Last week Alex Ischenko and myself moderated a CTO Round-Table event focussing on Effectively Integrating Freelancers and Consultants into Product-Driven, Cross-Functional Teams: Challenges and Solutions for Success hosted at ablefy and organised by Phil Heath of Third Republic. Over 20 CTOs, VPs, Directors and Engineering leaders joined us for a great discussion. Some were in favour of using freelancers, others against. Everyone contributed to the discussions which was great. But what did we learn? What's my advice if you're using freelancers, contractors, external vendors to work with or for your teams? 1. Integrate them as tightly as possible - give them access to tools and data that they need, give them onboarding information. Teach them what they need to know about you and your project / product and teams. 2. Treat them equally with employees - this may mean creative accounting. Buy them a t-shirt if you're getting some for your teams. Pay for a meal if you do it for your teams. Some of this you might need to do in the form of "billing an extra hour". But the way it will make these individuals, who's efforts you rely on feel, is so much worth it. 3. Want to bind a particular freelancer to your startup long term - offer them VSOP (virtual stock options). The contracts for VSOP can be arranged completely separate from employment contracts and have no immediate tax implications for either party. This can be a great incentive if you want to keep someone but they don't want to switch to permanent employment. Have more questions, or are struggling to integrate external or remote teams successfully? Reach out to me and I'm happy to help! #remotework #freelancer #contracting #futureofwork #teamwork #teamtopologies #organisationdesign
I couldn't agree more. As a contractor/freelancer, the best roles are where you're properly enabled and feel like part of the team
Jack Godau thanks for sharing.😉 Could not join the event this time, however it is very relevant topic to me as CTO and to me as leader of recruitment company TechBiz Global. We have more than 100 clients, mostly startups and almost all of them are using direct freelance or outstaff with us. I think the key is to find a good balance between the accountability of external people and the benefits that outstaff model gives after all vs how well you want to fit them with culture and internal employee attachment. We all using outstaff because it gives also portion of flexibility. So why you do not hire internal employee if you want person to be so integrated to the company culture? One of the reasons is that it gives benefits also of easy upscaling and downscaling. On other side I agree that freelancers and outstaffers should be integrated as much as possible, but in my opinion it goes much more beyond those 3 things you mentioned and with much more complexity, both financially and perceptionally. Thanks for sharing about this super important topic.🤝
Great event Jack, thanks for Facilitating, I will keep you updated on the next one.
Awesome event, great discussion, really loved it. Thanks to all the organizers :)
Thank you for your help with moderating and facilitating the event, Jack Godau It was a great and insightful discussion on technical leadership - I really enjoyed it! 👏👏👏
The integration part really hits a nerve. One thing I've noticed - when external teams get full context about the product vision and business goals (not just tech requirements), they tend to contribute much more valuable ideas. Sometimes even spot issues we didn't think about. Small investment in proper onboarding pays off big time.
Decarbonizing Real Estate @ AMPEERS ENERGY
2moI strongly disagree with all three points. If you follow this path, you will likely have a run in with the "Rentenkasse" in Germany eventually. They will tell you that if you treat freelancers like employees, they are employees, and you will have to pay social contributions. This can be very hurtful as the freelancer salary is taken as a baseline, which is usually higher than an employees' salary.