Recognising freelance talent

Nowadays, one UK worker in seven chooses to work for him or herself, and this highly skilled, highly mobile and highly flexible 21st-century workforce is growing.

This is a trend that is likely to continue as more and more companies are making a strategic decision to deploy freelance talent, giving them flexible access to high-calibre, experienced and knowledgeable professionals.

Compared to larger, more traditional consultancies, freelances offer excellent value for money, as well as a welcome focus on understanding and working in the client's business, rather than merely executing their own internal processes.

An independent freelance is only ever as good as his or her last assignment, and this motivation is a real driver for quality.

When meeting project deadlines is of paramount importance, engaging freelances can make the difference between success and failure.

They usually have the experience, knowledge and expertise to be able to contribute and add value from the outset, and are free to focus solely on the task in hand, without being distracted by internal political considerations.

Recently, some of those highly skilled freelances who work across the marketing, media and communications sectors were applauded at Xchangeteam's Freelancer of the Year Awards ceremony in London.

Freelance PR and Communications consultant Rona Levin was crowned Freelancer of the Year, beating 153 entrants to take the title.

The awards have been designed to showcase freelance talent and reward those consultants who have added real value to a client's business and to UK plc overall.

All entries were assessed by a panel of industry experts who were also looking to reward the key characteristics that make freelances successful - flexibility, insight, fresh ideas, a strong work ethic and a commitment to adding real value.

Emma Brierley, CEO and founder of Xchangeteam, believes that the award has become an important window on the capability and ambitions of the excellent freelance resource that exists in the UK's marketing, media and communications sectors.

Her aim was to create an award that would promote the value that freelances bring to their clients' businesses and the industry overall as well as inspire the growing freelance workforce.

Rona Levin has been freelance for five years.

She believes that freelances can bring in a wealth of skills and contacts gained in a much wider environment, perhaps, than a client's in-house staff.

A person with broader skills and experience in the different communications sectors (eg b2b, trade, etc) and media (TV, online, podcasts etc) may take a more global overview and achieve better results for doing so - more "thinking outside the box" - looking at something from a completely different angle.

This can result in a substantial increase in PR opportunities for an organisation, exploring and reaching new audiences that a client perhaps hasn't even thought of or believed they could be successful at targeting.

Levin said: "Freelances are generally brought in for special projects, or to replace staff for periods to cover illness, holidays, maternity leave or interim management and can find themselves stepping in to cover for a much less experienced person than themselves.

"A major advantage to the client is having the temporary resource of a much higher level of expertise than their day-to-day budget might normally allow.

"I think sometimes clients could take more advantage of this".

Levin would also like to dispel the myth that freelances are an expensive resource: "Freelances as a resource are entirely cost-effective in terms of budgets and head-counts.

"I think they are traditionally perceived as an expensive external resource but I agree with Emma Brierley that they should be built into an HR strategy.

"The great advantage to an organisation is that, with planning, the client buys in resources exactly when needed and for the precise length of time.

"I think there needs to be a change in employers' attitudes: if clients started building freelance resourcing into their budgets as a matter of course, particularly when planning the head-count of departments, they would soon come to appreciate just how much financial sense it can make in the long-term, rather than seeing it as 'an expensive extra'.

"Companies should change their perception and see freelance resourcing as a professional and efficient way of flexible staffing which allows for the right level of human resources, literally on demand.

"Streamline and bring in help when necessary".

While companies are undoubtedly waking up to the benefits of the freelance resource there is still a lack of understanding among hiring organisations about how to get the best from freelance consultants.

There can be the expectation that freelance consultants should be totally self-sufficient and require no direction at all.

Attitudes can range from, 'I am too busy to brief them properly' or 'They are the experts - they don't need any input from me' to 'I'm paying them enough, so they can just get on with it'.

Without doubt, poor briefing and objective-setting accounts for the majority of freelance assignment failure.

Because companies often bring freelances in during times of corporate pressure, there can be the tendency not to plan but to be reactive - ad hoc rather than strategic.

Many times, poor communication has undermined relationships: poor communication between hirer and freelance and between freelancer and permanent members of staff.

Often problems arise as hirers don't understand how a freelance consultant differs from an employee and that the techniques in motivation and performance management must differ.

The key message to hiring organisations is that time spent up front setting the relationship and management framework will produce huge dividends later.

By recognising the benefits of using freelances, an organisation will reap the rewards as it learns to unlock the huge potential of using a flexible workforce.

The dream is that freelancing is a planned part of an organisation's HR strategy enabling them to meet the demanding needs of today's global economy by using 'talent on tap'.

Emma Brierley is CEO and founder of Xchangeteam, a people resourcing company that specialises in marketing, media and communications recruitment services.

Her four years spent as a freelance public relations consultant were preceded by five years in the industry working for a number of PR agencies.

She is also Chair of the Marketing, Media and Communications Group (MMC) which she established following her efforts to set up a code of practice for the sector.

She was a finalist in the 2006 London Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Brierley writes and speaks regularly about freelance issues, HR and recruitment trends; her book 'Talent on Tap' has been published by the CIPD.

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