Over a quarter of organisations rely on freelancers to complete core business tasks. But in more than half of the organisations, HR departments are being cut out of the hiring process.
These results come from the latest survey conducted across five European countries by the payroll & HR services provider SD Worx and Antwerp Management School.
The research uncovered how organisations are using freelancers, in which departments, for how long and what kind of tasks they are hired. The survey found that businesses employ freelance workers especially for highly specialised tasks, with just over half (50.5 per cent) of organisations bringing independent workers in to capitalise on their specialist skills.
Flexible staff are at the core of businesses
Organisations understand the need to be agile, but are struggling to achieve this with their internal workforce alone, with only 36 per cent of organisations reporting that the majority of employees has skills that can be used outside of the current job. The research shows that across Europe organisations of all sizes are hiring self-employed workers for a mixture of peripheral and core business tasks. Over a quarter (27.2 per cent) of respondents frequently trust and rely on freelancers to perform core business tasks. Germany is most likely to use independent workers for core tasks (31.4 per cent), whilst companies in Belgium are least likely to (18.8 per cent).
Interestingly the number of businesses using self-employed workers for peripheral tasks is less than core tasks, with only 22.3 per cent of European businesses doing so.
Freelance staff provide short-term benefit
Under half (43.2 per cent) of European businesses frequently use independent workers for short-term assignments, with firms in France doing so most often (47.4 per cent) and companies in Belgium doing so the least (33.8 per cent).
Fewer European businesses (29.3 per cent) use independent workers for long-term assignments. Firms in Germany do so the most (34.6 per cent), with Belgium closing the list at an adoption rate of 20 per cent.
The Executive Board calls the shots on self-employed workers
Within organisations, the Executive Board holds the most influence (34.1 per cent) on making the decision to recruit independent workers. Surprisingly line managers (16.2 per cent) and HR departments (9.7 per cent) hold the least influence. Furthermore, less than half (45.9 per cent) of respondents always inform the HR team when a decision is made to bring in self-employed workers – indicating the HR team is left out of the loop in the majority of decisions.
โEuropean businesses understand the benefits that self-employed workers provide, especially in terms of their specialist skill sets, and are involving them at the very heart of the organisations,โ said Hilde Haems, Chief HR Officer at SD Worx Group. โAs organisations are increasingly evolving towards more flexibility in the workforce, HR departments will need to have a constant and accurate view on the skills, unique talents and the knowledge of all workers, both long and short-term, within their organisations. Tools for workforce planning can help with this, for the benefit of the employee and the business alike.โ
IT departments come out on top for freelancers
On a European level IT departments are the most likely to employ freelancers (36 per cent). IT teams in the UK are hiring the most self-employed workers (41 per cent), compared to Germany (37 per cent), France (34 per cent), The Netherlands (33 per cent) and Belgium (31 per cent). Other departments also see the benefit of independent workers, with production (33 per cent), sales (28 per cent) and marketing (27 per cent) frequently hiring freelancers. Of all European business departments HR (15 per cent) is least likely to hire independents.
Mobility vs. turnover
โThere is a correlation between employee turnover and the use of freelancers,โ added Professor Ans De Vos from Antwerp Management School. โOrganisations with a higher turnover ratio are more frequently working with freelancers than those with a lower turnover rate. The high turnover rate might urge organisations to quickly respond to the need to people when a person leaves the organisation and that working with freelancers allows to fill in this need more easily than when starting a hiring process.
โHowever, it might also be the other way around, i.e., when organisations are working more with freelancers this might signal to internal employees a lack of career prospects for them, making them more inclined to search for other career opportunities outside the organisation. It is important for organisations to understand if and how the use of freelancers might affect the commitment and engagement of their payroll employees.
SD Worx Managing Consultant Jan Laurijssen concluded: “To improve their response to the rapidly changing context, companies will also have to make their HR more flexible. They can do this by taking a strategic, long-term look at the talents they need and by clearly identifying and documenting the availability on the labour market and employees’ wishes in terms of work relations. External staff, such as freelancers, can help achieve this flexibility, but internal employees can also play their part by providing further training and helping to develop new skills. This results in a talent supply chain that allows you to predict the necessary capacity based on HR analytics.โ
