Why are more companies hiring freelancers?
The market of work is evolving. Millions of businesses worldwide are shifting away from traditional employment and hiring freelancers. Skilled freelance talent helps these businesses unlock their potential by solving complex problems, getting more work done, and completing projects faster.
If your business is debating hiring a freelancer rather than a full-time employee, you may be interested to learn that freelancers can bring a variety of benefits to your business. Freelancers present an opportunity for short-term, long-term, and highly skilled technical projects.
There are many reasons companies are re-evaluating “business as usual” and turning to freelancers rather than hiring full-time staff. Firstly, the recent pandemic caused one of the most significant shifts in hiring practices as traditional businesses were forced to adapt and change. Business owners and managers recognised that their workforce no longer needed to sit at a desk in an office from nine-to-five to be successful. The rise in remote workers, video conferencing, and talented workers dispersed around the globe has led many businesses to hire more freelancers.
At the same time, there has been a shift in how the world views freelancers and contract employees. Freelancers are increasingly seen as highly skilled professionals with valuable abilities that businesses need.
Below is a list of reasons why more companies are hiring freelancers:
Cost savings
Traditional full-time employees are expensive. In addition to paying their salary, business owners are responsible for training costs, benefits, health insurance, paid time-off, and payroll taxes. In contrast, hiring a freelancer allows your business to eliminate many of these overhead costs. Freelancers don’t require a dedicated workspace in your office or training. Hiring a freelancer allows a business to reduce costs without sacrificing work output.
Access to talent
Talented freelancers offer expertise that businesses can tap into with ease. If your business requires a specific skill set for a project, you can identify a freelancer that has spent years perfecting that same craft. The more experienced a freelancer is, the more value they can bring to a project. The business can benefit from the freelancer’s experience without devoting internal resources or adding a permanent position to their payroll.
Increased Productivity
In addition to offering quality work, freelancers can often provide faster deliverables than full-time employees, and more quickly and accurately. Generally, full-time employees are tasked with multiple projects simultaneously. This often slows down projects and causes delays. In contrast, freelancers generally focus on one project at a time or work within shorter time frames, which results in increased efficiency and faster project completion.
Larger talent pool
When hiring a full-time employee, companies are usually restricted to the area in which their business operates. By opening the opportunity to freelancers, companies can access a larger talent pool, which allows companies to find the specific talent, qualifications, and skills they require without settling for the best available person in their immediate area.
Company risk reduction
When you hire a full-time employee, you invest in that individual’s future with the company. Training and onboarding them costs money and time, which generally involves some risk. Rather than losing that investment if the employee decides to leave the company, working with a freelancer allows you to build a contract with specific deliverables before payment. Working with a freelancer also reduces the risk as you can make changes without impacting your internal processes.
No long-term commitment
When you hire a full-time employee, you’re now responsible for that individual’s livelihood, and they are expecting to have long-term job security. Freelancers can be hired for a short-term project, for a set amount of time, or to help with long-term projects with specific deliverables. This lack of a long-term commitment affords companies greater flexibility when hiring freelancers.
Short-term deadlines
Freelancers are excellent options for meeting quickly approaching deadlines. They can step in if something comes up, if you need additional support on a project, or if you need to make up for an absence on your team. Freelancers are often used to dealing with project deadlines and may have the schedule flexibility to help you complete your project even at the last minute.
Fresh perspective
Freelancers can bring a new and fresh perspective to a project. As an outsider, they may offer a unique idea that can greatly benefit a project. This fresh perspective may be a solution to a problem or a different way of understanding your customer’s needs. Plus, freelancers aren’t trapped in your company’s historical mindset, which lets you break free from the “that’s how it’s always been done” mentality that may be holding your business back.