Integrating Your Virtual Freelance Staff with Your In-House Team
Integrating Your Virtual Freelance Staff with Your In-House Team
We hire freelance providers to work with our in-house staff, and, on some projects, one type of worker is virtually indistinguishable from the other. Add to the mix the workplace flexibility that allows traditional employees to telecommute rather than reporting to the office each day, and you've got a workteam requiring an entirely new set of management skills. Here's what we've learned (on the job) when it comes to integrating outsourcing and in-house workteams.
When you hire a freelance provider for a particular outsourcing project, you may not care when they do the work as long as the work diary and memos look good, and the product is delivered on time. However, as you need more real-time collaboration, you may have to reach an agreement whereby the freelance provider is available during some or all of your business hours.
When this happens, the outsourcing buyer must get answers to a few questions: How will the freelance team member be available? Is IM enough? Do they need to have a Skype account? A webcam? When they're "out-of-the-office", will they leave an away message telling you what time they'll be back to working on your outsourcing project? Will your in-house staffers do the same?
You trust your freelance provider to work around their daily life. Maybe they don't log on until after midnight, or frequently suspend sessions to handle family needs. However, once they've agreed to be available at set times, you have as much right to make sure they'll have a distraction-free outsourcing work environment as you do for the "in-house" telecommuter opting for a home office instead of a cubicle. Flexible freelance professionals are masters of clever workarounds, but as the workteam becomes more interdependent, everyone needs to understand that outsourcing expectations evolve.
Of course, you'll continue to manage your freelance provider using outsourcing tools (such as those found over at oDesk), but did you ever consider having your in-house staff logged into these tools as well? Getting all the staff for various projects onto one workteam management platform so that everyone can see who's available and when helps to consolidate and improve management functions.
Integrating your remote freelance providers into the company's daily outsourcing workflow can seem like a daunting task, but by thinking each challenge through, we've found that it's easier than you'd expect for remote outsourcing and in-house team members to become close colleagues.
Integrating Your Virtual Freelance Staff with Your InHouse Team - To learn more about this author, visit Daryl James's Website.
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Most outsourcing assignments start small--you hire a freelance provider to complete a specific project. Then, when the provider proves they can be relied upon, you start giving them more hours and increasingly vital outsourcing tasks. Soon you may find your remote freelance provider fully integrated with your in-house staff, changing the relationship between outsourcing buyer and freelance provider.
We hire freelance providers to work with our in-house staff, and, on some projects, one type of worker is virtually indistinguishable from the other. Add to the mix the workplace flexibility that allows traditional employees to telecommute rather than reporting to the office each day, and you've got a workteam requiring an entirely new set of management skills. Here's what we've learned (on the job) when it comes to integrating outsourcing and in-house workteams.
When you hire a freelance provider for a particular outsourcing project, you may not care when they do the work as long as the work diary and memos look good, and the product is delivered on time. However, as you need more real-time collaboration, you may have to reach an agreement whereby the freelance provider is available during some or all of your business hours.
When this happens, the outsourcing buyer must get answers to a few questions: How will the freelance team member be available? Is IM enough? Do they need to have a Skype account? A webcam? When they're "out-of-the-office", will they leave an away message telling you what time they'll be back to working on your outsourcing project? Will your in-house staffers do the same?
You trust your freelance provider to work around their daily life. Maybe they don't log on until after midnight, or frequently suspend sessions to handle family needs. However, once they've agreed to be available at set times, you have as much right to make sure they'll have a distraction-free outsourcing work environment as you do for the "in-house" telecommuter opting for a home office instead of a cubicle. Flexible freelance professionals are masters of clever workarounds, but as the workteam becomes more interdependent, everyone needs to understand that outsourcing expectations evolve.
Of course, you'll continue to manage your freelance provider using outsourcing tools (such as those found over at oDesk), but did you ever consider having your in-house staff logged into these tools as well? Getting all the staff for various projects onto one workteam management platform so that everyone can see who's available and when helps to consolidate and improve management functions.
Integrating your remote freelance providers into the company's daily outsourcing workflow can seem like a daunting task, but by thinking each challenge through, we've found that it's easier than you'd expect for remote outsourcing and in-house team members to become close colleagues.
Integrating Your Virtual Freelance Staff with Your InHouse Team - To learn more about this author, visit Daryl James's Website.
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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