Does your in-house staff lacks some business-critical skills? I can bet that you must be depending on freelancers for a major portion of your work. Freelancers work on contract basis as they offer their services based on projects or work that they get. They are by no means employees. All these points do not reflect that freelancers should not be trusted. The idea of writing this blog is to bring awareness amongst companies to keep few things in mind before working with freelancers. As they are not assets to organization, therefore they cannot be depended upon on a longer run. They should not be given a bulk of work or a major chunk of a critical project. There ae several adverse situations that may arise while closely working with freelancers.Here are some of the major issues:
- Too many projects at one time
Freelancers work independently so that they can earn a lot in less time by offering their invaluable services. Therefore, they opt for multiple projects at once. This becomes an issue or a matter of concern for organizations that are looking for freelancers who dedicatedly work for them over a certain period. Freelancers do not have a fixed income. To maintain a flow of steady income they constantly take up new work. It may not be shocking for many of us to know that freelancers may work in 2 to 3 projects at one time. Thus, before hiring a freelancer, you must know how many projects he is handling. If your work is of top priority, you should avoid working with freelancers who have multiple projects to deal with as they would not be able to offer undivided attention.
- Security of data
When you hire a freelancer, you put your trust and faith in the person as he will have access to your data and information that might be of great relevance and importance to the company. You barely know the person who would work on your project in the coming days. Sharing intellectual property with a stranger who may or may not follow all the guidelines or policies seems to be a risk. You are always in doubt of whether the knowledge is going in the right hands and the freelancer uses information in correct manner. Also he does not pass the information to the wrong person. Thus, before hiring a freelancer, go for a background check, and see the pre-screenings for reliability check.
- Inconsistent quality
As these freelancers work on multiple projects in a time, the consistency in quality may not establish. The reason is simple the fact that the priority task of these freelancers change on a regular basis, no one can know where the freelancer invested the maximum time and effort. It is very rare to see two different projects with same quality. When in one project you saw excellent quality in another you may find quality issues. In the former case, your project was utmost relevant, while in the latter case, yours was not the top priority project for the freelancer. You may give deadlines but there is no guarantee it would help.
- Drop contact
One of the biggest nightmares is the fact that freelancers quit connection when they feel like. They may not answer your calls and go missing without informing. The worst situation is when the freelancer was handling a critical project and abandoned it midway. This is an alarming situation. Thus, an alternate means of communication such as emergency contact numbers is necessary. Furthermore, businesses must collect contact details while hiring process.
Freelancing is an important part for companies that cannot invest a lot in talent acquisition. Though the process involves a lot of risk yet most businesses use it.
