Do You Have What It Takes to Attract The Talent You Need?

It’s no secret that contract workers have become more important than ever, especially in the world of professional services. More projects, higher client demands, and new types of services mean that today’s organizations must absolutely use freelancers to supplement their full-time workforce.

But simply finding a single freelancer for a large-scale project with high demands and delivering the work isn’t enough anymore. If a freelancer has the right skills and works well with your company, then you’ll no doubt hire them again. And this is where the tricky part begins.

Keeping in touch with your freelancers, keeping track of the unique skills they bring, and bringing them on for work at a moment’s notice means that you’ll need to create a contractor network. When done right, managers will have clear lines of communication open and be able to integrate workers with ongoing projects.

But do you know what freelancers want and how they want to work? Can you meet their demands? Understanding this can keep valuable contractors coming back again and again to your business.

What Do Freelancers Want?

The last several years have created major changes in professional services that have not only increased the amount of freelancers in the workforce, but also changed their relationships with companies. According to Hayden Brown, CEO of Upwork, “The pact around what an employee-employer relationship looks like has been weakening over time. Over the course of several recessions, most recently 2008, the social contract has been shown to be not what it was several generations ago.”

How have freelancer’s demands evolved?

First and foremost, freelancers desire flexibility, which has driven many of them to become contractors. This means flexibility in both the hours they work and the types of work they take on. In addition, this flexibility also provides geographic freedom, letting freelancers live where they want to live, regardless of relative distance to the companies they work for. While every project will have its important deadlines, there’s a delicate balance between keeping contractors in line with due dates and allowing them to work the hours they demand, which may fall out of the typical workday due to both timezone and personal preference.

Just as importantly, freelancers usually balance work between several companies. According to Intuit, 28% of self-employed workers in the U.S. reported to have worked multiple jobs at some point in a given week to make extra income. Finding the right balance can be difficult for a contract worker, but success means juggling various due dates, project types, and employer demands.

Freelancers also typically search for companies that will provide return employment, helping them to have a steady income stream without the many hours of downtime that often come from searching for a brand new gig. Every contract worker will prioritize these elements differently, but each will inform why they choose the companies that they do.

Is Your Company Falling Short?

It can be easy for an established professional services organization to dismiss the demands of freelancers today in favor of upholding the old ways of doing business. But this can quickly alienate contract workers and cause them to leave or never even accept a project in the first place. If this is the case, then it will be impossible to create and maintain a contractor network.

Easy ways for a company to drive away valuable contractors include demanding specific work hours be met, regardless of timezone, not providing training and the time needed to become familiar with the organization’s specific way of doing business, working to prohibit freelancers from doing jobs for other organizations, withholding new projects, and simply being bad at communication.

Any of these can make a contract worker feel like they would be more valued, and more profitable, at a different company. In the end, a successful contractor network at a professional services organization will have strong, consistent lines of communication, listen to each freelancer’s needs, and work to have these needs met without compromising the quality and delivery of a project. When done right, great contract workers will return again and again to provide the work your business needs right now.

A strong professional services business will not only understand how to best use their freelancers, but have a resource management solution and process that will put this approach into practice. When a strong understanding of contractor needs and a great resource management process come together, a professional services business can succeed.

Making The Most of Your Workforce

Are you looking for a tool that will help you make the most of your workforce? The Kantata Professional Services Cloud is designed to provide resource management that not only understands your resources’ current needs, but your future demands to help you leverage your talent pool to its fullest potential.