A study by an individual market research and analytics firm "Edelman Berland," commissioned by Freelancers Union and Elance-oDesk mentioned that more than 53 million Americans are into Freelance work, this is 34% of the overall workforce in the States. And, tens of millions are more likely to follow.
Cloud-based technology has made it easy to hire talents and work with them from across the globe. Working with freelance experts has many advantages, particularly when working on special or big project. For example, you co-ordinate with the correct experts to come out with the best output for your projects. But, on the flip side, one major challenge is the distance. Freelancers have less control over employee's work due to bad collaboration practice which directly hampers the productivity. Fortunately, there are few effective practices that can help freelancers overcome costly challenges and collaborate better.
Cloud-based technology has made it easy to hire talents and work with them from across the globe. Working with freelance experts has many advantages, particularly when working on special or big project. For example, you co-ordinate with the correct experts to come out with the best output for your projects. But, on the flip side, one major challenge is the distance. Freelancers have less control over employee's work due to bad collaboration practice which directly hampers the productivity. Fortunately, there are few effective practices that can help freelancers overcome costly challenges and collaborate better.
This article will highlight 5 tips that will help freelancers collaborate better:
1. Have an onboarding session
This becomes crucial for freelancers, as they'll be virtually working with experts coming different parts of the globe. And, dedicating time for an onboarding session will make it easy for new recruits to collaborate with other employees working on the same project as well as acquire knowledge, skills, and behaviors to become effective member. In the United States, for example, up to 25% of workers are organizational newcomers engaged in an onboarding process. (Source - Wikipedia)
2. Clear job terms
Before you finalize your new recruits, it becomes important you be clear with the job role, responsibilities and terms of the project. It’s becomes important to have a discussion before confirming the job, that will allow you'll be on the same grounds and eliminate the risks of hard-to-handle conflicts, especially when going in the wrong directions.
3. Assign tasks in bits and enforce deadlines for each tasks
Working with a virtual team, assigning long-term tasks can lead to complexity and miscommunication Also, you are unable to judge the experts efficiency in long run. Therefore, as a freelancer, assigning tasks in bits and pieces that will make it easy to monitor from afar. Also, ensure that you have a deadline for each and make clear the consequence, if deadline are not met.
For example, if you have a project to redesign an entire website, instead creating a single deadline for the entire project, you can create deadline for each page.
4. Allow easy and instant access to important documents
Unable to receive materials to move ahead, will hamper the deadline for your freelance projects. Therefore, having a system in place that allows instant sharing and receiving of file and documents with a single access for all experts working on the same project, will make for an ideal collaboration practice in place.
5. Communicate frequently
When not working with your team within four-walls, you cannot drop by any member of the team in person to offer instant solution, updates, or feedbacks. Therefore, you need to facilitate frequent communication to ensure tasks are being performed as per planning. Adopting a cloud-based communication system, you can collaborate all experts working for you in one place and have an instant access to them for anywhere, anytime.
In Closing
Making these tips work is no rocket science, if you have a right collaboration system in place. In fact, it creates a sort of virtual office where you and your freelance employee can overcome the distance to collaborate well and stay updated.