Entrepreneurs have very little free time on their hands.
Their lives are filled with business engagements that need attending and constant monitoring of their workers.
Productivity in business goes beyond doing more in just a short time. Due to the many aspects of a business that a business owner has to focus on, productivity extends into using as little resources as possible to get the desired results.
While many business owners move to hiring more workers when there is more work that needs to be finished, smarter entrepreneurs are quickly hiring freelance workers instead of full-time employers.
Here are five ways in which hiring freelancers will increase productivity in your business and why you should consider hiring freelancers the next time you need workers.
1. Freelancers are cheaper than full-time employees
In the early stages of any business, hiring full-time workers can drain your financial resources. In addition to paying them a salary, you have to add benefits such as medical insurance and paid time off.
On the other hand, freelancers work by different rules. Since most freelancers work remotely, you don’t have to offer them any benefits. Also, due to the high competition in most freelance markets, freelancers are willing to charge very low rates. This saves you money for every project that you outsource to freelancers instead of hiring full-time employees.
According to Coworks, you can save up to 15% on staff costs by hiring freelancers. Over time, you can save enough money to hire even more freelancers to speed up your results and increase overall business efficiency.
2. Freelancers save you time through swift deliveries
At the core of business productivity is getting more work done in a shorter time. And freelancers can help you with this more than full-time workers can.
Full-time employees have little motivation to complete any projects you have faster. They come to work every day, work till evening, close their books and wait for the next day. Regardless of how many days they take, they still get paid.
Freelancers, on the other hand, are accustomed to working on short deadlines. Since their main goal is to make money online, they will try to work as quickly as possible on your project so that they can move on to the next project. Most freelancers are also willing to work both day and night to increase their productivity and reduce turnaround time.
By hiring freelancers, you can guarantee a more productive use of your time and can get more projects done in a short amount of time.
3. Their flexibility leads to business efficiency
Most freelancers have their clients spread around the globe. And this forces them to be flexible with their working hours and conditions. This flexibility can benefit you too.
Given most budding businesses only have day shifts, it’s very difficult to allocate tasks that need 24 hours monitoring such as customer relationship management and digital marketing. This becomes even more troublesome when you cannot afford to pay both daytime and night shifts employees.
Freelancers are the answer. Since most of them work at odd hours of the day and have the freedom to adjust their working hours, you can get them to work for you on both nightly and daytime duties. This boosts your business productivity.
A classic example is when you hire a freelance marketer to engage your social media followers or update your website during the night. That way, you’re squeezing more work into a day, without overworking your staff or stretching your budget.
4. Freelancers have vast experience and are multi-skilled
The best freelancers in the market have accumulated years of experience from working with different businesses. To gain an advantage over other freelancers, a freelancer must learn new skills and improve his expertise in his current abilities. This gives them the advantage of being more appealing to prospecting customers.
Fulltime workers tend to have linear skills around their areas of expertise, and this forces business owners to spend a lot of time hiring workers whenever a project that requires new skills crops up.
Hiring a freelancer is your best bet. Their broad skillsets and experience can help you hire the right freelancer for your job, and they can help you handle multiple tasks without having to learn any new skills or forcing you to employ other employees.
5. Freelancers can work autonomously
When you’re working with in-house employees, you have to monitor their productivity and work ethics closely. This close monitoring consumes a lot of a business owner’s time and can decrease his productivity.
However, freelancers are accustomed to working remotely and independently. Once you hire a freelancer, you don’t have to follow them all day as you do with full-time employees. Since they are paid based on their input, and not by how many hours they report for work, most freelancers work very fast so that they can move to the next project.
Their ability to work autonomously can free up your time so that you can invest it productively in other aspects of your business.
Conclusion
The hiring of freelancers as opposed to full-time workers is on the rise.
Research on the prevalence of freelancing shows that around 34% of the workforce in America is made up of freelancers. And the numbers will continue to soar this year as more entrepreneurs start appreciating and hiring freelancers.
It’s never too late for you. You too could enjoy the benefits of increased productivity that come with outsourcing your most demanding projects to freelancers instead of shouldering the burden of hiring full-time employees.
