Should full-time employees feel threatened by freelancers
Freelancers are filling a large void in the company’s workforce by providing on-demand talent for project-based hiring. So, for a company whose core service isn’t IT-related, it does not make sense for them to hire a permanent IT resource person. It would be convenient for them to outsource the entire IT-development aspect to a freelancer who will develop and deploy the solution. Of course, adopting technology includes aspects such as maintenance and upgrade, bug fixes, and training among other things.
There are many similar roles within a company where it is a smarter alternative for the business to go with a freelancer. However, companies cannot replace their full-time employees entirely with freelancers. They need their full-time team and supplement their workforce with strategic hiring of freelancers.
Freelancers don’t have the loyalty of full-timers toward the company
Freelancers are hired for a project, and they work for themselves. As freelancers, their focus is on the project and its success, as their success is directly linked to the project’s success. The larger interests of the company are important to them only to the extent of the project they are working on. Full-time employees on the other hand have a greater investment in the company’s success, in many cases as shareholders, and the interest in their job security.
Freelancers can ease the work pressures
Hiring a freelancer can ease the work pressure on employees by providing valuable support on-demand. Often, team leaders themselves recruit freelancers for any of the following reasons –
- When a super-specialist is required for a core activity in the project
- When a consultation with an expert is required
- When part-time professionals are needed for non-core activities
- When a specialist is needed for skill training
- If it is cheaper to hire a freelancer in a different location rather than send a resource person
- If extra manpower is required to complete a task within the deadline
Freelancers can become full-timers
There are instances where companies have absorbed freelancers as full-time employees, or at least offered them jobs. Freelancers are also retained in the position of regular freelancers for the company so that they have an external resource person to supplement their requirements. Mostly, people take up freelance jobs because they want –
- the flexibility of working from anywhere
- option to work on different kinds of projects with different clients
- to earn supplementary income
- they have the skills and work experience but not the education qualification required to grow in their career
- the nature of their job is such that they will earn better as a freelancer than they would as a full-time employee
- there is a chance of them being stagnated in their profession if they work for a single company
- they do not qualify to work as a full-time resource person
Full-timers must be insecure about their job for traditional reasons such as their performance, the company’s performance, and the relevance of their roles.
