Research by the Brookson Enterprise Freelance Fair has identified that {{productivity is the key benefit of freelance workers in the creative, digital, media and marketing sector with 83% agreement}}.
Interestingly, freelancers were regarded as a better cost solution than full time staff only 60% of the time.
However, the real challenge for businesses engaging freelance talent is management and recruitment with less than half agreeing that these are easy.
Neil Lewis, organiser of the Enterprise Freelance Fairs said “this research backs up what we have been told anecdotally; namely, that the real benefit to businesses and entrepreneurs of freelance talent is the increased productivity coupled with very high levels of motivation.”
Lewis continued, “Cost saving is not the dominant benefit identified in this research. This means freelancers won’t cut your costs, but you can expect more productive results from the same expenditure”.
“The research also confirmed that it is hard to recruit and manage good freelancers. There is no established recruitment market for freelancers and this explains the growing use of online databases such as People per Hour or People 4 Business.”
“However”, Lewis says, “our internal research tells us that the difficulty of recruiting is connected to the difficultly of management”.
“We believe that business’s over reliance on sourcing freelance talent over the Internet means that they are missing out on substantial talent in their local market. Freelancers who work and live near your enterprise can easily be brought together for project meetings and hence, the ability to manage and direct a team is substantially improved”.
“This is why we have launched the Brookson Enterprise Freelance Fairs, as they allow local enterprise and entrepreneurs to meet directly with local freelancers.”
The next Brookson Enterprise Freelance Fair is taking place at the Liverpool Freelance Job Fair on 14th October and at the Manchester Freelance Job Fair on 9th November.
Find out more at Brookson Enterprise Freelance Fair.
