Your Ultimate Guide to Managing Freelancers Using Controlio

Hiring freelancers changed my startup from a one-person struggling business to a success with customers across three continents. But to be honest, the road hasn’t been easy. I almost gave up hiring freelancers due to the lack of communication, missing deadlines, and my constant fear of whether the job was actually getting done.

Everything changed when I discovered Controlio time tracking software. I was able to see productivity trends, billable time was backed by real data, and I was able to make decisions with the data I received to manage the freelancers.

If you are hesitant to hire freelancers, or you are still managing a remote team, this is your guide. I will take you from recruitment to payment and show you how the correct software makes this seamless.

Why Freelancers Are Important to Startups

The freelance revolution is here. New data suggests that almost 40% of the American workforce is now freelance, and that number is projected to continue to grow. This kind of workforce is an incredible asset to startups with tight budgets and shifting workloads.

The Benefits: Freelancers reduce overheads (office space, employee benefits, and equipment)

You have access to specialized expertise at just the right time without the need to hire full-time employees. Because you’re drawing from a global talent pool, you can select the best experts in their respective fields, regardless of location.

The Challenges: Freelance workforce management is not like traditional employee management. They have a desk where you can just pop in and have a conversation. They’re also not in your timezone, so communication may be tougher as well. If you don’t implement the right systems, you’ll be hitting and missing in accountability and checking their work.

By providing the necessary systems, visibility, and accountability, Controlio easily manages freelancers without the headaches.

Identifying the Ideal Freelancers

I’ve lost a lot of money in this area due to not properly hiring freelancers. However, I have gained insight into consistently hiring well from this area, so I’ll share what I can.

Where to Look

Utilize Upwork, Fiverr, and Freelancer to hire from millions of freelancers worldwide. For the design-specific freelancers, the site 99designs is a good platform. For the other specialized developer freelancers, visit Toptal. You can even find good freelancers on LinkedIn with their ProFinder tool. You can also consider posts in related fields on Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram because of the good freelancers I have found in these groups.

Assessing Candidates

The only reliable insight I can give you into the quality and reliability of the freelancer is their review statistics.

The line between a competent and incompetent freelancer can be drawn at a 4-star average rating. Anything less is worrying.

Consider reviewing samples of their work. Do their creations seem usable and beneficial to you? Does their work match your brand? For this reason, ask for work samples that are specific to your project.

Take time to review their social media accounts. It is common for serious freelancers to connect their LinkedIn account for credibility and drop some of their social contacts.

The Interview Process

If you are considering small tasks, aim for 15-30 minutes and go for a video call with your best prospects. It often takes place in front of a screen that can’t capture the rest of the candidate’s skills, the setting, and the fit. It is almost certain that the other party will ask about their proposals, explain what a revision by the other candidate will look like, and mention the turnaround times that he/she has.

Tracking Work and Ensuring Productivity

This is where almost every other company faces a challenge when it comes to managing freelancers. What work have you done? How is productivity measured when it comes to remote work? Work that freelancers have actually done, and who can see it

The Controlio Tool takes this challenge and turns it from guesswork and et al. into a clear and concise way to quantify challenges.

Why you Should Care About Time Tracking

Freelancers and clients need to exercise some strong faith in order to protect themselves from making unsubstantiated complaints. Accurate work gives you the ability to capture time spent on work and the freelancer the ability to justify and document their work in order to prevent disputes.

Aside from making the billing more accurate, time tracking can highlight productivity in a certain area.

Some common challenges teams face are delays in task completion, identifying process bottlenecks, and recognizing team members who consistently deliver results.

Controlio Software

Controlio has software that can track activity in response to these problems. As soon as it is downloaded, it tracks activity in the background and does not interrupt the user as they continue to work. It does not track activity as they work; it is designed purely to track activity. Controlio knows when freelancers change applications and which websites are active.

Because of the sophisticated nature of Controlio, it can track time in aggregate. It can distinguish multiple activities as productive, unproductive, or neutral and is designed to know when the freelancers in your company are active. Take, for example, a graphic designer in your company. Controlio will register time in the graphic designer’s applications as a productive task, whereas a content writer will be described as unproductive for time spent in a content writer’s application. Controlio is designed to track complete activities, which, to the user, will feel meaningful, rather than narrow, less and less complete tasks.

When I would look at the Controlio data, I would see a freelance writer who spent 70% of her time doing research and not writing. This inactivity would help explain the delays in delivery of her work. When we were able to redesign her workflow to include pre-researched topic briefs, we doubled her work productivity.

Setting the Right Goals

When monitoring is introduced, it is important to be clear about expectations upfront. During the onboarding process, users are told what Controlio tracks and what the purpose is. It is described as documenting work for accurate payment as opposed to surveillance.

