Freelance workers. A permanent change?

There’s a great article in The Economist this week. (May 15, 2010) “A Clouded Future” talks about how the economy is driving more freelance project work, and how ‘ruthless cuts in full-time jobs’ are forcing workers towards online “e-lance” work sites to take on project assignments.

A temporary change or something bigger?

I don’t think too many pundits will say that today’s freelancers will love it so much that they continue even when the economy inevitably works its way back. However, I know a group who will – the content writers of Ion Leap. We purposefully keep our business lean, using freelance subject matter experts paired with our in-house search optimization experts. The question is, when the economy does turn around, will our pool of writers dry up? Will they all rush back to write for newspapers, trade pubs and TV sitcoms?

The new certainty of freelance.

I came up in the advertising agency business. To us, permanent freelancers were folks who lost their jobs in bad times or were simply un-hirable in good times. I believe this economy has changed that notion. With more people now getting a taste of freelance and plenty of employers still skittish about hiring permanent workers, the acceptance of a freelance lifestyle may be upon us.

On the workers’ side, the advent of sites like LiveOps, Elance and oDesk means e-lancers have a steady stream of projects. These days, such project work might seem more of a certainty than a full time job. Of course, a turn in the economy will have a large percentage of those who currently freelance rushing back to the “security” of the corporate world. But, will there be a common characteristic of those who rush back? Will they be the ones who couldn’t contribute enough to make it as freelancers? Will they be the ones who will also make weak full time employees? Given the scope of the economic sea change driving all this, it’s possible we’ll see macro trends like this at work.

From the employers’ perspective, the savings in healthcare, pensions, etc. means monies that can be spent on growing the company, and weathering the continued economy. Will they rush to hire when the economy turns around? Probably. After all, many employers like to keep workers securely beneath their thumbs. But perhaps this taste of the freelance option will change their approach long term. Once bosses see that the Internet allows them to get a good product without having to brow beat workers, maybe they’ll want to continue in this vein.

Signs of the permanence of freelance.

On my way to the airport today, where I picked up The Economist, I saw a poster in the NY subway about the formation of a Freelancers Union. This is certainly a testament to the number of such workers. There are already options for group healthcare. Could pensions be far behind? Child care? Maybe these are the signs that freelancing is taking hold as a more popular work option in North America.

What these changes could mean for your company.

If, as I predict, there will be a greater number of permanent and very talented freelance help available, your company will enjoy the benefits of outsourcing more work.

Take your corporate communications, for instance. With the shrinking of print media, definitely a long-term issue, there are many more freelance writers out there. But how do you vet them? How do you keep them on strategy? How do you guarantee you’ll get the max SEO value out of their copy? How do you avoid the biggest single difficulty in working with freelancers – their lack of accountability?

Simple, you hire Ion Leap.

Ion Leap takes on content writing for companies who really shouldn’t be handling such duties. We match a freelance content expert for your category with our in-house search optimization master. You get our marketing smarts. You get timely, regularly refreshed content on your website and in your other marketing communications. You get, as one client aptly phrased it, one throat to choke – our throat.

If you’d like our kind of accountability, if being the written voice of your company is not your core competence, contact us at the link above. We’ll quickly convince you that outsourcing your content writing to Ion Leap should be a permanent option.