From CEO and business owner to book authors and managers of specific departments, every employee benefits from hiring freelance experts in the first turn. For freelancers, their jobs are associated with some type of risk as they might lose the work at any time or remain unpaid. However, there are two sides to the coin. Recruiters benefit from using freelance labor for plenty of reasons. Let’s quickly have a look at where to hire freelancers and how you can benefit from freelancers in a crisis.
How You Can Benefit from Freelancers in a Crisis
The share of freelance employees has significantly increased during the past year. More than 2,000,000 workers switched to the gig economy working in remote jobs in the United States. Now, 36 percent of the employed Americans constitute the freelance market. It makes no wonder that attending offices is rather dangerous even today. The coronavirus has changed business communication, accelerated freelancing, and the need became a trend. Even once the global lockdown is over, many distant workers plan to remain freelancers due to the flexibility and variety offered by this regime.
Where to Hire Freelancers
Think about preparing your business for remote recruitment of freelancers. Some spaces that offer freelance experts do nothing but trick employers. They have a pool of “specialists” who lack experience and skills but insist on worthy rates. Thus, recruiters should be rather careful when choosing whom to work with and where to look for candidates.
Your Professional Network
Many business owners and team leads share that they would rather trust one of the huge freelancing marketplaces when choosing remote workers. Many recruiters even skip reading feedback from others. However, being a bit more proactive and finding someone on your own might be better. You should get to know the candidate or be able to meet with him in person in order to avoid remote recruitment mistakes. Turn for help to your own professional network.
A good professional should have tons of business connections. Perhaps you have some contacts on your phone or intro cards or have met someone during the conferences and business trips. After all, this person should not live next door. Word-of-mouth is the best channel when it comes to advertising and hiring people. Remember: referrals from your professional network matter.
Research Linked
Many small businesses use online marketing and research the web to find professional freelancers with experience and duties close to what your team needs. One of the most reliable sources for doing so is LinkedIn. Mostly, highly qualified experts are registered there. A surface search on this social network may help you yield good applicants. Cultural fit is also important, so pay attention to their country.
Freelance Websites
In any case, using Fiverr, Upwork, or Freelancer.com is one of the best options that you can do. The owners of these platforms have a strict registration and verification requirements and criteria for rating specialists. They do not accept just anyone on board. Use corresponding keywords.
Advantages of Recruiting Freelancers
Even if we speak about the fact that most companies have to cover medical expenses like vaccination, it has nothing to do with freelance experts. For such workers, you do not pay taxes or provide them with official, fixed salaries. You only pay for the completed projects, similar to outsourcing, which is good for a business.
So, here are the advantages of recruiting freelancers:
Freelancers are Cost Efficient
Say you need specialists to prepare quality content. For example, the cost to write policies and procedures. If you hire some professionals from different online platforms, then you do not have to rent more office space or expand the existing office to recruit freelancers. They do not require any food or utility consumption. Also, it’s up to the freelance specialists to take care of their education.
Freelancers are Motivated
It’s difficult to motivate better performance from your in-house staff during the quarantine. They value their health more than anything else. Freelancers do not have to spend time in overcrowded buses or leave their homes at all. They can still stay safe, and it motivates a lot. Plus, freelance experts know that their payment depends only on the quality and quantity of work, unlike office staff. Freelance employees invest much more effort as recommendation matters to them, and they don’t want to be rated low.
Freelancers are Flexible
An office employee is less likely to work extra hours or a day off than a freelance expert. In-house workers value their free time as they lack it, while freelancers have plenty of it, and they can agree to work on higher volumes in case of any force majeure. They can work even in terms of pandemic – and that is enough.
Benefit from Freelancers in a Crisis
Freelancers are cost effective, motivated, ane tend to be more creative, being able to adapt to various situations much faster. That is how they successfully survived and cope with stress during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Author bio: Jane Travis has been a freelance writer and proofreader for as long as she can remember herself. She has graduated from Hamilton College, where she studied composition and literature and special copywriting courses. Jane now serves as a writer for hire at https://www.the-essays.com/. She agrees that businesses can fully rely on freelancers in a period of crisis.