Many freelancers welcome this message. It is not altering daily habits, as they have clients seated in front of them who are cutting work hours and not recognizing the value of their time. The direct, active, visible tracking is what they chronicle as eliminating the daily updates.

Best Practices for Communication

Good communication is what separates the bottom from the top of the group.

I’ve been through this the hard way.

Pick Your Channels \ For quick questions and updates, quick messaging platforms like Slack are great. For long project descriptions, emails are still king. Complex topics are best solved via video calls.

The Controlio app combines internal messaging with project management, letting you leave notes or ask for clarifications and feedback right in the app where the actual work is tracked.

Set Expectations \ Be up front about response time expectations. Is it within business hours? Is it under 24 hours? Is it urgent or just a routine question?

Freelancers have multiple clients, and while it may be hard to respond to something in a timely manner, this is possible if you’ve been clear about expectations.

Scheduled Consistency \ Set short weekly meetings to review status updates, answer questions, and keep everyone on the same page. These meetings can be as short as 15 minutes and still be just as productive.

Use Controlio’s reporting tools to review productivity data and discuss improvements on top of celebrating the achievements.

Timely Payment Freelancers expect timely and correct payments, and failing to meet this is a huge reason to lose talented freelancers.

Payment Platforms The most commonly accepted platform is PayPal.

Most freelancers have already signed up, and merging with other systems is already available. Depending on where your freelancers are located, alternatives like Payoneer, Wise (formerly TransferWise), and direct bank transfers are equally effective.

Most freelance marketplaces come with a payment system integrated with their freelance contract service. This way, both sides are protected because funds are only released after you, the client, have approved the work.

Invoicing from time data disputes about hours worked and billable hours is eliminated with Controlio because it auto-generates invoices based on tracked hours. Time tracked is objective and transparent, and it is so because both parties can see what was tracked, so there are no misunderstandings.

For project-based work where you can’t track hours, set milestones with partial payments so freelancers can maintain positive cash flow and you also set points where you are going to be evaluating the quality of the work

Questions People are Asking

Q1. Is it possible for a freelancer to increase the value of their timesheet?

This worry goes away completely with Controlio’s automatic activity tracking and time tracking system. It monitors productivity as well, so you can view which applications were active, how much activity there was, and how it was distributed over the hours. Freelancers quickly figure out that honest tracking is simpler than manipulating an intelligent system. There is also no incentive to increase their hours when you pay fairly and on time.

Q2: Should I hire multiple freelancers for the same kind of role?

This is dependent on how steady your workload is. If your needs are ongoing such as content creation or customer support, building a rapport with a few (2-3) freelancers is a good idea, as it allows for backup whenever someone is out, and avoids the management headache of too many relationships. On the other hand, for one-off or project-based work, it is usually more effective to hire, per project, different specialists. You can utilize Controlio’s historic data to benchmark the different freelancers and their quality of work to help you determine who is the most efficient and effective work-wise.

Q3: How do I manage freelancers spread across different time zones?

Having freelancers across time zones can actually work to your advantage. If you hire an Asian freelancer, for example, s/he can finish their work during the night, meaning you can check it in the morning. That said, show the freelancer the kind of work you expect to be done during the designated timeframe. Also, make sure time response expectations and availability for meetings are clear, as it is difficult to communicate synchronously. Also, project management tools, combined with Controlio’s work tracker, can give you insight on their productivity and manage their time zones while you manage your own.

Q4: How can I manage a freelancer that appears to be less productive than they were?

This should be done in a proactive manner and should be constructive. The data combined with Controlio enables these discussions to be more objective as opposed to accusatory. Set a private meeting to discuss your concerns, and the productivity numbers will show.

There may be valid reasons like unclear directions, tech issues, or personal problems. Treat the matter like a team effort to fix the issue. When the support and guidance offered does not result in any improvement with the issue at hand, it is time to move on. The great thing about freelancing is the ability to move on without the headache of employee termination.

Conclusion

Successful freelance management not only requires a mixture of good communication, expectation management, the right tools, and respect but also allows freelancers and, in turn, the company to streamline budgeting. When structured properly, freelance collaborations help to minimize costs and gain access to a variety of skills.

Visible work patterns, accurate automated billing, and remote team management become guesswork with Controlio. It doesn’t matter if you are hiring your first freelancer or trying to better manage dozens of team members; the right monitoring tools provide you with the data and analytics to eliminate the guesswork and anxiety around remote work.

There are many opportunities freelancers have done for startups. Set and refine your management systems based on the analytics. The Controlio system does make the move to management less overwhelming.