Hiring Shortage? Freelancers can Fill the Talent Gaps

There has been a whole lot of talk lately about the great resignation. The past two years have caused full-time workers to reconsider their priorities. A lot of them are coming to the same conclusion and choosing flexibility in their careers and leaving their traditional jobs behind. While this trend towards choosing freelance, flexible work over full-time, 9-5 jobs isn’t new, its growth has been sped up considerably this year. 

A shift to remote work and new workforce management and organizational software has caused a lot of us to rethink how and where we want to work. In fact, 1 in 4 Americans quit their jobs this year. This shift in power has created a so-called “workers economy” where companies struggle to fill open roles. This mass exodus has created a new war to find and keep the best talent and the time has come for businesses and managers to get creative. The truth is that more than half of the nation’s employers are seeking workers and there aren’t enough skilled workers looking for full-time work to fill all of the open spots.

Freelancing Can be a Win-Win

While workers have certainly seen the benefits that come from a freelance lifestyle, there can also be benefits to businesses. The same flexibility that people crave in their work-life is the same flexibility that can benefit managers. By assigning projects to freelancers with specific skillsets and using them only when and where they are needed, you’re creating a much more efficient workstream. 

Advantages to hiring more freelancers include:

• Flexible access to top skilled workers with specific expertise
• Faster turn around on projects
• Cost savings for only paying for work when and where you need it
• Scale your business faster

So if you and your hiring managers are struggling to fill full-time positions, it may be time to turn to freelancers. The workforce of the future will be made up of less traditional roles and a more hybrid workforce consisting of flexible roles. In fact, 71% of hiring managers are continuing or increasing their use of freelancers post COVID.

Don’t Forget About Payments

While working with more freelancers can help fix the talent shortage, there’s one element you shouldn’t forget about – freelancer payments. The truth is, most companies don’t have the payment infrastructure in place to pay freelancers in an efficient way. Paying freelancers is much different than paying your full-time employees and large PEO systems like Workday and JustWorks aren’t set up to handle flexible freelancer payments. Instead, you need to work with a freelancer management platform with integrated payment services.

Having one system of record for your onboarding, project management, and payments means you’ll have full visibility into your flexible workforce while staying in compliance and making sure all freelancers are paid correctly and on time. By choosing a platform that also handles payments, you can remove that entire admin burden from your in-house team and know for sure that this piece of your workforce is being classified and paid correctly.

Ready to learn more about how AllWork can help you classify, onboard, manage, and pay your freelancers? Schedule a demo of our platform here.