Working with remote contractors and freelancers is trending in recent times. They not only help lower your overhead costs but also provide various other benefits. Gaining access to a large talent pool and scaling up or down is easy with freelancers. However, managing freelancers and remote contractors can be challenging. Therefore, using an employee schedule maker or software can be beneficial.
In this article, you will discover the best ways to manage freelancers and remote contractors. Let’s take a look!
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Smartly Schedule Your Employees
Scheduling your employees in the correct manner is the core of effective management. Scheduling is all about mapping the availability of employees and assigning the right tasks to the right individuals. Resource scheduling software can help with the smart allocation of freelancers and remote contractors. It enables you to schedule employees based on their preferences, skills, and availability. As a result, ensuring better productivity and smooth management of employees becomes easy.
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Set Clear Deadlines
Freelancers juggle multiple projects at the same time. As a result, there is a possibility of delays. However, setting clear deadlines for each task can help with effective time management. Avoid any last-minute requests or assigning tasks on an emergency basis. It may derail the schedule of freelancers and remote contractors and affect the quality of work.
Instead, use the scheduling software and plan ahead of time. It allows you to prepare plans for weeks or months. As a result, the freelancers will have a clear idea of the tasks they need to complete and the deadline. While determining deadlines, keep in mind the freelancers’ availability and time zone variances. When you have a large project at hand, you can break it down into manageable tasks and assign deadlines for each of them.
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Ensure Effective Communication
The lack of communication often complicates the management of remote contractors and freelancers. When you do not communicate with them at regular intervals, it will not only affect the quality of work but also may lead to missed deadlines. Therefore, ensure effective communication with remote contractors and freelancers. Let them know about the quantity of work that they can expect. It will enable them to manage their schedule better and complete all tasks on time.
You may not communicate with the freelancers too frequently. However, ensure communicating with them once a week or a month. It will allow you to gain insights into the progress of the project and keep track of everything. With employee schedule makers, ensure better communication between freelancers and managers.
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Prioritize Work Quality
Quality of work matters a lot when working with freelancers and remote contractors. As freelancers may be working with different clients, focusing on quality becomes all the more important. However, when you clearly explain your expectations, getting quality work becomes easy.
Make sure to define a clear outcome for the project. Try to define it in terms of quantity, quality, delivery, and price. Allow the freelancers to ask questions and get clarity on the outcomes. Moreover, you can also create a quality checklist. It will ensure that there is no scope for confusion among the freelancers.
Also, provide all the essential information vital for the completion of tasks. Ensure that the information is readily accessible by the remote contractors to avoid any delays.
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Provide Constructive Feedback
After the completion of each task or milestone, consider providing feedback to the employees. It will allow the freelancers to get a better idea of what you are expecting from them. Moreover, it can also help in improving their performance. So, you can get better results in the next task.
The best thing is that you do not have to invest a lot of time in providing feedback. All you have to do is discuss with the remote contractors and freelancers for a few minutes.
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Use Time Tracking Tools
When working with remote contractors, you must leverage time-tracking tools. It will enable you to easily monitor the time spent by them on each task. With these tools, monitoring the progress of projects becomes easy. In case the freelancers are taking more time for task completion, you can find out the issues and suggest strategies to improve their speed. As a result, you can conveniently manage time and improve efficiency.
Conclusion
The demand for freelancers has been increasing in recent times. However, companies often find it difficult to manage freelancers and remote contractors. But following the above-listed strategies can make it simple and easy for you. Moreover, leveraging an employee schedule maker can simplify things even more. Are you in search of genuine resource scheduling and management software? In that case, eResource Scheduler can be a perfect choice.
Irrespective of your company size, eResource Scheduler can make employee management easier than ever before.