5 ways freelancers can enhance your work team

If Corona has taught business one thing, it’s probably a more relaxed approach to remote work (thanks, COVID!). But you don’t need a global pandemic to see the advantages of contractors joining your team.

In fact, everyday work life can be permanently enhanced by contractors or freelance talent in more ways than one.

From temporary support to long-term collaborations, here are 5 ways remote talent can enhance your work team.

We have all been there: A new campaign requires additional attention or a project with short notice turns out to be way more elaborate than you thought. You neither have the time nor the budget to hire a new employee. What do you do?

Exactly, hire a contractor. In the best-case scenario, you already know a few freelancers or vendors that you have worked with before and who would be perfect for the job.

This way, you can get temporary support and make sure your team is not affected by the additional amount of work while at the same time ensuring you deliver the best possible results.

In case you do not have the right freelancer at hand, here are some tips on how to pick the best freelancer for your project.

We all would love to work with a team of allrounders who can do anything and everything: Write amazing copy, create incredible artwork and organize the next photo shoot. But in reality, employees are much more experienced in one area than others and sometimes, you just need additional expertise for your next project.

Fortunately, you are very likely to find a contractor who is specialized in the exact area you need. He or she can do the job while at the same time teaching your other employees a thing or two about the task at hand.

This is especially handy when working on temporary projects, since you can save the money and effort of educating your existing staff and keep them focussing on their actual work.

It is not ideal, but it does happen: The amount of work keeps getting bigger and bigger until your team members can’t handle it anymore. Balancing their everyday responsibilities with new tasks and projects becomes overwhelming and instead of completing at least one half of the job, it all falls apart.

A high amount of pressure will not only burn out your employees but will leave them stressed and highly unmotivated.

One way to avoid putting too much pressure on your team is by getting external support from a contractor. This is a sign that you take your employees’ worries seriously and allows you to quickly react to any changes before having to pick up the pieces of your team.

It doesn’t have to be a global pandemic, but even smaller changes like a team member being sick for a longer period of time, an internal restructuring of the company or the cutting of budgets can call for a quick and decisive change of plans.

By working with external talent, you can quickly and reliably react to any changes that may come your way.

This allows you to stay flexible and competitive, by individually being able to up- and downscale your team size and react to new trends as well as potential restrictions.

Sure, you can go to networking events and meet new people every week. But you can also use your remote talent as a gateway to even more connections.

Contractors naturally tend to be good networkers, since many of them get their jobs through word-of-mouth or a direct recommendation. Why not make use of this existing network?

Next time you need a professional designer, copywriter, or online marketing expert, see if your network of remote workers can give you a recommendation.

This not only saves you time and effort to find someone on your own, but it also ensures you stay within a certain quality level.

>> Learn how to build a remote team - anywhere in the world and in full compliance.