Considerations on How to Hire and Manage Freelancers, for businesses, entrepreneurs, and individuals
Using the services of freelancers can be a cost-effective way to fulfill the need for talent. There is no commitment to hire them as long time employees. There is no need to pay any special allowances that are to be paid for full time employees. This makes hiring freelancers a very attractive proposition for businesses that have seasonal workloads.
A project manager needs to work with freelancers to get the task at hand done, by coordinating and overseeing the freelancers’ work.
The project manager needs to have the knowledge about how to effectively deal with freelancers. This only comes with experience, but here are the main points which you can use to get the maximum results from hiring freelancers for your jobs:
Time Tracking
Freelancers can charge their clients either hourly or by the project. If the freelancer is billing by the hour, the project manager can ask them to send in timesheets to track their time. The timesheets can be sent daily or weekly basis, before claiming the payment. The hourly data can be perused by the project manager, to see if the freelancer really needs all the hours that are getting billed. This is fair to both parties because the freelancer gets paid for the time being tracked in the timesheet, and the project manager can be sure that he is paying for the actual hours of work done by the freelancer.
Achievement of project goals
Some freelancers work on project basis. In such cases, time tracking may not be needed, but the payment is based on the actual results achieved. The project manager can also define that a particular task needs to be completed within a set amount of time.
Reliability
Good freelancers can be difficult to get. Good freelancers are reliable, and they stand behind their work, for any support which may be required at a later date. You can ask to verify their feedbacks or testimonials if any, to ascertain how reliable they may turn out to be, before hiring a freelancer.
Organizational skills
A project manager will need to be organized than the freelancers whom he or she is working with. The project manager can choose to use some project organization tools like the open-source Redmine.
Technical skills
The project manager who deals with technical freelancing projects will need to possess the corresponding technical skills, like knowledge of the jargon, terminology, etc. Basic knowledge about the technologies involved in the freelance work, will be needed. Rather than say “I want this to look like so-and-so”, it is more effective to say “I need a flash component developed with 2 animations in 15 second interval”.
Communication skills
The project manager dealing with freelancers will need the ability to make things clear to the freelancers – both technically and non-technically, through the use of effective communication. If you speak and understand only English, and the freelancer speaks and understands a different language better, then that may cause gaps in communication and understanding.
Negotiation skills
Negotiation is an essential business skill, and not the sole purview of the project manager dealing with freelancers. Negotiation skills will be needed for negotiating fair pay rates with the freelancers performing the tasks.
If you would like to have deep-dive on any of the sections above, please let us know.
Consider hiring a freelancer with surefirehire, the next time you consider hiring a freelancer.
Thanks,
The surefirehire Team