How To Build a High-Performance Team With Freelancers

In a high-performance environment, colleagues often have specific areas of deep expertise that they bring to the table. They don't, however, need to have similar backgrounds or even work together in the same location. Sometimes, strong teams have never met face to face! 

Common characteristics of high-performance teams

If you’ve been reading headlines about large companies requiring their workers to return to office (RTO), you may be left with the impression that remote work equals lower productivity. But that’s not actually the case.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the large shift to remote work that happened across industries in 2020 led to a considerable increase in productivity for many businesses. Upwork’s own research supports this, with 27% of the world’s most innovative companies consistently outpacing their peers as they embrace remote work, freelancers, and artificial intelligence (AI).

And that’s the key: Truly innovative, productive companies of all sizes aren’t shying away from establishing a remote team environment. They realize that by hiring professionals with specific skill sets and embracing the benefits of teams in different time zones, they can get more done—and even unlock new opportunities.

But high-performing teams also share other characteristics, including:

• Trust among teammates. For effective high-level teamwork, colleagues need to trust each other—and their leaders. Luckily, you can build trust levels over time through specific team development activities.
• Dedication to team goals. A high-performance team is typically focused on achieving the team’s common goals rather than the goals of individuals. Because team dynamics are driven by a shared vision for success, high-performance team members can work in sync and collaborate effectively.
• Commitment to results. Successful teams are also interested in the results of their work. This goes beyond simply reviewing metrics or providing incentives. High-performance teams will want to have a deep understanding of how well they’re performing in pursuit of their shared goals, accompanied by individual growth. Team members are likely to be committed to ongoing improvement and problem-solving in multiple areas.
• Accountability and adaptability. Individual members of high-performance teams also hold themselves accountable for the results of their work and adapt if things need to change. If a project doesn’t go quite as planned, a high-performance team will be able to regroup, reassess, and develop a new plan for continued peak performance.

6 ways to build a high-performance team with freelancers

Sometimes, the way to take your team to a higher performance level is to hire a freelancer with specific skills. You may want to find a consultant who can train your team on emerging technologies or bring in new collaborators who will work closely with your internal stakeholders to achieve key team objectives.

The trick is to know what skills you need to add—and then build a tech stack and work environment that supports your mission.

1. Find freelancers who can fill specific gaps on your team

The first step to building a high-performance team with freelancers is to figure out what skills you need help with. More than 80% of C-suite executives plan to focus on skills when hiring in 2025, including bringing in freelancers who are well-versed in generative AI. 

When evaluating your current team’s skills and weaknesses, consider both soft and hard skills.

• Hard skills are typically job-related and technical, such as using specific software programs, understanding complex equations, and preparing or delivering effective presentations.
• Soft skills are often considered personality traits (but can be learned). They include things like customer service acumen, being a good listener, having a strong work ethic, managing emotions, and giving or receiving feedback.

It’s also important to consider the kind of flexibility your team currently has, and whether or not you’d like to increase this level. If you find it hard to reallocate your team’s hours toward new projects as things crop up, you may benefit from the ability to bring in freelancers with specific skills when and how you need them.

 “The efficiency gains from working in different time zones are massive. It’s always nice to come back to work in the morning and see their tasks completed”

—David Barnes, Head of Marketing, The Workplace Depot

With a free Upwork Business Plus membership, even very small businesses can get help finding highly skilled freelancers with specific experience. Business Plus gives you access to pre-vetted talent on Upwork, along with 24/7 premium support from our team.

2. Seek out freelancers around the world

One quick way to increase your team’s productivity is to keep work moving forward around the clock. You don’t need to hire a third shift—instead, work with freelancers who live in different time zones. If their normal workday is starting as you’re getting ready to leave the office, you can easily hand over in-progress projects for them to tackle.

The Workplace Depot, a U.K.-based industrial supply company, regularly works with freelancers on four continents. David Barnes, the company’s head of marketing, stores everything the freelancers may need for their work in a shared Google Drive folder.

“If I’m not around, they don’t have to wait for me to answer questions, and they always know what task to work on next,” Barnes said. “The efficiency gains from working in different time zones are massive. It’s always nice to come back to work in the morning and see their tasks completed.”

Upwork makes it easy to find and pay freelancers in nearly any country, too. All payments are handled through our platform, so you don’t need to stress about invoicing in different currencies. And, if you’re a Business Plus customer in the U.S., you may be eligible for flexible billing with Pay Later terms. 

3. Build AI fluency and skills

While AI isn’t the only technology that can help you achieve higher levels of performance, it’s an increasingly important part of many companies’ tech stacks. 

Leaders surveyed by Upwork estimated that about 25% of their current team members were ready to work effectively alongside AI. And nearly half of employees we surveyed said they didn’t know how to use AI to achieve higher productivity gains. (Another 77% said that this unfamiliarity with AI tools actually decreased their productivity.)

