If your business is on the brink of growth and short-term cash flow is making you hesitant about expanding your headcount, hiring a flexible freelance team could be the perfect solution. Engaging freelancers isn’t a new idea. However, having a virtual team that engages these contractors on a long-term basis can be a strategic way to manage fluctuating workloads. Many businesses even go so far as assigning official titles to these team memebrs and having them integrated in your business on client facing matters, providing a united front.
There are a number of benefits to having a flexible hiring strategy:
- It means you will always have the resources to accommodate an influx of new business, making you being pre-emptive rather than reactive.
- Hiring freelancers on an adhoc basis is time consuming. Having a core team of regular contractors means they know your business and can pick up the task at hand far more efficiently.
- It reduces the stress of cash flow issues with full time salaries no longer being an issue and having a team that can fluctuate with the workload.
- With a huge range of cloud tools available now a virtual co-working space means you don’t have to worry about physical desk space and increased headcount tapping into your resources.
- The risk of a long term cultural fit becomes less of an issue as a flexible team is founded on the condition that it is fluid and can change if it’s not working out.
There are a number of online tools to source your freelancers and it is always a good idea to test them out by engaging them on a small project to see what their quality of work is like. Websites such as oDesk and Freelancer is a great start for more creative based skills required.
Azure Group offers outsourced bookkeeping services that could be a great way to keep your accounts in order without the expense of hiring someone in-house. We also have a Virtual CFO service for more strategic advisory based work.
Flexibility and tailored solutions is something we pride ourselves in, as we know it is a fundamental need of every business owner.
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