Having now been a freelancer and independent contractor and consultant for going on 6 years, I love nothing more than taking on a new project, challenge and helping my clients achieve their business goals and dreams. There’s just something about the rush I feel when I swoop in to eliminate something off their growing plate off of their to do list or help them achieve a business goal. For some of the HR technology startups I work with, it could be as simple as an email introduction or as complicated as a helping them build a go to market strategy. Whatever it is the project based work environment satisfies what I refer to as my career ADD.
Working in the corporate throws for many years in human resources, I never really quite fit and my old boss suggested I go down the entrepreneurial path more than a few times, but I believed that the corporate HR life was the one for me. I was wrong. The pace and change I craved in the corporate world is satisfied in my changing projects as a independent contractor and contract worker. I get to dip my toe into the corporate world while maintaining control over my schedule, pace and destiny.
A growing number of employees are like me, and I six years ago when I read Daniel Pink’s Free Agent Nation I spent my time nodding and agreeing with much of the increasing freelancer movement he was seeing. I truly believe that freelancer workers are the new human capital advantage for your company.
How Independent Contractors Help Your Business
Companies must now move swiftly in the business world. We can’t afford to always wait to hire, onboard and train our traditional employees. The project based and contract work world provides HR and hiring managers access to eager workers who can quickly join our organization on a temporary basis and literally hit the ground running, complete their project and move on to the next challenge at another company.
Independent contractors and project based workers present companies with an opportunity to create a more fluid and flexible talent pipeline for their company. Companies can offload and onload work quickly and easily allowing for your full time and permanent workforce to focus on your specific business needs. This is especially important as the job market continues to tighten and good employees are harder to find. Time to fill is now taking in excess of 50 days till fill a role. Hiring managers can bring on a project based worker to fill the productivity and expertise gap while they recruit, interview and ultimately offer a full time permanent employee. This is the new human capital advantage for your company.
