When lockdown began, working from home seemed like a novelty to many full time employees who were used to working in offices. Long commutes were suddenly replaced with dreamy sleep-ins and stiff office attire with comfy PJ’s. However, the novelty of this new reality was short lived by many of these employees.

I don’t like the term ‘soft skills’. It gives the impression of something rather vague, fluffy and...well, weak. In reality, soft skills are crucial for building a successful freelance career.  

Thinking of hiring freelancers?  While you may be wary of taking on full-time staff during these precarious times, you might have considered hiring freelancers online to help fill a skills gap on your team or add value to a project you had put on hold during lockdown. 

We’re gradually coming out of lockdown. Cue massive sigh of relief.  Restrictions are easing and we’re out and about that bit more. I’ve been meeting family and friends who I haven’t seen in months (at a distance of course). Others are heading to parks at the weekend to escape the apartments they’ve been cooped up in for weeks.

I’ve seen some pretty poor graphic design briefs during my time working in ad agencies.  As an account executive, I was the point of contact between clients and our design team. When a client wanted a new piece of content made, they’d send me a brief which I‘d pass onto to our designers. To be fair, most of the clients I worked with supplied plenty of useful information in their briefs. However, we received a fair chunk of pretty awful ones too. 

Client: I wonder if she got my message. I sent it a few minutes ago and still no reply. Look, I’ll send her one more just to be on the safe side… Freelancer: My god, if this person messages me one more time. Does she not understand that she’s not the only client on my books? Sound familiar?

Repeat after me: Managing remote freelancers is different to managing office staff. It’s really important to recognise this fact when working with freelancers.  Fail to do so and your freelancer may be left feeling frustrated and undervalued.  In this article, we’ve compiled a few simple tips and tricks to help you manage remote freelancers and develop positive relationships with them.

You're determined to make your next project a success but you’re swamped with your current workload.  The idea of hiring a freelancer to help out has crossed your mind once or twice. You're unsure though.  Using a freelancer can be hit or miss. It can also be very time consuming and costly.