Globally, it is estimated that 17.6% of the world’s working demographics are freelancers in 2018. By 2027, the proportion will reach an estimated 28% globally by a conservative estimate. Some industry players estimated that in some countries like the US, this proportion will reach 50.7% by 2027.
There are several strong reasons why more and more companies are adopting freelance talents into their business. Here are 10 reasons why you should consider working with freelancers if you want to remain competitive in the future.
1. Freelancers are passionate
Freelancers are free agents that have the freedom to choose any work they want to do. Many of them choose to do work that they are truly passionate about.
This is beneficial for your business in several ways. Firstly, they are likely to be eager to make sure they deliver quality. This is because they are serious professionals with the grit to go the extra mile. Secondly, they have spent thousands of hours honing their skills and craft that you will likely have someone who are attuned to the latest insights and approaches in their craft.
2. Freelancers are flexible
Freelancers can work for you on-demand. You can commission projects to freelancers whenever you need their particular skills. It could be better than having a headcount that you may or may not utilise fully throughout the year.
This allows you to have a lean team that can be extended whenever you need specific help. Additionally, given their flexibility freelancers are generally not bound by normal workdays and work hours. That means they can go beyond their hours of 9-6 especially when they are in a different time zone. It is likely that they are able to spare their weekend to work as they can as easily schedule workdays to rest.
3. Freelancers allow you to tap into a global talent pool
As the future of work gets more competitive, it will be harder for you to find the best full time talents that can get the job done for a specific office. Why not tap into the global talent pool? By opening up your options beyond the geographical limitations of your office, you are able to work with the best talents in the world, rather than just the best talents in your city.
4. Freelancers need your repeat business
Freelancers are dependent on repeat business to have a stable income. That is why they will always strive to deliver their best quality work to make sure that you will go back to them again for future projects. Working with freelancers is like working with eager and passionate new recruits. They are not jaded, they want to show they can create value, and they will go above and beyond to deliver quality.
5. Freelancers are cost effective for your business
When you take into account the cost of insurance, office space, utilities, equipment, and other benefits, recruiting freelancers is actually very cost efficient compared to full-timers. Research has shown that you can easily save 20% – 30% working with freelancers from benefits savings alone.
Additionally, many research shows that most full time employees are only productive less than half of their working day. A study across nearly 2,000 UK employees shows that on average employees are productive for about 2 hours 53 minutes a day. Working with freelancers ensure that you only pay for what they do. This allows you to keep your business productive and your budget efficient.
6. Freelancers have different perspectives
Freelancers get to work with different clients across different projects, and likely different geographies. This means that they have a vast amount of experience that they can bring into your project. At the same time, having an outsider’s perspectives prevents you from having ‘hamster in a wheel’ and ‘this is how we do things’ mentalities. Your full time employees might even learn a thing or two from your freelancers.
7. Freelancers are independent and reliable
Working with freelancers is a breeze because they know what they are doing and they are eager to please. At the same time, they are used to working by themselves meaning that they work well without close supervision. Including freelancers in your talent strategy means you allow your full-time employees to go about doing things that are meaningful for your business rather than spend time micromanaging a team of people.
8. Freelancers are quick to hire
It takes on average 39 days for you to create a job description, post it, schedule meetings, interview a bunch of people, and negotiate a contract before you can have someone working on your project. You can hire a freelancers quickly within 36 hours, allowing you to quickly execute on your projects and generate the value that you need without the headache and time sink of recruitment activities.
9. Freelancers can close your skills gap
As the business environment becomes more competitive, you may need people with highly specialised skills for your projects. A branding agency might need someone with local language and culture capabilities to generate relevant copies for their collaterals for instance. A consulting firm may need a subject matter expert in a niche field to provide meaningful counsel to their clients.
Leveraging freelancers allow you to always have the best talents to close any skill gaps your business have. And it does not require you to make astronomical offers to keep these people full time either.
10. Freelancers do not create internal inefficiencies
Working with freelancers free up your internal team to do their best work without getting distracted by ad hoc projects or tasks. Working with freelancers tends to streamline many processes that are unfamiliar in your business too. For instance, you do not need to have a fully-equipped studio-grade lighting and camera equipment to shoot for a press release when you work with freelancers who come fully-loaded with these equipment and know how to operate them.
This way you can focus on what you and your business are good at, and let the freelancers do what they are good at.
