In 2021, more than 50% of companies collaborated with freelancers

Faced with the shortage of talent, 57% of companies used the services of a freelancer. This phenomenon continues in 2022 where qualified and job-seeking talent is becoming increasingly rare. The balance of power between companies and talents is finally balanced, forcing companies to adapt their recruitment strategy. To make up for the lack of candidates for permanent positions, employers have every interest in moving towards a new type of talent: freelancers. How to proceed then for integrate these self-employed workers within his company?

The job market has been reversed

Dealing with market changes

To recruit highly qualified talent, businesses have every interest in developing their benefits because remuneration is no longer enough. To attract candidates, companies must consider their expectations and refine applications according to their offers.. If it is impossible for the employer to adapt to their demands, they must be ready to let these valuable candidates slip away. The latter will not hesitate to look at the competition.

Businesses can continue their current trajectory but the consequences are numerous:

• Recruiting requires numerous resources, whether quantified in terms of budget or time. But while the research is a bit more complex than expected, the company is unfortunately dispensing with these resources for other projects.
• Some positions may require urgent recruitment. The shortage of talent on the employee side then penalizes teams that lack this expertise and will find it difficult to ensure the quality of service.
• Focusing their recruitments almost exclusively on employee profiles can be counterproductive. Indeed, some areas of expertise are so specialized that only independent talents master them. Without broadening their search criteria, businesses may not fill these positions for a long time.

Broaden their fields of research and adapt to realities of the market is essential for businesses. Not looking for freelancers, where qualified talent is in short supply on the employee side, can cost the company. Are they really ready to pay the price?

Adapt to bounce back better

The emergence of freelancing is in fact a continuation of the societal changes that are taking place today. While companies have fully understood that they need to implement new systems in order to gain attractiveness, what about the very nature of the profiles they want to recruit?

To get around the talent shortage, companies that have been able to bounce back have opened up to new candidate profiles: capitalizing on potential and ambition, focusing on the expertise sought as the only criterion, or even diversifying statutes employees, which leads to “hybrid teams”. Neither fully paid nor exclusively external, these teams are rich in the diversity of their employees and bring a new dynamic to companies. More generally, this favors the attractiveness of companies which, through these new recruitment strategies, demonstrate their openness and their ability to listen to talents in search of recognition.

Independent consultants are no longer simple service providers but fully-fledged talents who can contribute to the development of the company, in the same way as an employee.

Integrating freelancers into your company

Why collaborate with freelancers?

The contract has become a modality. For business teams, the priority is to find an expert which will be able to compensate for the lack of certain skills internally. Of course, HR and Purchasing Departments will need to go beyond their questions about this status. There are many advantages to using freelancers:

• These talents have key expertise and are quickly operational as soon as they benefit from a clear and detailed brief of the request.
• In the field, they provide neutrality for situations that are sometimes new for a company.
• These profiles can be mobilized quickly, which is particularly interesting when a company encounters an emergency that requires the intervention of an expert as soon as possible.
• Freelancers also make it possible to measure the cost to businesses by saving research time (remember that some permanent positions require 45 days of research compared to 5 for a freelancer) and measuring the consultant's intervention via his fixed days.
   

Ready to call on freelancers?

First of all, it is necessary to realize that the wage model is being questioned. Talented people expect more from a company than to be paid at the end of the month. Indeed, horizontal management, an absence of subordination, greater autonomy, and even a need for regular change motivate them to leave companies and employees.

Using freelancers therefore makes it possible to make up for the lack of internal talent but also to bring a new dynamic within the company. Today, the attractiveness of a company is measured in particular by the diversity of the profiles that work there. Finding hybrid teams (employees and freelancers) can already strengthen its attractiveness.

How do you make yourself attractive? Here are some practices observed by our customers:

• Improve the quality of life of internal employees (they must first be convinced because they will stay longer than freelancers)
• Identify the missing expertise to determine the profiles that may correspond, whether they are future collaborators or independent consultants
• Understand what a freelancer really is and transform the organization and management of teams to better welcome them
• Anticipate how to recruit a freelancer and learn about best collaboration practices
• Be supported by recruitment experts who will be able to better guide research and reassure self-employed workers who are sometimes too unsolicited

While it is therefore not easy to find a candidate who fully meets their search criteria, companies have the means to meet their needs even more accurately. Freelancing is still the last resort, even though it may be an adequate solution in some cases. Half of businesses have not yet been able to understand what freelancing really is, but it won't be long before long. Recruiters who have understood this well can, for their part, serve as a model for the most resistant.