Why Companies Use Freelancing Platforms for Remote Workers

Despite concerns about the economy, the job market remains strong. A CompTIA Job Seeker Trends report shows 41% of job seekers see a strong job market whereas 22% think it’s weak. People feel so confident about their prospects that nearly one in four survey respondents have pursued a new job or career change in Q2 2023.

For businesses, this is yet another sign of continued labor shortage woes. However, you can take action now to significantly ease the strain.

Study after study shows that one of the most efficient ways to alleviate labor shortages is to adopt remote work. An SHRM State of the Workplace survey found that compared to traditional businesses, remote businesses were:

• 46% effective in finding and recruiting talent, versus 18%
• 43% effective in maintaining employee morale and engagement, versus 28%
• 47% effective in retaining top talent, versus 32%

The statistics are promising, yet many businesses are still reluctant to hire remote workers.

For starters, remote work can significantly widen your talent pool, but that means you have to spend more time sifting through a heap of applications. And someone may interview well across a computer screen, but how can you be sure they’re as qualified as they say they are? And can you really trust giving someone you’ve never met before access to your systems and data?

These are all valid concerns. Concerns that top freelancing platforms address through an optimal combination of high tech and human touch.

Many freelancing platforms specialize in independent talent (freelancers) who work on a project basis. And some platforms also offer full-time hiring when you’re looking to fill a role. Here’s how freelancing platforms address some of the top concerns with hiring remote workers.

Fear: The hiring process takes longer

One of the benefits of hiring remote talent—whether full-time employees or freelance talent—is that you’re likely to get a much larger number of qualified people applying for your job or project. But that also means your team must sift through all those responses, including freelancer proposals, which can extend the hiring process.

You can reduce your workload by writing clear and detailed job descriptions for employee positions and for freelance talent to attract the right people and reduce the number of unqualified applicants or bids. You don’t need to write anything lengthy; you just need to get specific. So, before typing a single word, first think through what the ideal person looks like. You may want to consider questions like:

• What time zone or country should they be in? This may be a factor if you’re creating a workflow that follows the sun or you need some of their hours to overlap with other team members.‍
• What makes them excited about doing the work they do? People can feel lonely and isolated working remotely, which could affect productivity. Their passion for their work may translate to how self-motivated they are.‍
• What previous remote work experience should they have? Someone who’s shown they deliver excellent work while remote may indicate they have the discipline and communication and organizational skills to succeed.

When you post jobs through a freelancing platform, you’ll be able to access online forms that step you through the process to ensure your job description includes all of the fundamentals. Upwork also provides job description templates with hiring tips. These resources are especially helpful when looking for skills you’ve never hired for before.

While you’re waiting for people to respond to your job post, freelancing platforms also let you proactively search for people and invite them to apply for your job. Upwork enables you to apply multiple filters to narrow your search by specifics including location, success on previous projects, and qualifiers like the Diversity-Certified badge.

Fear: Communication takes more work

Time zone differences can make scheduling interviews and performing live assessments challenging. Mainly because most of the communication happens asynchronously. That is, through channels such as email and social media where time lags between responses are frequent.

Most freelancing platforms offer built-in communication tools to help you keep correspondence organized. For example, Upwork Messages enables you to schedule meetings, chat in real time, share files, and host video chats with prospective talent. The tool saves all of your messages by person and team, so you can easily keep track of all your communications and files.

Tools like Upwork Messages are especially useful for facilitating collaboration after a person starts a project. You can use Upwork Messages as a hub so that you can communicate in real time and asynchronously from one place. And because the messages are all saved, you and the talent can review them later to keep everyone updated and accountable.

[Related: 14 Ways to Improve Remote and In-Person Team Communication]

Fear: It’s difficult to trust the person

Searching for talent online can feel like an exercise in blind trust sometimes. The person may ace your interview questions and seem passionate about the company’s mission, but that may not be enough to ease your concerns. It’s natural to wonder things like: Is the person really who they say they are? Are they as skilled as they claim to be?

Top freelancing platforms can help you make more confident choices by providing several ways to help qualify independent talent.

On Upwork, look for people with an identity verification badge. These individuals have been visually verified and their identification documents reviewed by an Upwork team member. Or you can bypass the work of finding the right people by having Upwork recruiters deliver a shortlist of pre-vetted and highly skilled talent.

Fear: Paying people in different locations is complicated

Whether you’re hiring someone full-time or contracting a freelancer for a project, paying people in different countries can get complex. In the U.S., employment laws can vary state by state. For each location where you hire employees or engage independent contractors globally, you must keep up with employment laws, accurately calculate payment in their currency, and set up a way to transfer payment in a timely manner.

