Beyond the office walls: large corporations increasingly hiring freelancers

Jorge ‘Jojy’ Azurin of Freelancer.com talks about the ‘new world of work’ during the 2014 Philippine SoftCon.


Gone are the days when the word “freelancer” was synonymous with “unemployed” or “can’t find a job.”

Freelancers today are the complete opposite of the stereotypes we carry about in our heads – they are experienced professionals with sought-after skill sets and worthy track records that allow them to dictate the terms of their career.

They’re great at what they do, and they only get better as flexibility affords them to refine their skills and even acquire new ones.

Freelancers are now a thriving force that is changing the way businesses hire.

While small and medium businesses have largely tapped into this pool of human resource, Jorge “Jojy” Azurin, Freelancer.com’s regional director for continental Asia, spotted a new trend: large companies are increasingly embracing freelancers, too.

“Large companies are starting to hire freelancers. There will be more and more freelancers at enterprises,” he told the audience of the 2014 Philippine SoftCon held in the Philippines’ Makati business district this week.

Noel Mendoza, Hewlett-Packard’s director for Apps Services (Philippines and Asia-Pacific), backed Azurin’s statement. “Freelancing is a very interesting space that large vendors or companies are very closely monitoring. It’s a growing base of skills,” he said during one of the forum’s panel discussions.

On the sidelines of the forum, Mendoza told Tech in Asia that there are in fact, large corporations that are “starting to experiment and leverage this community. In the next year or two, we’ll see a lot more work being extended by large corporations to freelancers.”

Going beyond the office walls


Mendoza said hiring freelancers isn’t new to corporations. “They are what we call consultants.” Yet, he said corporations are used to dealing only with a handful of consultants at a time. “If you’re talking about thousands of people, we’re not equipped to deal with them.”

The hurdle lies in terms of getting these consultants organized and making sure they can deliver. Mendoza explained, “It’s very hard to deal with many, many people and be assured of the quality of work.”

Administrative-wise, it’s also problematic, especially when it comes to billing. Unlike the normal setup where corporations maintain a payroll system for employees, freelancers are paid individually and manually, which takes time.

This is also a common complaint of freelancers dealing with corporations, according to Azurin. “There are inefficiencies in the finance and accounting departments, resulting in frustration among freelancers.”

But that’s changing. Large corporations can now efficiently manage talent beyond the walls of their headquarters, thanks to the emergence of online freelancing platforms like Freelancer.com, Elance, and o-Desk, to name a few. These platforms provide an end-to-end solution – from the hiring of individuals all the way to performance rating and payment.

“Now, it’s organized. The mechanism provided by these platforms makes it easier for corporations to talk to groups of freelancers,” noted Mendoza.

By organized, he explains further: “you have a ready skills directory. Freelancers on these platforms can publish their projects, get rated, and gather references. They’re governed as a community.”

Some of the platforms have features that allow for oversight. Some offer virtual work rooms and systems for tracking hours. Others even take screenshots of a freelancer’s computer a certain number of times every hour.

For large corporations, this means more incentive to outsource projects.

Mendoza said Hewlett-Packard, for instance, is looking at taking some of its projects to freelancing sites. “It’s just a matter of time before we enter that space. We have so many projects every month – an average of 150 to 200.”

Azurin pointed out that instead of hiring freelancers directly from the sites, another way for large corporations to move in this space is by incorporating their existing pool of consultants into the freelancing platforms.

In other words, the platforms will now act as a tool or system for managing corporations’ extended or contingent workforce.

He shared that one major Philippine company approached Freelancer.com for this very purpose. “They have US$100 million worth of projects that they’re giving to freelancers. They want to move the projects to our platform so they can set the milestones and terms of the project, and pay the freelancers quickly and efficiently. Right now, it’s all manual and done one by one. It’s unwieldy.”

New world of work


According to Azurin, the freelancing economy is exploding worldwide and his predictions couldn’t get bolder.

“The number of freelancers are more than doubling every year,” he said.

As of today, Freelancer.com alone has 13.9 million users worldwide who have worked on US$1.95 billion worth of projects. In the Philippines, its site users are projected to hit over 600,000 by the end of this year from only 150,000 at the start of 2013. Azurin said industry-wide, there were around three million freelancers that delivered PHP5 billion (US$112 million) worth of projects in the Philippines in 2013.

Several trends are fueling the shift from the traditional corporate setting to online labor marketplaces.

The previous recession forced many corporations to downsize and use freelancers. Cost, of course, is a major factor behind this. The freelance model allows corporations to tap multiple talent for the price of a full-time employee, who may have limited skills or experience.

Technological innovations, in the meantime, are making both businesses and professionals realize that plenty of work can be done virtually and remotely. These innovations have given professionals the perfect opportunity to pursue the proverbial work-life balance. Businesses, for their part, are able to diversify their workforce with more ease than ever.

“The power will shift to freelancers. Right now, companies define relationships with freelancers. But they will collaborate. Customers of companies will choose the freelancers they want to hire,” Azurin concluded.

See: Having a hard time landing freelance jobs? Here’s how you can crack it​

This post Beyond the office walls: large corporations increasingly hiring freelancers appeared first on Tech in Asia.