How to lead your team of freelancers
The highest quality output is essential when you operate a remote agency or hire freelancers. While that is a necessity, it’s often easier said than done. Why you ask?
Well, your army of freelancers are sitting at different places, working at different timings and even time zones sometimes. While you are trying to manage these details, it’s important to take a more long-term approach, the one that doesn’t involve pulling your own hair out of frustration.
The question that you must be asking is – how to maximize the benefits of working with freelance teams. How to take advantages of the pros without getting sucked in the cons. How can you instil trust and provide these auxiliary workers the authority they need to do high-quality work when needed?
Let’s start with some of the basics!
What Is A Freelance Team?
Freelance teams are a group of experts that companies hire for coverage of time-sensitive projects. Freelance teams work individually, depending upon their convenience yet deliver the expected results.
The term “freelance team” refers to a group of individuals that supply services independently but work together to accomplish a common goal, such as completing a single project or providing services for a whole business department.
Why Should You Work With Freelancers?
33% of Fortune 500 companies turn to freelance sites to outsource their work. Freelancing provides a variety of advantages to teams, both in terms of projects and the company expense.
Consider these benefits of hiring freelancers if you’re still on the fence about doing so.
While hiring a freelancer, you save money on the payroll since you pay them on hourly basis or a set fixed fee rather than a recurrent salary on your companies’s payroll.
Freelancers are available whenever you have a need for their particular set of skills or talents. If your business publishes an ebook twice yearly, hiring a freelancer means you’ll only have to pay for the services of a skilled writer when you really need them.
Also, tracking the work of your freelance team can be super easy. You can use project management tools to keep a track of their work progress and deadlines. Since they are well aware of their targets, you don’t need to poke them constantly.
Freelancers often work from afar. This allows you to tap into a larger pool of qualified individuals from farther afield, saving you money on overhead expenses like leasing office space or purchasing an Internet connection, among other benefits. When compared to working during normal business hours, they provide more freedom. It’s possible to keep your worldwide network interested even when you’re not online by contracting with a freelancer in a different time zone to handle social media during your downtime. If you think you’ve run out of resources for finding more professionals, consider a white label job board which will provide more opportunities to your business
Additionally, you’ll have additional time to discover the ideal partner. It might be challenging to fill a position like a web developer if you lack the requisite knowledge. Independent freelancers enable you to test out potential employees on smaller tasks until you discover the right match in terms of talent and personality. It’s a shrewd method of gaining exposure to different viewpoints and finding the best individual for your business’s requirements.
10 Effective Tips To Motivate And Empower Your Freelance Team
The global gig economy is projected to reach $455 billion by 2023. Your freelancers give your company new perspectives and specialized knowledge. It takes time and money to find the greatest people—those trustworthy experts who are ideal for your requirements. They certainly have other customers. How do you keep the top independent contractors working for you?
You must maintain their motivation and happiness in order to make the most of their skill set and retain them on your team. And you want to know how to go about it?
1. Cultivate a long-term relationship
Managers often mistake the services of freelancers as a stopgap solution to the problem of an excess of available workers. When you’re swamped with work, freelancers can pick up the slack, and they can also fill out your creative team with expertise you don’t need often.
However, a self-employed person’s potential is not limited to that. Each new freelance contract represents a potential new member of your team’s creative arsenal. It’s not wise to assume that you’ll always be able to delegate additional tasks to someone just because you’re not able to do so right now. In the same vein, you may be able to hire someone permanently who has her set of talents.
Always aim for the long haul while forming new freelancing partnerships. It’s impossible to predict who will be a part of your team in five years.
This can simply be understood by looking at Walmart. They have always believed in creating long-term relationships with freelancers. Indeed, they hire freelancers for the position of analysts, content designers, marketers, and tech support too.
Looking to become a UX designer and start your career off on the right foot? Our blog has got you covered with all the information you need to get started!
2. Organize frequent meetups
Get your freelancers involved by having them attend team activities and meetings with you. Ask them to join you in person for a session, or see if they can participate remotely with Google voice alternatives. Invite them to the annual employee Christmas party and any other activities you may be having.
Not all freelancers will accept your proposals since some of them may be located in another country or just refuse to leave their caves.
3. Appreciate flexible timing
You should give complete flexibility when it comes to timings to the freelancers. Projects should be assigned well in advance so that freelancer has enough time to complete the project easily before the deadline. Freelancers must be asked whether they will be able to complete the project within the given time slot. No burden should be enforced on them regarding time and work.
