Many companies are adopting flexible talent—and freelancing platforms, such as Upwork—to extend their capabilities and increase agility. When getting teams used to working with flexible talent, it may be tempting to start small by registering a couple of people onto a platform. Then after you get their buy-in and a few success stories, you expand usage to the rest of the team. While this approach seems logical, phasing in usage can lower your team’s productivity and platform ROI.
For optimal success, it’s best to register your entire team onto a platform from the beginning.
Here’s why:
Collaborate more efficiently
Projects rarely operate in silos. Usually, projects span teams and functions. Most platforms have built-in collaboration tools so that teams can use the platform as a central hub for sharing documents and communicating. Having a single source of truth and direct access to each other helps project teams avoid miscommunication and bottlenecks. Questions can get answered faster and people see the full context of a project, which may help them produce better results.
Speak the same language
Freelancing platforms are team-based work tools. As in other team tools, confusion and chaos are reduced as more people know how to use it and why they should. When everyone learns together, they can share best practices to help each other get greater benefits.
KEEP PROJECTS MOVING FORWARD
You can quickly add new skills or scale projects up and down as needed. Platforms provide such project transparency that it’s easier for new people to jump in and get up to speed. Because they see all communication strings and documents shared to ensure no balls are dropped and that the project remains on schedule.
Speed up project starts
Projects can start sooner and more smoothly when employees can experiment with a platform before a need arises. So that when a project comes up, members aren’t scrambling to learn how to use a platform. Instead, they can immediately find talent and begin work.
Share top talent across the team
Employees can easily refer freelancers with skills that other members can use. Not only does the ease in sharing talent save employees time searching for their own, but it may also shorten project ramp-up times because the talent is already familiar with the business.
MAINTAINING CONTROL
Businesses may worry that having an entire team on a platform at once may make it difficult to control usage. Upwork Enterprise enables you to adjust permission levels so that only select people have hiring access while the rest of the team can still benefit from the platform.
Platforms also provide detailed tracking of usage and spend. In addition to receiving monthly reports, Upwork Enterprise clients have real-time visibility of all platform activity. This includes who’s using it, who they’re hiring, the amount spent per project, and length of projects.
Access is opportunity
Remember, projects rarely happen in silos. Registering your entire team from the beginning enables them to optimize how they work with flexible talent and each other. In the end, this often results in higher productivity and better project outcomes.
