So, you might have reached a goal and your business is thriving, maybe. Or, maybe your business is not doing so hot and you want to get someone on board to do some innovative things to jumpstart your marketing.
Whatever the reason is, hiring is a pain in the ass and it now has a new layer of complication from the decision to hire someone in-house, or do the new cool trendy things and hire someone remote, or just contract the work out to a freelancer? Actually, the answer isn’t too complicated at all and the outcome might be easier than it’s ever been in history, to me at least. Here’s my experience with the whole “to hire, or not to hire” conundrum.
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[bra_blockquote align=’right’]I have dealt with seemingly every problem that can arise when hiring and managing teams.[/bra_blockquote]
I’ve been running Yup Video coming up on 2 years. In that time we went from zero clients to over 150 businesses served. We have a hand full of full-time employees; all working remote, a ton of contracted animators, illustrators, and editors, as well as a few companies that help us with talent such as voice overs, actors, etc. I’m letting you know this because it means that I have dealt with seemingly every problem that can arise when hiring and managing teams, knock on wood.
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Why Hire A Remote Worker, Over In-House?
If you are in a business that doesn’t require someone to be right in front of you, and by require I mean physically, like a doctor, barbershop or maybe restaurant, you might want to consider hiring remote.
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Smart Reason #1 – Finding The Most Talented People.
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If you live in a small town like Chicopee, MA you know that it’s going to be pretty hard to find someone that has any type of skills in a media field. Shit, the community colleges around here are still teaching people to use Adobe Flash to animate their web banners, and the marketing classes teach students to put an ad inside of the yellow pages… com’ on son. That shit is not a good way to find the best talent for your business.
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However, if you go and open the door up to everyone in the United States you get a chance to find the best of the best in every state.
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Smart Reason #2 – Gaining More Time On Work And Less Time On Bullshit.
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I don’t think there is a single employee out there that actually enjoys meetings, and if they do, they must hate the job they are doing. Sometimes meetings are a necessary evil in my industry because bouncing creative ideas off of each other is crucial to making the best video possible but we keep it to a minimum. We are able to be far more efficient by using tools like Basecamp, Skype, HipChat, and Google Docs. We also make sure that only the people that need to be apart of the meetings, are. There are no daily or weekly meet ups to shoot the shit, we can do that through instant messaging. So we save a ton of hours a week from meetings, random officer chatter, and unwanted interruptions.
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Lets do some hypothetical math;
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Weekly Meetings – 1h/ Week x 6 Employees = 312h/ Year Saved
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Random Office Chit Chat – 2h/ Day x 6 Employees = 4,368h / Year Saved
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I’m not including vacations and all that jazz but here you can easily give or take a few hours and it’s still insane.
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Smart Reason #3 – Who Likes To Work From The Office?
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Driving sucks. Add to that weather, gas, and health issues… it’s just a whole lot of negativity before your employee even gets to the office. Wouldn’t you say that someone who is happier, more comfortable, and less distracted will do better work? You might then ask, “but what if my employee only watches T.V and doesn’t do work”? The answer is simple, they won’t. It is far more likely that your employee will ignore the non-intrusive distractions over the completely-intrusive co-worker. However, there are those employees that try and cheat the system, you’re going to find them creeping in no matter which path you choose. Just fire them and move on to the good people. All in all Smart Reason #3 is about having happier and more fulfilled employees.
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You might be scared of this… Don’t be.
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Smart Reason #4 – It Cost Less, A Lot Less.
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At the office you need… an office, supplies, electricity, internet, coffee, and all the fun stuff that goes into keeping your employees content. When the employees work remotely, they have a house… with all of that stuff in it. And it’s not the cheap coffee that you are buying for the office, it’s the awesome hipster tea brand that they love because its gluten free or whatever the hell they’re into.
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You might have to pay for some things like:
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Project Management Software
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Video Chat + Instant Messaging
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Cloud Storage
But the cost of those are literally less than $100/ Month. I don’t think you can even get internet for that cost let alone the other things I listed for office costs.
