Living in a Freelance World: How to Integrate Your Distributed Workforce

Living in a freelance world involves systems, processes, and tools. It’s not one of the more luxurious or exciting ways to work but it gets the job done and pays the bills. One of the most difficult parts of becoming a successful freelancer is managing people. That involves being able to have an open line of communication and clearly discuss what it is that you need from them.

Since working with loose ends can be a problem at first, you need to strengthen your bond with distributed workers so that you can prepare the best strategies taking into account their insights and inputs. One of the most challenging areas is going to be related to the kind of experience and work ethic they bring to the table.

If a certain freelancer is great at their job but has bad project management skills, you might have to play that role in that side of the business. On the other hand, if they are practicing superb time management skills but lack in other areas, you may have to intervene as well.

The freelancers that are able to balance cost and quality, at the same time, are the ones that you need to stick by. Otherwise, in this day and age, there are hundreds of clients and hundreds of freelancers for any type of work that you’re trying to accomplish. This is especially true in graphic design work, which requires various iterations and sampling to get the right feel and fit. Compensating them accordingly is the key to developing a great relationship with them.

Autonomy and Process

You don’t want to micromanage any member of your team, as that might lead to problems later on. You want to provide your freelancers the autonomy they need so that they can flourish with little to no guidance. You want to provide them the basic structure that they need and give them pointers every now and then. But if you’re sitting there rewriting the script every time, they might walk away and look for greener pastures.

There’s also an element of surprise that’s built into new client acquisition and product development. This means that freelancers must stay flexible and nimble at all times. That requires your freelancers to trust your judgment and vice versa in many cases. The power of autonomy gives freelancers more freedom to become creative in their approach and deliver on time, every time.

Whether that’s coding a new algorithm or creating new user-experiences, there is a significant advantage of having increased autonomy every time you introduce a new freelancer to the table.

Process is key here as well. You want to have all the online tools needed to run a freelance-network and you don’t want any component of that chain to break. If your vendors are required to use a certain protocol, then you need to make it easier for them to do so.

You can be the project lead while your freelancers follow due process. This is also important when it comes to having a secure line of work for these freelancers. Too much uncertainty, in terms of communication or process, and they’ll walk away with nothing to show for.

To manage your freelancers effectively, you need to reduce uncertainty.

Vision, Mission, and Culture

This is counterintuitive information, but having a structured culture developed into the freelance-network DNA pays off in more ways than one. It’s generally a misconception that freelancers don’t enjoy structure and corporate culture. The opposite couldn’t be truer. They dislike bottlenecks and problems arising from red-tape. That’s why they’re freelancers.

Making it easier for them to function as a part of a collective unit makes more sense as they have a multitude of options to chose from. That’s why it’s important to create a work culture that reflects strong values of work ethic and quality. If there are issues with quality or with work ethic, then the freelancer is automatically aware of that even before they deliver their services.

That’s the impact of a great work culture, where every part of the cycle understands their vital role in the process. Having a strong mission is a core component of that as well. When you have a strong mission statement in your work processes, your freelancers are that much more energized to produce quality results. Otherwise, you might be facing issues with quality, lapses in timely deliverables, and poor code. Technical freelancers have a lot of slack they can play with, and balancing that factor is key to becoming more successful at managing them.

There is an additional component to vision and mission that’s often overlooked. That’s execution. Regardless of how quickly freelancers turnaround on certain projects, when it comes to payments and processes you need to be equally effective. If you need to manage a diversified workforce, you need to show your end of the bargain even quicker.

If you’re delaying payments, not communicating effectively or having poor relations with freelancers, they might not aid you when you need them the most. That’s a core part of the type of company you run. Whether that’s a biotech startup or a simple accounting firm, your company’s mission and vision speak louder than any promises you make to your clients or freelancers. Managing these elements helps prepare freelancers to perform at their best.

Conclusion

Integrating a diverse workforce can be some of the most challenging experiences of your freelancing career. You have many distributed cogs that all need to fit into one system to perform effectively. Each resource needs to play their part well, as they deliver on a night-in and night-out basis.

The ability to switch over is key here as well but doing that too much might disrupt the flow that you’ve established. It’s essentially a balancing act that requires management control to execute. Otherwise, you’re going to be struggling and the advantages of freelancing will soon start to become a bane.