The ultimate guide to hiring and managing freelancers effectively

Freelancers are an ideal choice if you want to grow your business without the headache of full-time hiring. They can bring flexibility, specialized skills, and cost-effectiveness. However, navigating through the hiring and managing process for freelancers can be daunting.

In this blog, we will examine the ins and outs of hiring freelancers: when to bring them on board, how to overcome common challenges, and how to leverage innovative freelance hiring platforms like Global Squirrels. Whether you are an experienced entrepreneur or just getting your business off the ground, this guide will teach you how to build a successful freelance team.

When should you hire freelancers?

Hiring freelancers can be a strategic decision for your business looking to enhance flexibility, manage costs, and access specialized skills. So, you should consider hiring them when:

• Your team requires specific skills

Hiring a freelancer is best if you have a specific project that needs expertise outside your team’s capabilities. In tasks such as graphic design, web development, or digital marketing, specialized skills are often needed only briefly. Hence, this is particularly true.

• Have a limited budget

Freelancers can be more cost-effective than full-time employees, especially for your business with limited budgets. It helps you avoid expenses on employee benefits, training, and overhead expenses related to permanent staff. Since freelancers are a type of self-employed worker, it’s suitable for you if you have a startup or small business that wants to cut down on expenses.

• Want to test a new role or skill

If you are uncertain about the need for a specific role, hiring a freelancer can serve as a trial period. By doing this, you can work out if the position is really needed before making the commitment to a full-time hire.

• You need an urgent replacement

The recruitment process for freelancers is faster than that for full-time employees. When working with freelancers, you can generally find and bring on talent in days or weeks rather than months. This speed is beneficial when urgent projects arise.

Three benefits of hiring freelancers

• Access to a global talent pool

Freelancers provide access to a wider range of expertise from around the world. This can be especially advantageous for you if there is a shortage of local talent or if you need niche skills that are not easily accessible in your area.

• Cost-effectiveness

Full-time employees are usually more expensive than freelancers. Freelancers help save your business on overhead costs like benefits, office space, and equipment since they’re usually only paid for their work. This arrangement helps you keep a tight leash on expenses, especially if you own a startup or small business that has to keep a tight grip on your budget.

• Flexibility and scalability

Another huge benefit of hiring freelancers is the ability to scale the workforce up or down depending on project demands. With freelancers, you can hire them for short-term projects without having to deal with the complexities of permanent hires and can quickly adjust their staffing level according to workload fluctuations. Thanks to this flexibility, you can be flexible and responsive to changing market conditions.

For more insights on remote work strategies, explore our blogs on managing remote teams and managing remote employees to enhance your approach to freelance collaboration.

Challenges you may face when working with freelancers

When working with freelancers, both hiring and management present unique challenges that can impact the overall success of projects.

Communication and coordination challenges

If you are looking to develop a quality product, it is essential for specialists to communicate seamlessly with each other, which by itself can be challenging. In this case, you will need to find and hire a freelancer and then establish contact between the specialist and the freelancer, potentially making you the go-between if the freelancer is working in a different time zone. You will then need to understand technical terms and have a mutual understanding, which can be even more challenging.

Inability to track the freelancer’s progress

Tracking the progress of a freelancer can be challenging, especially when they work from another country or a different time zone. Without a clear way to check whether the task assigned was completed on time, managers struggle to monitor productivity, leading to gaps in accountability and delays in project timelines.

Payment complications

Accurately managing tax withholding and ensuring timely payments for your freelancers can be a daunting and time-consuming task for your accounting and HR teams. This inevitably lowers the freelancer’s satisfaction with working on your projects.

Lack of commitment

Freelancers often work on multiple projects at once, which can lead to losing focus and less commitment to each individual task. This can result in delays in their decision to do higher-paying or more important jobs than others.

How does Global Squirrels help solve all your challenges and streamline the hiring process?

Global Squirrels is a staffing and payrolling SaaS (Software as a Service) platform that not only helps you find and hire freelancers but also manages all the HR functions, such as freelance contracts/agreements, timely payments, compliance, task & timesheets, and performance management.

Let us look at how Global Squirrels helps you solve all your challenges related to hiring and managing your freelancers.

1. Country specific timesheets and task assignment features in our platform allow you to track freelancer progress in an easy and compliant way. Timesheets are customized to meet each country’s legal requirements, and you can set approval frequencies as desired (monthly, semi-monthly, or weekly).
2. Our task assignment tools improve productivity further by allowing managers to assign one-time or recurring tasks with deadlines built-in and integrated directly into the timesheet for easy tracking. Task statuses can be tracked at a glance, allowing managers and freelancers alike to see what’s happening and keeping projects on time and on track.
3. Our free time tracker plugin will help you and your freelancer track the hours worked effectively, which will be defaulted into the timesheets for approval.
4. Our platform offers a secure way of paying your freelancers, processed through a federally regulated electronic network. Global Squirrels ensures that the payments are accurate, including essential considerations like tax.
5. Partnering with Global Squirrels ensures you hire freelancers who are only dedicated to your business. This is done with the help of our subscription-based freelancer plans, where our platform asks the freelancer to sign a freelance contract/agreement that includes exclusivity clauses.

What are the Purple and Orange Freelancer plans?

The Purple Plan helps your business onboard an already-sourced professional you want as a freelancer. Once the onboarding process starts, our platform takes care of all the administrative functions, such as accurate and timely payments, performance management, timesheet and task management, compliance, and the freelance contract agreement.

The Orange Plan is more comprehensive, as our platform will help you find and hire the right freelancer by giving you complete control over the hiring process. Global Squirrels will ask you to fill in details such as the job title, job description, budget, educational background, skills, and the countries where you want to hire talent. Once you submit, you will receive pre-screened and background-checked profiles within 2 to 5 working days. You can choose profiles you want to interview, and finally, you can choose the profile(s) you want to onboard. Our platform will take care of all the HR functions mentioned above in the Purple Plan

Are you ready to hire a freelancer from the country of your choice? Request a demo today!