This indicates a clear need for better AI literacy in most workplaces … but of course you can’t stop your team’s work for weeks on end to run upskilling initiatives. One answer is to bring freelancers with existing AI skills onto your team to integrate and implement these emerging technologies.

4. Establish clear goals for the team

Even the most effective teams need guidance and direction from leaders. When working with a group of high performers, you’ll want to show them how their team efforts support your company’s overall mission and goals. This creates a shared sense of purpose and cohesion. Plus, it reinforces to employees and freelancers how important their work is to your company! This can, in turn, help  to boost productivity.

The SMART goals framework can help guide you toward the creation of effective goals. When setting a goal, you’ll want to make sure that it’s:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Be sure to come up with a plan or assessments to monitor progress on these goals, too. This way, you can adapt your approach to execution as needed and keep your team on the right track by adjusting deadlines or bringing in additional freelance help.

5. Maintain open communication

Clear and effective communication is an important part of building trust in a distributed, high-performance team. 

Team leaders who are transparent about company, department, and individual performance encourage workers to grow professionally and strengthen dedication to a common cause. 

But when you’re working with a mix of in-house, remote, and freelance professionals, it can be hard to call an all-hands and deliver updates to everyone at once. To keep productive work moving forward, you’ll want to develop a good system for asynchronous communication that keeps everyone (including freelancers) up to date and engaged. It can help to:

• Record short video messages to update teams about key developments, then post these videos in Slack or Teams
• Streamline communications and make sure everyone understands where to turn for updates, or where to direct important questions
• Record any live meetings so that team members in other time zones can catch up later
• Engage in periodic real-time team-building activities when possible so that colleagues can continue to build trust and learn each other’s communication styles

If you’re working with freelancers through Upwork, you can add internal team members to your contract workroom to keep communication flowing smoothly.

6. Focus on continual improvement

By monitoring your processes and output, you’ll be able to see how increased access to skills (and extended working hours) are helping your team do more good work. 

It’s also important to build a team culture that appreciates diverse perspectives and continuous improvement through two-way feedback. You can learn a lot from working with freelancers—based on their experience, they may have valuable insights related to improving your:

• Technology
• Asynchronous communication
• Project management

Plus, freelancers can also provide insights on what kinds of messaging and campaigns tend to resonate well with buyers in their region or country. This, in turn, can help you better engage with and expand your international customer base.

Examples of high-performing teams

You can find high performers across all industries, including at both for-profit and nonprofit companies. Many of the products and services you use on a daily basis are the result of high-performing, remote, and freelance team members working together! 

Just take a look at these examples of high-performing team success: 

• Microsoft. When the company wanted to scale up its video creation, the video production team at Microsoft realized they didn’t have enough designers and motion animators on staff to handle this increased workload. By bringing in freelancers with specific skills, Microsoft was able to scale up from producing one video per week to nearly one video per day.
• Amway. The COVID-19 pandemic hit right as Amway’s marketing team was planning a global video shoot to make assets that would resonate with audiences in different locations. With the team’s travel restricted, they turned to freelancers around the world to capture the stories of Amway Business Owners (ABOs) in five countries. They got their footage, brought new business to featured ABOs, and saved $100,000 in the process.
• Zooniverse. The Zooniverse is a crowdsourcing platform that remotely pairs individuals (of any experience and education level) with researchers in need of information. Together, these researcher and volunteer teams produce datasets to help other researchers, create published scientific reports, and more.
• Automattic. As the company behind WordPress, one of the world’s most popular website platforms, Automattic relied on a remote team of freelancers around the world to help them deliver customer service support in multiple languages.

How does Upwork support high-performance teams?

No matter how you use Upwork—as a Talent Marketplace™, Business Plus, or Enterprise customer—our platform is designed to help you find, collaborate with, and pay the right freelancers with ease. 

And now, finding a high-quality freelancer is even simpler thanks to Uma™, Upwork’s Mindful AI. You can use Uma and our Job Post Generator to:

• Figure out the right job title to attract freelancers with the skills you need
• Create engaging job posts faster than ever
• Identify the top 1% of talent on Upwork (Expert Vetted Talent badges are visible to Business Plus and Enterprise customers)

Our Business Plus customers can also get on-demand support from our Talent Specialists—they’ll put together a short list of qualified freelancers for your next project in as little as two business days. And as always, you can work with freelancers on an hourly basis or via fixed-price milestones.

Start building a top-notch team of skilled freelancers

Building your own high-performance team of freelancers can help your company reach new levels of productivity, growth, and success this year.

Upwork is the place to go to hire freelancers and experienced consultants with AI skills and more.

Get started today by signing up for Upwork or upgrading your account to Business Plus for free.

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