Summary
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is posing a massive impact on financial and staffing challenges for corporates. Most of the enterprises are now looking for skilled man-force even from the unorganized sector to ensure they survive the crisis. The freelance community stands strong and is ready to help your business. Hiring freelancers come with huge cost-saving and fewer overheads. The gig workers come with diverse and expertise skills to create new business models, in which companies can hire professionals on contract basis.. Thus almost every industry maximizes their potential by seeking out these freelancers be it Technology, Accounting, Art and Design, Retail Sales and Marketing, Education and Healthcare etc.
Detailed Version
With the outspread of COVID-19 that led to a massive impact on business, keeping the enterprise running to ensure the company survives the crisis means having the right specialized skill set. As the Work from home or remote working is becoming the new norm, the business owners are facing a critical challenge as to how they will organize their workforce post-COVID-19 to maintain the Cash flow & Liquidity where the return on investment is high.
“It is projected that gig workers will comprise half the workforce by 2020, and as much as 80 percent by 2030. A McKinsey report says, 20-30 percent of the developed countries’ workforce is today engaged in independent Work.” [Source: McKinsey]
As a result, the gig economy is emerging as one of the most critical and rising trends. The freelance community or the gig workers today are ready and waiting to help the business through this crisis and beyond. The companies have realized the benefits of hiring freelancers or Project-based contractors, as it comes with more flexibility, lower liability, and low costs than hiring full-time employees.
Adrienne Gormley, head of EMEA and vice president of Global Customer Experience at Dropbox says:
“Our traditional employment format is based on old assumptions about how productivity works. It works on the basis that spending eight hours in an office is required to deliver a specific output. As a result, freelancers who often work remotely with a higher degree of autonomy, have historically been treated as a contingency measure or as an alternative rather than the norm.
“However, we are slowly shifting from this hours-based conception of Work to an output-based one, and our attitude towards freelancers is shifting accordingly. The traditional idea that you need to be a permanent employee at your desk all working hours to make an impact needs to go. If everybody is aligned and in communication, using the touchpoints they need to stay on the same page, there is no need to be face-to-face all the time – and as businesses increasingly recognize this, so they will be more willing to embrace freelancers.”
Here are a quick seven reasons as to why Businesses Must Embrace Freelancers to Remain Competitive
- Diverse and Expertise Skill Set
- Creating new business models and expand to new markets
- Round the clockwork to cover unusual working times and needs
- Fewer Overheads & Cut down on costs
- Save on Hiring Expenses
- Freelancers focus on End Results
- Most of the small and medium-sized Business, Solo entrepreneurs balance their staff with freelancers
- Diverse and Expertise Skill Set
Due to the nature of the ever-changing work environment, Freelancers are quick to adapt and pick up a host of skills. They bring with them not only the primary profession but also versatile and expert skills from a broad range of companies and organizations they have worked before. Almost every industry maximizes its potential by seeking out freelancers, be it Technology, Accounting, Art & Design, Retail Sales & Marketing, Education, Healthcare.
- Creating new business models and expand to new markets
The gig economy can create the entire new business models that can sustain & excel very fast. Companies like Uber, Amazon, Flipkart, Deliveroo, Fiverr have all been able to experience high phenomenal growth because their service delivery team comprises freelancers. Such kind of growth would be quite impossible to replicate by building a set of an in-house team of employees
- Round the clockwork to cover unusual working times and needs
Freelancers from across the world come into place when you want to round the clockwork. This isn’t just necessary to support teams but also to create new deliverables even when the office hours are not active, thus increasing the productivity of the organization
- Fewer Overheads & Cut down on costs
Freelancers don’t need to be given medical, Sick leave, Holiday, Pension, and other such extra benefits or allowances, which emerges a prominent way of cost-saving without compromising the workflow
- Save on Hiring Expenses
Hiring is an expensive and time consuming process. After all, the companies don’t want to end up Hiring the ones who are the wrong fit. However, Hiring freelancers is faster as it is not a high-end decision risk.
- Freelancers focus on End Results
Freelancers stake their reputation on outcomes and results. If they work well, they are going to benefit from more Work down the lane with the same client or referral Work. On the contrary, if they fail to produce results, they are hardly going to survive in the job market in the long run. Freelancers don’t have the mentality of time clock-punching as they are paid for accomplishing a set of Goals
- Most of the small and medium-sized Business, Solo entrepreneurs balance their staff with freelancers
Most of the small and medium businesses compile their workforce with a pool of freelancers as they are limited to a low budget constraint with specific geographic location, which makes it difficult for them to hire new talents, and so they outsource the Work without losing quality.