The popularity of the gig economy is increasing by each day. Today, I will be talking about the disadvantages of hiring freelancers from a client’s perspective – your perspective!
87% of millennials want to work on their own clock and 92% have shown interest in working remotely.
Some may say that the reason for this is the increasing demand for remote workers in the market. Companies are starting to prefer short term workforce to handle increased seasonal workload, say a holiday season for an e-commerce site, than hiring long-term employees. Even big brands like Amazon are using this culture to their advantage. Back in 2017, Amazon hired 120,000 employees just for the holiday season!
I know you are probably on the verge of hiring freelancers to save your business dollars, but hold on. I am going to offer an unpopular opinion of how hiring freelancers can be one of “bad for business” decisions you might make! Well, “unpopular” because the Internet is filled with hundreds of articles stating how you can save money by hiring freelancers.
It doesn’t matter whether you are just starting off your company or own a well-settled business, user-experience of your end-users always matters the most. Besides finding efficient ways of handling your business operations, you always should make sure that the quality of your services or products is top-notch.
While working with freelancers could serve your business well, the chances of the opposite happening are more! I have split the disadvantages of hiring freelancers into into three stages in this article – the hiring phase, the execution phase, and relevance in long term!
Why not to Hire Freelancers?
In this article, I have compiled some of the top disadvantages of hiring freelancers businesses should start considering today. Let’s begin!
Problems with Hiring Freelancers: The Hiring Phase
Let’s say you are out on the Internet looking to hire freelancer developers. You meet Pete. Remember, Pete? Now, Pete has quoted $100 per hour. It’s more than the price you were prepared to offer to a freelance developer but you bring him on-board anyway. You want to set up your own team of developers and you find another freelance developer who quotes $90 per hour and another whose hourly rate is $110! You are just confused!
Read More(Find Pete): Hiring Freelancers: Expectations versus Reality!
Every freelancing site or social media group you visit is super crowded! This makes it super difficult to actualize the experience of any freelancer or check its relevance to your project requirements.
If you think about it, there is no way of ensuring the credibility and background of a freelancer! Understanding the experience of a freelancer, especially a freelance developer, is important to ensure the smooth execution and end-quality of your project.
One of the reasons why businesses go for hiring remote employees is: no hiring responsibilities. It makes sense as it will allow you to focus your resources on the core competencies of your business.
When looking for freelancers, you will have hiring responsibilities such as – shortlisting resumes, going through work portfolios, and more! Besides, there is always unpredictability related to the delivered quality of services when working with a freelancer.
Even after spending money and dedicating time to finding a freelancer, there is no way for you to be completely confident of their competence!
Problems with Hiring Freelancers: The Execution Phase
During a project’s execution, communication with your team – in-house or remote, is crucial to ensure a standard quality in your services. How often will you communicate with your team? Will you use any project management tool to keep track of work?
The crux is: maintaining two-way communication, when working with freelancers, is almost impossible.
One, a freelancer works with multiple clients at the same time and it is completely possible that they won’t be available for a quick call or update at a short notice.
Two, most businesses end up hiring offshore freelancers when setting up their remote teams. This might bring the time-zone difference in the way of maintaining two-way communication with the team.
Maintaining consistency in your products and services is an important part of your company’s branding which requires constant coordination between your team members.
Is saving dollars at the expense of your user-experience or your company’s branding worth it?
Due to such challenges, the overall completion of a project takes longer than it should and you end up spending more money than you initially planned to!
Problems with Hiring Freelancers: Relevance in Long-Term
Be it hiring employee, product development, expansion or anything else, you should always consider the relevance of every business decision you make in the long-term! You, as a business owner, know this better than anyone else. Given that, does hiring freelancers have any long-term relevance for your business?
Let me explain this with an example. Let’s say that Mr. Peter Rogers hired a team of freelance developers to create a mobile app, a few years ago. Now, he wants to change a few things in the app now but can’t get hold of the freelancers who originally developed the app. What will Mr. Rogers do?
Any new developer he hires will take time to understand the existing code base for your mobile application before he/she can add changes you want!
Making changes to an already built mobile or web app is costlier, more difficult and time-consuming, even with proper code documentation. Besides, maintaining consistency in your products or services becomes impossible when you work with freelancers.
After considering these points, do you think that working with freelancers versus managed resources can really save your business money?
Have I made my case on why not to hire freelancers? Don’t worry! I am here with a solution! There is actually a way you can use to achieve productivity, consistency, and quality while saving your business dollars – the Staff Augmentation Model!
Freelancers vs Staff Augmentation – Set Up Your Managed Offshore Team
Against hiring freelancers or setting up your in-house team, save money by setting your team of managed remote employees using Staff Augmentation. At Resourcifi, you can work with remote employees such as ReactJS developers, RPA developer or any other dedicated developer on a full-time, part-time or hourly basis is super easy. We have vetted the most-experienced industry professionals for you.
Good Read: Easy Options of Setting Up Your Offshore Development Team
Your offshore team at Resourcifi works during your business hours. Set up your offshore team of managed employees to boost business productivity and enhance user experience while saving money. Hire 3 developers at the cost of 1 local developer at Resourcifi! Want to know how much can you save with us? Calculate using our savings calculator now!
