Seeding Your Own Freelancers’ Network
The Spanish version of this post is here, thanks to Albert Cañigueral
A freelancers’ network is a decentralized group of highly-skilled independent professionals who could be accessed on-demand.
For a company, creating a freelancers’ network usually boils down to designing a digital platform matching external labour supply and demand with the appropriate incentives and revenue models to monetise transactions.
Combined growth of freelancing and platforms
The continued rise of independent work and the platform economy is driving companies, large and small, to rethink the way how they staff their projects and flexibilise their workforce. Estimates by McKinsey predict that 70% of the working population in Europe will become freelance by 2030 and that companies pursuing offensive platform strategies yield a better payoff in both revenue and growth.
“Companies with the strongest types of freelancers’ networks connected to their core business model tend to win, and win big”.
As Sangeet Paul Choudary argued, these platforms scale much faster than traditional labour-intensive organisations by virtue of the fact that the fixed costs associated with managing labour are not borne by them. This also allows them to benefit from network effects — a virtuous cycle where access to a larger labour pool attracts more customers and more customers attract more workers.
Hence, these platforms may often be viewed as having a much greater impact on job creation and growth than traditional firms.
Companies are catching up with the hype
More companies realise they need to get in front of the freelancing trend and make their work environments more appealing to free agents, Elaine Pofeldt said.
“The biggest opportunity for companies is to leverage their own freelancers’ network as a source of innovation, tap on unique talent to complement in-house skills, capture new markets and introduce new services with variable costs”.
Rather than adopting industrial-era business of scaling that depend on hiring an army of employees, forward looking companies choose to travel light. When they need to expand their individual capabilities, they often deliberately turn to freelancers that can handle outsourceable functions. As these ultra-lean companies grow, so do the businesses of the freelancers and outsourced providers they hire.
Working with freelancers also helps companies in their “digital transformation”. Many of them are small/medium businesses launching an app, designing a newsletter, coding a platform and in need to digitalise their operations to stay ahead of the game.
The need for training executives to manage pools of freelancers
To work effectively with a pool of external experts, companies need to design an ideal architecture and the right tools to govern their freelancers’ network.
Many companies see the advantage of building platforms to collaborate with external talent that is not “on-balance-sheet” employees. However, because these companies are accustomed to working mainly with employees, not self-employed professionals, many of their managers don’t know how to create a great environment for these flexible workers and retain top talent gigs after gigs. In addition, the open talent network can bring with it risks related to privacy, security, compliance, loyalty and professional development.
Hence the need for specialised training for senior executives and HR manages to learn best practices for collaborating with a distributed hybrid team. As a result, companies will become more agile with a renewed value proposition for both their freelancers and customers.
This is why at Euro Freelancers and OuiShare we decided to develop a series of masterclasses on “How To Build, Scale and Nurture Your Own Freelancers’ Network”. Our next masterclass will take place in Tallinn, Estonia in partnership with the Tallinn University of Technology.
Training methodology
We will use a practical set of tools such as an adaptation of the Business Model Generation Canvas, the Platform Design Canvas, the Platform Calculator, and the Community Canvas to simulate the set up of a freelancers’ network.
The masterclass will also teach participants how to operate a Freelance Management System (FMS) software, an essential component of managing a group of freelancers. Finally, we will generate a roadmap with step by steps actions to validate the freelancers’ network ideas of participants and test them through a lean prototyping approach.
Who’s this for?
The masterclass is aimed at HR and community managers, service designers, and founders who want to decentralize their workforce, increase labour productivity and flexibility of their organisations.
It’s also for everyone else who wants to learn how to master a practical set of tools to kick start a digital platform using independent service providers.
Many companies know the clock is ticking.
Changes in tax, social security and employment law across Europe that are favourable to one-person and nano businesses are likely to encourage more professionals to go out on their own. This segment of the workforce is not only growing but poised to become more and more valuable each day.
The time to capitalise on this opportunity is now.
