5 Strategies to Successfully Streamline Your Freelance Workforce
Many find the life of a freelancer enticing. You make your own schedule, travel whenever you want, and work whenever you want. As a result, it’s hardly surprising that an increasing number of people opt to work this way. Around one-third of the American population has worked as a freelancer in the last year.But how do you get to assemble a good freelance remote team? How can you streamline the workforce to make this happen? Here are the five essential remote work tips that will help you achieve success with your freelance workforce.
An FMS is a must
Manually managing freelancers is a bit difficult. Especially once you start to grow and develop the need for more than just a few remote workers.This is where a freelance management system comes in handy. The primary advantage of using an FMS is that it eliminates silos between your teams.If you are not currently using one, it is likely that your various departments are each tracking their own freelancer management processes and systems. This results in numerous inconsistencies in your data and a great deal of wasted effort spent fixing those inconsistencies.An FMS provides a centralized picture of freelancer management that is accessible to all of your departments. Contracts, billing, and timesheets are all centrally stored, so there’s no more coordinating departments or hunting for information.
Your guidelines have to be clear
While the job description will outline the project, you must still establish expectations. Whether you're looking for a long-term freelancer or one-time employment, you must offer relevant information to ensure good performance.This experience will help with the development of your personnel management skills, enabling you to eventually manage a full-time workforce as well.Each freelancer you recruit should have an onboarding meeting. Ensure that you clearly define expectations, including deadlines, points of contact, and meetings. Discuss every aspect of the project with them so they have an opportunity to ask questions. Make no assumptions, as this will lead to problems down the road.
Be smart when hiring
While the lengthy, inefficient interview process might be aggravating for any job seeker, it’s just not acceptable for freelancers. Due to the fact that freelancers cannot count on consistent pay from their existing employment, each hour they’re not billing means lost revenue.If you subject them to the same dull and unnecessarily long hiring process as full-time employees, they will leave and start working for someone else before the process is complete. To avoid this scenario, businesses must establish faster recruitment and interview methods tailored to freelancers.For instance, the vetting process should be simplified to a single set of standards, the number of required interviews should be decreased, and compensation needs to be research-based and equitable.Since quality is critical, contract work is not a place to decrease expenses. A swift recruiting process demonstrates that you are cognizant of and respectful of freelancers' time and sets the tone for your working relationship.
Define your budget and requirements
As with any expense, you must ensure that the freelancers' profits are included in your annual budget. This reduces the likelihood that you unexpectedly exceed this budget, as you will have an idea of the total money set aside for freelancers in advance.Additionally, you'll gain a greater understanding of your business's costs than you would if you define a budget for the freelancer just when you hire a new one.Moreover, freelancers who understand the whole scope of the project will have a clear understanding of what has to be done, what resources are required to accomplish project goals, and how they should schedule their time.Clearly specified project requirements result in cost savings, improved communication between you and the freelancer, and an increased likelihood that the project will succeed on the first draft.
Try to monitor productivity the best way you can
When you first hire people for your business, you may experience some disorganization in terms of project management. It's a process, but you can improve the experience by utilizing particular strategies for tracking and monitoring production.These phases will also serve as a great tool for assisting you in working with new hires, as you will be able to track their development. You'll have access to progress reports using certain software that will keep you updated about the status of the project.While you may not want to invest in software to monitor a single person, you can absolutely utilize it as your team grows.Essentially, productivity monitoring will serve as an effective means of ensuring the successful execution of your project from start to finish.
Final thoughts
Since freelancers add incalculable value to businesses, you may be considering employing one or two of them to help your company. But while freelancers are an excellent addition to any organization, you must develop a freelance workforce in a mutually beneficial manner.These tips will assist you in collaborating with freelancers to achieve success. Consider them carefully and try to implement them the best way you can.