Scaleable and flexible staffing with reduced risk and overhead costs
Independent contractors and freelance designers offer you flexibility at a reduced cost. If you know you will need some help for an upcoming project, you can hire an experienced freelancer for that project for a fixed number of billable hours without having to worry about keeping he/she on the payroll over the long-term. This allows you to hire a designer with more experience at a higher rate than you’d wish to pay a permanent design employee on an ongoing basis, and their work can be budgeted into the overall project.
Fresh creative ideas, experience and skills
The freelance designer has to compete in a constantly changing marketplace for contracts of varying requirements. This gives you fresh creative ideas, skills and experience that you did not have to finance. By the very nature of their work, a freelancer will have worked across a wide and varied cross section of industries for all types of brands. They can provide valuable ‘real world’ experience and ideas that can be invaluable during times of change and can promote a sense of ‘thinking outside of the box’ by directors and staff that they have contact with. Often an agency does not have the expert skills in house that are required to produce a project quickly and efficiently. It is often more cost effective to employ a freelancer who has these skills, than wait for existing employees to gain sufficient depth of knowledge and expertise.
Commitment and focus on the project
Permanent employees often have their own personal priorities. They are concerned with day to day tasks, ‘office politics’, enhancing their career etc. In most companies the billable hours of an average employee is only about 50% of their time at work. Freelance designers tend to focus 100% on the project they are working on. The freelancer has a fixed deadline and will normally always ensure that the work is completed on time. A freelancer is only as good as his/her last project. They tend to gain employment mostly by referral and it is in their interest to always do as good a job as possible on each project. There is no advantage to the freelancer in dragging out the project unnecessarily, as this would reflect on future opportunities.
What will our clients think?
A professional freelance designer never lets on that he/she is not a permanent member of your team during client meetings, presentations, email or phone communications. He/she refers to your agency or team as “we” or “us”. Your client hired your agency to deliver a project and all they care about is whether or not that project was delivered on time, on budget and met or exceeded their expectations.
What are your thoughts? Have you worked with a freelance designer? What are the advantages and disadvantages of hiring freelancers?
