Attract and Retain Freelance Workers
Published: 01/09/2019
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The recent growth in demand for contracted workers has also led to a surplus of outsourced workforce recruitment agencies. We are addressing Client Relationship Managers and MDs working at these agencies in this article. We want to discuss a digital solution designed to enhance contractor management processes and how it can assist you in attracting and retaining freelance workers.
Employment trends are constantly evolving. Currently, it appears that a growing number of UK employees are contemplating a shift to contracted roles.
Permanent roles and freelance recruitment represent two distinct realms. As a result, they do not share the same set of challenges. In this article, we will discuss contractor recruitment specifically and how the adoption of digital tools can support it.
Which is more important for a contractor recruiter: attracting new freelancers or retaining existing ones? The answer is both.
There is a huge demand for contracted workers, showing no signs of slowing down. Therefore, it is important to maintain a constant stream of new freelancers to match them with your clients.
On the other hand, you should not neglect the contractors you currently work with either. Maintaining a relationship with them deepens your mutual understanding. This, in turn, makes it easier for you to create excellent matches time and time again.
The recent research conducted by Walters People, as cited by Global Recruiter, found that four in ten UK employees would consider working in a temporary, interim, or contract position. The study notes many reasons for this. At the top of the list is a better lifestyle (47%), followed by higher hourly pay (29%). Next are greater flexibility (26%) and exposure to new skills (19%).
While freelancing was becoming increasingly popular before COVID-19, particularly in IT and creative industries, the numbers have now surged exponentially. The reason is the pandemic, which led to widespread work redundancies and the introduction of furlough schemes.
Despite the steep recovery of the job market, many professionals who embraced freelancing opted to maintain that lifestyle. Even when offered regular salaried positions, they preferred to continue freelancing.
Naturally, this has generated significant new demand for contractor recruiters, which in turn has led to tougher competition. So, how do you gain the upper hand?
Scouting and selecting freelance workers who fit your agency well is a tedious task when done manually. Not only that, but it’s also excessively time-consuming and inefficient. Furthermore, it sets you up for failure in such a competitive market. While companies relying on manual labour typically compensate their recruiters on a commission basis to mitigate financial losses from underperformance, it remains a losing endeavor.
In a competitive industry like recruitment, every moment matters. Agencies that utilize Client Relationship Management (CRM) systems delegate the scouting process to business intelligence, allowing them to secure more candidates for placements more quickly. As a result, they are scaling at rapid speeds.
For instance, consider how Firefish can benefit you. It allows you to create segmented lists of potential candidates and nurture them through personalised bulk emails, two-way SMS messaging, and job alerts. Essentially, you save significant time by avoiding manual contact with each candidate while still providing an individualised experience for each through automation.
Relying heavily on automation doesn’t mean you should neglect communication with potential freelancers. Quite the opposite. One of the main reasons for automation is to provide you with extra time to build a human relationship with contractors.
Your candidates are human; therefore, they need human contact. To build that rapport, you should get to know them personally and understand what motivates them, as well as what their limitations are. In fact, the software can help you develop that relationship. It will provide insights into how they respond to your automated messages. It can greatly assist in offering timely feedback during and after the placement.
Attracting contractors to work with your agency is only half the job. The second part, freelancer retention, is more complex. The quality of the experience and the smoothness of processes, supported by a personalised approach, are the two pillars on which the longevity of contractors’ agreements rests.
Let’s discuss them in more detail.
The guidelines for building a relationship are often quite vague, lacking both context and a detailed step-by-step approach. This vagueness arises because the topic is quite subjective, varying from person to person. However, if we examine relationship management specifically within the recruitment industry, it has a clearly defined foundation.
Whether you want to attract or retain contractors, speed and efficiency are two key factors that help foster a strong professional relationship. Ultimately, no contractor wants to be held back by a sluggish agency. You need to ensure that the processes and systems you implement when dealing with contractors are tailored to their specific needs. This fosters a healthy, trust-driven relationship that leads to effective long-term collaborations and contract renewals.
The best way to achieve relevant and timely communication is through automating the process. Although some may argue that a personalised approach can only be tailored to human-to-human communication, science proves otherwise. Simply put, especially in larger companies, a recruiter has little time to devote to each individual contractor. If they attempt to, it’s likely to be rushed and possibly insincere.
Most importantly, it is prone to human error, which can lead to irrelevance. A solution is to employ business intelligence to collect information and act accordingly. This approach helps the recruiter connect with the contractor by establishing trust as a reliable advisor.
For example, significant mutual frustration often arises from the invoicing process. A frequent culprit is the slow processing time caused by the need to generate invoices. Sometimes, it results from the simple human error of forgetting to submit them. Our Recruitment product offers features that automate invoice generation based on submitted timesheets and expenses. Additionally, we provide a wide variety of email and SMS notifications and reminders for both submitters and approvers.
As this article demonstrates, recruitment agencies that utilize software to minimize manual labour are on the winning side. Digital tools enable the automation of time-consuming tasks and help ensure they are free from human error.
However, the market is filled with various solutions that your business may need, ranging from CRMs to accounting to timesheets. It can become quite confusing, especially regarding how to compare data collected from different platforms. This leads us directly into the next section.
There is a method for linking various solutions to create a centralised data view known as integration. With over 12 years of experience in the recruitment industry, we have gained valuable insights into the software that agencies depend on. We ensured our product integrates with the most commonly used CRMs and accounting solutions.
That’s not the only advantage of highly integrative software. Businesses strive to scale, which often means outgrowing the initial system due to its limitations that hinder growth. However, since integrations expand these limitations and add functionality to the software, a solution that can be easily integrated with other tools has the potential to scale alongside you.
It’s safe to say that the trend of more people moving from salaried careers to the contract model isn’t going away anytime soon. In the past, despite its growing popularity, many held reservations about it.
The recent pandemic has provided an opportunity for many to try their hand at being independent contractors, and most don’t plan on looking back. This has created a significant demand for agencies that find, supply, and manage freelance workers, generating considerable competition among these recruitment agencies.
The best way to cut through the noise and harness the competition is by entrusting manual processes to an automated solution.
At Timesheet Portal, we encourage you to schedule a demo of one such solution to experience it for yourself.