Pepper Content is a great platform that keeps its freelancers hooked. Indeed, it is a great alternative to Fiverr and Upwork as it’s based on a meritocratic system. Depending upon the timings of the freelancers, the client requirements are automatically shared on the platform.
4. Give constructive feedback
Most independent freelancers want to wow you so much that you keep coming back as frequent customers. Because they want you to have a good time while working with them. Developing a rapport with a freelancer is a great way to ensure you get high-quality results from them and makes it simple to bring them back for future projects.
Offering constructive criticism on a frequent basis is a great way to keep pace and ensure high quality. Justify your criticisms and assist the freelancer in making the necessary changes. This is true for both minor and major repairs.
For instance- “I thought your introduction was excellent. I’m interested in reading the following parts to understand how you plan to address the problems our consumers have.”
Even if your working relationship with the freelancer deteriorated and you won’t be hiring them again, it’s still important to offer feedback when the assignment is over.
5. Reward/Appreciate
Recognizing and rewarding employees for a job well done is one way to make them feel appreciated at work. Your independent freelancers are not an exception. They take tremendous satisfaction in serving your customers well, which in turn benefits your firm.
Be sure to give them due credit for their hard work. It might be as simple as an email of appreciation from the employer, or it could be more substantial, like a holiday gift basket or a bonus at the end of the year.
Nintendo, a Japanese multinational offers perks to its freelancers that include free games and discounts along with insurance and healthcare.
Management of independent freelancers is an important indicator of agency culture, comparable to employee perks and flexibility. Clients who are pleased with the work of their freelancers are far more likely to remain customers for the long haul.
6. Encourage ownership of projects
Being a freelancer puts you at a remove from your customer, which might lead to emotional distancing from the project. In the absence of a direct client-freelancer relationship, the freelancer may not feel as committed to the project. This may be helpful when she has to focus only on getting the job done without worrying about client communication or other distractions, but it also means she may struggle to come up with creative solutions since she doesn’t feel as invested in the project.
You may want to consider promoting a freelancer from a mere team member to a full-fledged project coordinator if she would be working with your firm on many projects. Keep an eye out for chances to give your freelancer additional responsibility and ownership over certain aspects of a project. There are a variety of ways she may do this, from communicating with the customer to formally acknowledging her contribution to the project.
7. Offer free training and tools
There is no longer any need for lengthy email chains or timesheets to be filled out by hand. Everyone in your organization, no matter where they happen to be working from, can be on the same page with the help of cloud-based collaboration and project management platforms. Consequently, if you often use freelancers, what resources should you think about investing in?
8. Document storage and sharing tools
Your in-house team may now interact with your freelancers and remote workers thanks to these solutions. Slack rooms are a fantastic tool for facilitating cross-location communication and collaboration among a group of people. When working in smaller groups, the Skype messaging feature may be all that’s needed. Instruments for Project Management: Pick a program that handles cost monitoring, time tracking, project estimation, and billing all in one place.
When files are required to be kept together, professionals go straight to Google Drive. There isn’t a better method to send and receive files, and it’s free and simple to use.
Tools like Snagit and Join.me for screen sharing make it easy for coworkers to upload and discuss screenshots and demos created on their computers. As an alternative to a phone conversation, you can now visually go through presentations and exchange ideas with your team. This might come in handy when presenting ideas to clients or when coming up with early concepts.
9. Pay well and on time
The best way to keep your freelancers motivated is to offer them a fair wage that is commensurate with the value of their work in the market. Their compensation level must not be inadequate. To gain the respect of freelancers, payments should be provided within the stipulated time frame. The most convenient method of payment for freelancers will ensure that they get their earnings without any hassle.
A brand like Meta, a tech giant offers great pay and discount coupons that act as a motivation for freelancers. They have a fixed monthly cycle to ensure the payments aren’t delayed from their end.
10. Make them part of the team
Freelancers should be included in team-building activities and meetings. Ask them to join you in person for a session or see if they can participate remotely. Invite them to the annual employee Christmas party and any other activities you may be having. Not all freelancers will accept your proposals since some of them may be located in another country or just refuse to leave their caves. But, try your best to get them for weekly meetings so that they can know about the revisions that you make to their tasks. In short, make them feel like they belong to your company.
Learnings
Management of independent freelancers is an important indicator of a company culture. Ensuring a shout-out in the team meeting or a simple thank you to acknowledge their efforts; brings a lot of change. Clients who are pleased with their freelancers’ work are far more likely to remain customers for the long haul.
