Startups: Keeping Freelancers Motivated
August 4, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Business
Many online startup companies rely on freelancers. Compared to full-time employees, freelancers are oftentimes an a less expensive option and they offer more financial flexibility. You can, for example, easily trim or expand the number of freelancers your startup employs.
However, freelances do have some drawbacks. One major drawback is motivation. Due to their status as a freelancer, there’s usually not much long-term motivation for freelancers to continue to go above and beyond the call of duty. Comparatively speaking, it’s much easier to keep full-time employees motivated.
How do you keep freelancers motivated? Here are a few motivational tips:
Teleconferences
If there are a lot of freelancers at work, teleconferences is a startup company’s best friend. With a simple teleconference, you can make sure everyone is on the same page and striving toward the same goals.
Involvement
Keep freelancers in the loop. If you are considering big changes, getting input from the freelancers doesn’t hurt anything — and will improve motivation.
Incentives
Be inventive and offer incentives. You can base incentives on everything from timeliness and performance to web traffic and customer ratings.
Full-time Status
Many freelancers would love the chance to become full-time employees. If your startup eventually will hire more full-time employees, have a plan in place to give freelancer a shot at those jobs.
Keep Freelancers Motivated (Image: Flickr)
Freelancers is the best solution for startup’s especially when the budget is small. Treat them as professionals as normally they are and worth their weight in gold. Always consult with them as they are more business oriented than an employee.
As a freelancer, I find it really helps me to stay loyal and motivated to a client when they take the time to keep me “in the loop” as your article suggests. Even 20 mins. of face-time helps to build rapport. This reminds me of an article about how to keep motivated as an entreprenuer, which I found at https://firedupnetwork.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=1581.
These motivations are total BS. A lot of freelancers don’t give a sh#t about your project, because they jumping from one to another all the time. Keeping in the loop is a good thing, but I wouldn’t call it a motivation. Best motivation is money, pay a little extra than they expect and people will stay loyal and motivated.