There's no stopping the gig economy. As jobs like web design and freelance writing continue to gain popularity, sectors such as finance, agriculture, education and health care are leveraging the on-demand workforce.
New talent firms are sourcing highly experienced and skilled gig professionals to work with top-tier enterprises. What's more, most freelancers say they'd prefer their current gig opportunities to full-time jobs and would rather seek out new clients to bolster their financial futures.
What does this mean for enterprises? Sourcing the best and brightest talent demands increased interaction with the gig economy. The scope and complexity of this market presents a new set of challenges. Businesses must collect and leverage critical freelancer data to make informed decisions, produce results reliably and boost the impact of on-demand workers.
But what's worth collecting? How can organizations use this data effectively? And what solutions are available to reduce overall complexity without sacrificing security? Read on to find out.
Freelancers represent countless data points that are untethered to existing corporate HR departments. Unlike traditional full-time-equivalent employees, the data generated by freelancers is a combination of public and private information. While it may be possible to collect information about a candidate's previous job performance and quality by looking at online portfolios or published work, other points like freelance rates, specific skill sets and the personal information needed to process gig worker payments typically require contractor permission to obtain, use and store.
In a freelance market driven by data, organizations must choose metrics that offer a reliable ROI. While there's no industry standard, businesses looking to decode the gig economy tend to be best-served by data such as:
Organizations are already using freelance worker data to improve services. For instance, ride-sharing services leverage real-time data to track their drivers on the road. But that's an obvious example — how can businesses that need content creation, web design or high-level professional services leverage collected data to improve the impact of their own on-demand workforces?
Just like any technology deployment, it's worth identifying pain points to effectively target data use. Let's break down three of the most common ones:
Data drives better decision-making, but the sheer scope of on-demand workforce data can quickly overwhelm even experienced IT teams and create two critical concerns: supply complexity and security management.
Let's tackle the last point first. Increasing compliance expectations around the handling, protection and usage of personal data can pose a problem for organizations: How do you ensure that freelancer data is properly vetted, managed and protected? How do you effectively vet contractors who may be working with compliance-regulated data from third-party organizations or in-house databases?
It's not enough to simply collect necessary data. Organizations can benefit from a freelance management system (FMS) like WorkMarket®, capable of consistent data classification, unified tracking and reporting, and reliable scalability to ensure that information is protected.
Supply complexity, meanwhile, can create productivity pitfalls if organizations don't have an effective way to sort, categorize and retrieve freelancer profiles. One solution is automation. Seventy-eight percent of surveyed business leaders said they could save 360 hours each year by using automation. For the on-demand workforce, this means leveraging FMS solutions that are able to automate the process of freelancer data capture, classification and updating. This can provide businesses with current and reliable freelancer profiles that detail skillsets, pricing structure, previous performance and current workload.
The future of freelancing is in the details — collected data regarding pricing, performance and project management can enable organizations to select best-fit candidates, deliver improved security and streamline project completion.
"In business and in life, many believe that what you do today will make or break your future."