Cracking the Cost of Living: 5 ways that PeoplePerHour saves businesses money
Welcome to the final episode of our Cracking the Cost of Living series; 5 ways that PeoplePerHour saves businesses money. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been sharing some of our best tips to help businesses thrive during the current Cost of Living crisis.
It would be remiss of us to run a series about saving money and not include the power of working with freelancers. In this guide, we’ll take you through some of the ways that collaborating with freelancers can save your business money, and increase your productivity.
What is PeoplePerHour?
PeoplePerHour makes bright ideas happen. Our online freelancer marketplace is tried and trusted by 3 million freelancers and 1 million businesses worldwide. Businesses post their projects to find freelancers for any of the hundreds of skills available. You can hire our talent by the hour or the project.
Our mission is to empower people to be professionally and financially independent. Over the last decade, our community has completed over 1 million projects and we’re proud to have paid out over £130M to our freelancers.
Why does working with freelancers save businesses money?
PeoplePerHour saves businesses money in many ways, from the flexibility of paying by the project, to the more practical elements of not having to pay for annual leave or sickness. In fact, 59% of businesses who outsource their work to freelancers, say they do so to save money.
In the digital age, remote working has become the norm, and with it, so have the possibilities for working with specialists around the world. The meteoric rise in internet capabilities has played a huge role in the rise of freelancing, but businesses have found great value in using on-demand talent – particularly during uncertain economic times.
In the decade following the 2008 financial crash, there was a remarkable 43% increase in the number of freelancers based in the UK. And we believe that businesses will continue to turn to the flexible nature of hiring freelancers during the current Cost of Living Crisis that we’ve experienced over the past 15 months. Why? Because hiring freelancers through PeoplePerHour can reduce costs whilst maintaining, and even improving productivity.
5 ways that hiring freelancers on PeoplePerHour can save businesses money
- Flexible workforce
The first way that PeoplePerHour saves businesses money is by creating a flexible workforce. Utilising freelancers allows you to only pay for services when you need them. Whilst there are certain roles where you need a full-time employee, there are also many positions that you only need during specific projects. Think of graphic designers and content writers, there may be times when the budget is tight and you’d rather cut back on your design and content spend. Why pay for a full-time employee if you could just pay when you need them?
Working with freelancers allows you to flex your workforce up and down depending on how busy you are, or how much budget you have. With more people freelancing than ever, you’ve also got a huge amount of choice to find the right freelancer for your business.
Discover freelance experts in anything from legal to accounting, to web developers on PeoplePerHour.
- Reduced overheads costs
Office rent is often one of the largest overheads for many businesses. You have to lock in for long-term contracts that leave you unable to be flexible or cut costs. Working with freelancers through our marketplace allows businesses to reduce their office sizes, by allocating the desk space required for a full-time employee to a remote freelancer.
Although Covid had a huge impact on remote working for full-time employees, studies show that the majority of companies have moved back to at least 2-3 days a week in the office for their full-time staff. While it’s important to full-time employees that they have desk space, freelancers on PeoplePerHour generally work remotely and wouldn’t expect you to provide any office space, allowing you to rent a smaller space at a lower cost.
- Lower hiring fees
Recruitment fees can be incredibly expensive, particularly for small businesses. Hiring freelancers through PeoplePerHour provides a much cheaper option, and the freelancers come with verified reviews of their services.
If you’re hiring through a recruitment agency, you can pay up to 30% of the annual salary of a full-time member of staff. That’s before you take into consideration the cost of onboarding new employees and waiting for them to bed into your team. When it comes to working with freelancers you’re able to send a project brief, and they can get working on it straight away, saving you time and money.
- Cheaper alternative to agencies
Whether it’s creative or tech-focused work, using agencies can be an expensive venture for many small businesses. Hiring specialist freelancers is a great, cheaper alternative. But won’t you lose out on having the expertise of working with an agency? Not necessarily.
Freelancers on PeoplePerHour specialise in specific niches or services. By focusing on their area of expertise, they can offer competitive prices without compromising on quality. Agencies, on the other hand, may have larger teams with various skill sets, which could result in higher costs to cover the salaries and overhead of multiple employees.
Freelancers also typically work remotely, which means they don’t have the same overhead expenses as a traditional agency. This lower overhead allows freelancers to offer more competitive prices than agencies.
- Increased productivity
One of the most common reasons for business owners turning to PeoplePerHour is because they’re trying to do everything on their own. When you do this, you become a jack of all trades, but a master of none. This isn’t efficient or useful for your business.
Whether it’s taking care of your SEO ranking, or scheduling your social media calendar, get experts to take it off your hands so that you can focus on the stuff you’re good at. It may cost more initially, but your increased productivity will ensure your business sees positive results in the long term.
So, what are you waiting for? Start saving costs, and make your business more productive by posting a project on PeoplePerHour today.
