Freelancer: advantages and disadvantages for the employee and the employer
The freelancing market continues to rapidly gain momentum, embracing more and more new areas of business. The number of employees who choose a remote or project format of work increases from year to year. And experts predict that in 10-15 years, about 30-35% of all specialists will communicate in this way.
Freelancing has become particularly popular in marketing, IT, accounting, design, consulting, and other service industries. Today we want to look at the main advantages and disadvantages of working freelance for both the employee and the employer.
Advantages of working remotely for the employee and the employer
Of course, this type of cooperation involves a lot of advantages for both sides.
Among the key benefits that the employee acquires, we can distinguish three groups.
First: it’s comfort
What we mean by this word: A freelancer chooses his or her own convenient work schedule. It can be part-time, floating time schedule, 3, 4 or 6-day week. One of the most important factors is to work in comfortable conditions: someone works on the beach, in a workshop, and some at home on the couch. Geography can be absolutely any. The main thing is a stable access to the Internet.
Anna, 33, sportswear brand manager: “I got married and moved to another country. The management agreed with me and I was transferred to a remote job. It was very important for me because I had just begun to learn the local language and had not yet obtained citizenship. And without these two components you can only count on a low-skilled job.
The second big group of benefits is savings
By this point we mean the possibility of working from home. In this case, the freelancer saves a significant amount on transportation costs, as well as about 2-4 hours spent on the road to the office.
Jane, 31, advertising and promotion manager: “Sitting on maternity leave, I realized that I have a desire to continue doing what I love, to maintain a competitive level of knowledge and skills. Thanks to freelancing, I can devote the time I used to spend just commuting to the office to work without sacrificing attention and care for my child.”
The third large group of benefits is related to independence or freedom
Many people feel much more comfortable working when they are responsible only for their segment of the project or work, they can choose their own partners or executors and do not depend on the already established team. Freelancing makes it possible to combine work and personal life and hobbies in a harmonious way.
If we are going to talk about the employer, it is worth mentioning that statistically only 20% of medium and large businesses are willing to cooperate with freelancers. Here we can also distinguish several groups.
The first, as well as for freelancers, is related to savings. There is no need to provide a fully equipped workplace in the office, social guarantees – for example, such as sick leave. This can also include attracting highly qualified specialists from the regions for a lower salary than hiring employees from large federal cities. Another important point is the minimization of paperwork and the burden on related departments.
The second significant advantage has to do with interaction. The employer pays only for the work actually performed, not for the hours in the office. If the quality of the work is not satisfactory to the manager, it is much easier to terminate the relationship with a freelancer than with an employee on staff.
Disadvantages of freelance work for employees and companies
With a number of specialties, such as PC operator, data entry and processing specialist, there is almost no difficulty. This is due to the fact that we can very clearly track the process of work and the final result. While our experience with freelancers in Internet marketing and IT has shown the key disadvantage of this kind of work – the lack of ability to control the process of execution of assigned tasks.
What disadvantages are highlighted by the employees themselves:
Independent job search. It is necessary to constantly monitor the market, pay for extended accounts on specialized sites to get full access to projects and vacancies.
Oliver, 45, photographer/videographer: “I’ve been doing wedding photography and videography for quite some time. At first, you spend a pretty decent amount of money to post ads on specialized forums, portals, and print publications. You also have to pay for extended accounts on thematic resources to have access to new orders and to be at the top when photo services are shown. The costs are reduced only if you do a really great job. Then the “word of mouth” starts to work. And satisfied clients recommend you to their friends and acquaintances.