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Smart Reason #5 – Work Wherever You Want.
You can do your work on the beach, the mountain, the coffee shop, or anywhere else that has a cellphone connection. Imagine a life that allows you to travel because you’re not being restricted by the area code of your office. Go on a get-a-way, not for 3-4 days, how about 30 days. With things like the Extended Stay options from the major hotel brands like The Hyatt, you can take the savings from your not needed office and go to that random place you’ve been wanting to see. It’s just a better way of living, even if you don’t go on awesome 30 day vacations. More time with your friends, and family. Start working when you want to work and stop working when the work is done. That’s pretty crazy if you think about it. How much time have you wasted surfing the internet when the main tasks for the day have been completed, but you couldn’t leave because it wasn’t 5:00 yet.
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Why Hire A Contractor, Over A Remote Worker?
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With a contractor you get all of the benefits of a remote worker but with some added bonuses and some slight drawbacks. Lets go over the drawbacks first.
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Drawback #1 – Potentially Higher Cost.
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A remote worker can be paid weekly, and if there is enough work for that worker, you end up saving a boatload of money. With a contractor you typically pay the “freelancer” premium which means that you pay for the fact that they don’t always have a steady stream of work coming in. They have to pay their rent and they might not have a job coming for another week or two so a smart contractor charges a little bit more than they need to, just in case.
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Drawback #2 – You’re Not The Most Important.
Contractors have other clients. It’s not too often that I run into a freelancer that can’t take on more work but every once and awhile I do get the big ol’ “i’m too busy right”. Most of the time this isn’t a problem because you can probably find someone else to take the job but if you found someone you really like and have grown comfortable using, it can be a pain in the ass.
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Drawback #3 – Don’t Bump Heads
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Contractors follow their own set of rules and can sometimes clash with your company’s main vision. This is easily fixed by being honest upfront about expectations, deadlines, and deliverables. Also, don’t do an hourly thing. Hourly is amazing for the contractor but pretty stupid for your businesses because you have no idea how efficient that freelancer is or what they calculate as “work”. Just do a set fee for a project complete.
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Awesome Benefit #1 – No Overhead Cost!
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You only pay a contractor, when you have work for them. Drawback #2 has a counter, it’s called No Overhead. This is hands down the best reason to use a freelancer for small or starting businesses. You can contact a freelancer about a new product or service you are trying to implement. Figure out their cost. Sell that product or service. Pay the freelancer AFTER you made the sale, meaning that you just started a new department for a new product without absolutely no cost to you. Now that right there is the power of the internet today.
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Awesome Benefit #2 – Experience.
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If you found that contractor, most likely they did something right to get your attention. Maybe they wrote an awesome blog post, had a great portfolio, or were recommended by someone you trust. All of these things are signs that this person has been around the block and knows what their doing. For example, there might be somethings you’ve overlooked, because you’re not an expert in that field, but because the freelancer is an expert, they catch the problem and correct it before the client ever noticed the problem existed. This has happened to me time and time again.
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Awesome Benefit #3 – Easy Peasy Accounting
Payment, taxes, and all the stuff that no one wants to do. Paying an hourly or salary employee is a fixed cost, which is sometimes pretty damn awesome especially if you have projects that are for your businesses and the cost is coming out of your pocket. But, for most of the work that you get paid for (you know, the stuff that keeps your business running) having a contractor makes things oh so simple. You can pay in segments, you send them a simple 1099 tax form, and that’s just a beautiful thing. No need to worry about overhead, employee taxes, health insurance, benefits, or anything else that is typically needed to hire an employee. This makes life pretty great for any business, especially small ones.
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Conclusion:
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I can go on and on about the benefits of remote employees and private contractors (or freelancers) but I think you’re starting to get the point. Remote employees or private contractors might not be the best option for every position in every business but it is probably the best option for most positions at most businesses. They have made my business very easy to scale, and more importantly, going remote increased my quality of life and the quality of my employees life.
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