Make hiring freelancers work for your business | In The Know Magazine
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Make hiring freelancers work for your business

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Lance Cody-Valdez

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A dog and a freelancer girl with a laptop at home

Did you know that there are approximately 4.2 million self-employed people in the UK? Moreover, 1.1 billion peoplethroughout the world are freelancers. As a result, there's a huge pool of manpower available that could take on various roles within your business, including bookkeeping and copywriting. You can make the most of your freelance team with careful hiring, and implementing protocols with them in mind. Here are ITK Magazine’s tips that will make hiring freelancers a breeze.


Searching for talent

Know exactly which positions you need to fill and for how long. Next, visit a job board and place an advert that specifies the job's duration and what you plan to pay. Add what your business does and its core values.


Besides creating ads, you can also search from the talent pool on these sites to find workers. For example, on Guru, you can find freelancers from Mexico to join your team. Freelance positions could include anything from accountants to virtual assistants and advertising specialists.


Have an onboarding pack for freelancers

Freelancers are more in control than your standard employees. And many of them may never visit your business in person. For this reason and more, you need a specific onboarding pack for freelancers. As you create this pack, explain the programs you’re your freelancers will be using, when work is due, and outline your expectations of them.

Concentrated young diverse men using smartphone and netbook sitting on bench in park

Image by Monstera via Pexals

Concentrated young diverse men using smartphone and netbook sitting on bench in park

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Hold regular meetings

When you work in the same building, it's easy to monitor your employees. However, with freelancers who work all over the world, it’s a little harder to ensure everyone is on task and productive. To alleviate this problem, hold regular meetings to give your freelancers the opportunity to discuss their progress and any issues they're experiencing. It's also an excellent time to discuss any changes.


If you’ll be holding such meetings online, it would probably help to have an office. You can allocate part of your home to be a dedicated office space. It should be a place where you’re comfortable but also free from distractions. In some cases, this may require some renovations—like the adding of an extension or turning a garage into a usable room, or even adding windows to allow more natural light to come in. Such improvements also raise the value of your home should you ever decide to sell. Incidentally, encouraging your freelancers to have a dedicated office space will improve their productivity, too.


Create a universal invoice

If you let your freelancers use their own invoices, it could make it hard to trace any errors. Having one universal invoice for everyone makes it easier to read and review them. If necessary, it could even be as simple as something handwritten. The freelancer can take a picture of the details then convert their file from a jpg to a PDF to send on to you. This can help if time is of the essence, although it does depend on the legibility of the sender’s handwriting.


Freelancers can be key to your success if you treat them well

Freelancers could have a tremendous impact on your success. However, you need to include process and approaches—such as prompt payment and being open to suggestions—to ensure they're content to continue working for you.

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