazon, Lowes, and Google all have in common? They’ve all been sued for millions of dollars for misclassifying temporary workers.

We’re now living in a gig economy, with over 34 percent of the U.S. workforce classifying themselves as temporary, freelance, or independent contractors. That number is only trending up, with 70 percent of millennials either currently freelancing, or planning to in the future. How did we get here? An unscientific guess would be that a generation grew up watching Office Space, and decided that making TPS reports in a cubicle sounded like the opposite of happiness. But regardless of why a generation of workers no longer identify with the feeling of company loyalty, employers have to figure out how to engage with this freelance workforce without facing a lawsuit (or worse).

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