How To Attract Top Freelancers: Five Things You Must Do

(Marlene Awaad/Bloomberg)

We know with certainty that engaged employees perform better and have a more positive work experience. How people are treated is top of mind when asked to describe their favorite job, best boss or worst career mistake. In a 2016 research report, Gallup wrote: “This study confirms what Gallup has seen with previous meta-analyses: Employee engagement consistently affects key performance outcomes, regardless of the organization's industry or company.”

Denise Lee Yohn, a Forbes contributor, proposed making 2018 “the year of employee experience.” Sounds good, but wait a minute. It’s not just employees. Why not freelancers too? After all, the importance of freelancers is growing as organizations increasingly rely on a blended workforce of freelancers and internal staff. So, let’s make 2018 the year of freelancer experience!

What’s the performance payoff of a better freelance experience? Here's what executives want from freelancers: 

Rank Reason For Working With Freelancers
1 Leverage the increased availability of expertise
2 Reduce cost vs. full-time hires
3 Increase flexibility; avoid adding to permanent headcount
4 Increase the speed of getting things done
5 Challenge the organization’s thinking and assumptions with outside ideas and best practices
Source. Younger and Smallwood, Agile Talent, Harvard, 2016.

These are significant outcomes and achieving them depends on an organization’s ability to attract top freelancers. How do the best organizations provide a great freelancer experience? Here are five key indicators:

  1. Understanding what freelancers want. A good starting point is how well organization leaders really understand what freelancing is about and what freelancers want. First, it’s important to understand freelancer psychology. As Seth Godin and others suggest, freelancers are entrepreneurs who see themselves as business partners. They have clients, but clients are not bosses, and what they want from clients is interesting work, good pay, and a mutually beneficial relationship. Freelancers sell expertise and expect their expertise to be valued and influential in the work they are asked to do. Second, freelancers are not all the same. Emergent Research has artfully described differences among freelancer categories, and my recent HBR article shows how freelancers are varied in their career orientations. Third, freelancer satisfaction relies on a cooperative relationship with internal staff. As the next indicator points out, it starts with organizational respect for the role freelancers play and the contribution they make.
  2. Positive, respectful relationships. A potential client once said to me, “I hope you won’t mind if I sometimes call you people ‘insulants’ not ‘consultants’ because it’s insulting to our staff to have to go outside for help.” I declined the work. Freelancers perform best in organizations that appreciate their contribution. It's important to see freelancers as stakeholders who play a meaningful role in present, but also in the future of work. Smart companies understand that means building relationships and a brand within the freelance community, and establishing working partnerships with key talent platforms. Smart companies are also thoughtful about how to attract the best freelancers in those areas where they need help. Few organizations go as far as stating a ‘freelancer value proposition’ a.k.a. an ‘employee value proposition.’ But, it's coming as more and more organizations recognize that competition for top freelancers is increasing as demand continues to grow. And, smart companies are also fair dealers in their policies, pay, and administrative practices. Too many organizations are “bipolar” when it comes to freelancers, depending on them, but managing them with suspicion. Instead, organizations would be better off adopting a win/win philosophy in managing the relationship, and reduce administrative barriers to freelancers’ experience in areas like pay and contracting. 
  3. Setting freelancers up for success. Freelancing work that begins badly rarely improves. Even a brief orientation or “on-boarding” initiation helps to provide an essential information and relationship foundation for freelance success. This does not happen often enough. A recent Fast Company article put it this way: “Just having a consistent process for how you inform the team, how you welcome the project professional, how you set their expectations and measure their performance, those things can be done in building blocks to ultimately benefit the organization if they put the time in upfront.”
  4. Competence in managing freelancers. Thoughtful organizations understand the impact of front-line management on freelance experience, and select and train project managers to skillfully lead increasingly blended teams. How well managers create a climate of cooperation is important in collaborative work, and freelancers generally prefer to be treated as members of the team. As the future of work shifts more fully toward a blended workforcemanagers need the skills to lead blended team high performance.
  5. Contributing to freelancers’ professional success. The ancient Chinese expression, “may you live in interesting times” is so relevant these days, as technology advances and the half-life of technical expertise shrinks. Upwork found that freelancers deeply understand the need to continuously update and improve their skills and marketability.  Supportive organizations aid the freelancer experience in four important ways. First, they provide honest, substantive, feedback to freelancers’ on their strengths, weaknesses, and improvement needs. Second, they fully tap freelancers' expertise and interests in assigning work. Third, they involve freelancers in team events, training and informational updates. And fourth, they assist freelancers to further their reputation by supporting publication and conference presentation when possible, providing endorsements, and referring potential clients within and outside of the client organization.   

Freelancers, what do you look for in choosing clients? Leaders, what changes will you make to improve the freelancer experience? In the next post I’ll dive deeper into the research on the career orientations of highly successful freelancers. 
