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The commercial analysts have for some time been predicting that 1999 will be the year that ecommerce on the Web breaks big. If that is the case, you will find it very hard to resource all your projects with permanent staff. At boom times like this, there is generally an upsurge in the number of freelancers that are available. You will need to judge for yourself the commercial benefits or disadvantages of hiring freelance staff. From the point of view of a practising freelancer, I can tell you that working like that means I can be more focused on my work than if I were a permanent employee. I also feel that every job I do is a sales pitch for my next renewal or job with that client. I know that if I turn in shoddy work, they will not retain my services again. That keeps me on the ball and I like it that way.
As clients, you should be aware that a guy who you hire on a freelance basis is doing this as a professional, and that when you hire him, you are also buying his loyalty to you for the time that works on your project. This means that when you treat freelancers in such a way that they encounter obstacles, you are simply increasing the cost of your job. What do I mean by that? A large multinational corporate company I did some work for, once held a strategy meeting to talk about future projects. Only the permanent staff was invited and the freelance staff was required to carry on working on the grounds of ‘we are not paying them to just sit around’. Later when we were involved on some of those new projects, we did not know why they were so strategic and occasionally design decisions could not be made (or were made wrongly) because we did not have all the information. In the long term, not inviting the freelance staff to the strategy briefing cost that company more by way of wasted time. So the moral here is, involve your freelancers where you can. Clearly they are not interested in pension briefings but aside from the strictly ‘terms & conditions matters’, keeping them involved in your business plans pays dividends. This means demonstrating a commitment and not just paying lip service. You may be more comfortable if they sign non-disclosures but I would expect every freelance engineer to act professionally and maintain the confidentiality of their client’s affairs whether you do this or not. Try and view them as an integral part of your company. It’s likely that if you do that, you will gain a commitment to your project from them and that is very valuable.
Check out the whole list of Cliff's pithy tips for Web developers.
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