If you’re contracting remote independent talent on a project basis, note that classification laws vary from country to country. You must ensure your workers are classified correctly, or risk non-compliance. Misclassifying a worker as an independent contractor can result in hefty fines and legal fees. Learn how to protect your business from misclassification risk in this easy-to-understand overview.

If you’re hiring employees in a different country, you usually must establish an entity in each country where you wish to hire and pay employees. This can be a lengthy and expensive process. So, if you’re not planning to expand the business to that location, you may prefer not to set up an entity just to hire remote workers.

Work marketplaces can enable you to work with talent in nearly any country even if you do not have an entity through employer of record services like Upwork Payroll.

With work marketplaces, you can also avoid dealing with currency headaches. For independent contractor talent, Upwork handles currency conversions for you, so you can pay people in 180 countries as easily as if they were next door.

If you’re hiring or contracting several people at a time, maintaining worker compliance can be costly for your HR and legal teams to manage. Some freelancing platforms offer compliance and employer of record services, which may be more cost-effective than handling the work in-house. Upwork Enterprise Suite clients have access to global worker classification compliance services that can classify most independent talent within three days and offer indemnification to protect you against misclassification risks.

See how well your current worker classification process protects you and learn ways to fortify it. Download the whitepaper, Safely Navigating the Future of Work.

Fear: Security risks increase with remote workers

Security risks can come from any person, whether they’re an employee working onsite, or an independent professional working in another country. The reality is, even if your company has called everyone back into the office, you’re already exposed to remote work. Because team members don’t always work from their desks.

They may log into systems from their personal devices at home or on their commutes from work. They may check email outside of business hours using a public Wi-Fi network. Plus hackers have gotten more sophisticated in tricking employees with email scams to spread malware.

It’s always good practice to maintain updated security protocols for your entire workforce: onsite, remote, employees, and independent talent.

Reputable freelancing platforms are committed to keeping your data secure. Here are a few ways Upwork protects you:

• Payments are encrypted at a base level to protect your digital privacy and prevent payment information from being shared with the receiving party
• A proactive safety program leverages machine learning to detect malicious behavior from clients and freelancers
• Privacy practices follow international regulations including General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
• Upwork maintains rigorous industry certifications including SOC 2 Type II, PCI DSS, and ISO 27001 and 27018
• A robust anti-money laundering program helps protect your company from U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions violations

Fear: It’s hard to hold a remote worker accountable

A panel of freelancers speaking to business leaders at a Work Without Limits™ summit said questions around accountability often come up with new clients. One of the panelists, social media and digital marketer Starrena Tapia, said, “Clients wonder: ‘Can I trust that they’ll get the work done in this time frame?’ or ‘Can I trust them with confidential material?’”

All of the panelists reminded the audience that independent professionals are business owners whose reputation impacts their success. So, it benefits the remote worker to always do their best work and deliver on schedule.

Most freelancing platforms enable you to confirm a person’s work history and capabilities by providing job ratings on previous projects done through the platform. On Upwork, talent are also assigned a Job Success Score (JSS), a calculation based on previous client feedback and other indicators.

Freelancing platforms are public, which adds even more incentive for talent to do their best. “When a contract ends on Upwork, you have the ability to leave a public review about how you think I did,” explained Pep Dekker, a digital marketer who specializes in Google advertising. “I have a reputation to uphold and keep going. If I shafted you for the last three months, you can leave a review that says, ‘Pep sucks, don’t hire him.’ And then I’ve got to live with that zero-star review on my profile.”

There’s no reason to delay the inevitable

Ongoing talent shortages make it difficult to put off hiring remote talent much longer. However, doing this on your own can be overwhelming and risky.

The best way to get started is with a small project through a freelancing platform, as they provide the technology to make short work of hiring and they have the systems to protect you. Then as you become more familiar with the platform and working with remote talent, you can progress to larger and more complex projects.

Upwork provides several ways for you to get started:

• If you’re in a hurry, you can avoid posting a job and reviewing proposals by selecting a prepackaged project with a set price from Project Catalog™.
• You can post a job. As proposals come in, you’ll also receive suggestions of people who match your job requirements and you can extend invitations to them.
• Initiate contract-to-hire engagements, which can help your team quickly find, vet, hire, onboard, and pay highly skilled professionals—all in one platform. Engage workers for a trial period before deciding whether to shift to a full-time relationship.

You have a world of highly skilled talent waiting to help you complete projects. And Upwork can make it a safe and supportive experience. So, why wait? Start hiring remote talent today.