Freelance Part time Outsources Job Employment Concept

Ways Employer Can Tap Into The Freelance Network

Freelancing is the buzzword today with people wanting to schedule their own work hours taking into consideration their health or responsibilities towards their family, to save commuting troubles, enhance their incomes through multiple jobs, and generally have a better work-life balance. The employers today also see benefits in this arrangement as more people working from a brick and mortar office means higher infrastructure cost for them. Also, with manpower requirements varying through the year for many organizations, hiring freelancers makes a lot of sense. But the biggest single factor that has given a fillip to the growth of freelance network is the advent of internet.

Recruiters today have access to a huge database of freelancers they can tap for meeting the organization’s project-based workforce requirement but to make effective use of this talent pool, they also need to be prepared to provide the right environment for freelancers to work in. Let’s take a look at some of the musts of getting the best from this rising trend:

  • Developing a balanced hiring strategy:

The first and foremost factor of successfully employing freelancers is to have a clear and well laid out freelancer strategy. It should take into account the situations when freelancers shall be hired, the compensation package they will be offered, the office amenities they will use, and managing issues that are likely to crop up.

 

  • Describe the task in detail:

Before you begin hiring, make sure that you have a clear cut task description in place. Include as many task details as required to make sure applicants know what they are getting into. In fact, it is better to add a project overview to your job advert as it can save a lot of time during the hiring process.

 

  • Communication is the key:

There are scores of freelance websites and networks you can tap into to hire freelancers. All of them claim to have the best freelancers on board with excellent ratings from their previous employers. Well, don’t believe everything you read. Once you have shortlisted a few candidates, make sure you have relevant questions or a test ready. If it is not possible to meet the candidate in person, arrange for a video interview. After all, you are hiring freelancers for a special, time-bound project and you don’t want it to go wrong at a later stage.

 

  • Put your infrastructure and technology in place:

If you expect freelancers to work from your office, make sure you have free workstations available for them as they come in. This requires effective co-ordination of work hours of your permanent and freelance employees and is vital to the efficient utilization of manpower resources. If freelancers are required to bring their own device to the workplace, you IT department should be able to make necessary arrangements for them to plug their device to office network.

Freelancers and contract workers can be an excellent addition to the organization’s talent pool as long as they are engaged effectively and treated fairly. Organizations that aim to employ freelancers on an ongoing basis should look at building lasting relationships with the freelancers to reap long term benefits like loyalty and lesser supervision requirements for future projects.