After being an employee for 15 years, it\u2019s easy to get stuck in an employee mindset. But freelancing is a very, very different. You need to break out of old habits and set new boundaries. So, what\u2019s different and how do you hold onto not being an employee?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First up is one of the most obvious and it sets the whole tone of the relationship. While you\u2019ve been contracted to work for an organisation, it\u2019s a clear cut and dried business arrangement in order to deliver certain outputs or outcomes. Now technically you could argue that\u2019s the same as employment but it feels very different as a freelancer. Your contract is very focused, and time-bound. You don\u2019t have the wider employment safety net, there aren\u2019t the long notice periods, the policies for performance improvement etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You also don\u2019t have all of the extra fluff that comes with employment, such as protracted and planned induction periods of meeting new people, reading documents, generally listening and determining what the focus of the role needs to be. It still exists but as a short, sharp period to assimilate contacts and information to get off the ground quickly. Payment is about delivery, not the long-term settling into and development of a person, or a role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You need to be good with people to set up strong relationships quickly to get what you need. There\u2019s also a realisation that you\u2019re temporary, and so you\u2019ll often only be in their world for a fairly short period of time. You\u2019re not building strategic relationships, developing teams and visioning for the future (most of the time), you\u2019re working on minimal contacts to get the work delivered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For one organisation where I\u2019m fulfilling a temporary role as a freelancer, it occasionally causes a bit of a blur on things like organisational-wide training and things like Christmas lunch. Am I automatically invited, not invited or on a by-agreement basis (and certainly not if I charge?!)?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019re reminded of this monthly, or at junctures through a project where you actively bill an organisation for your work. It brings it to the forefront of both sides\u2019 minds that you\u2019re engaging in a business transaction, rather than the quiet salaried payments made by finance teams, away from direct line managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we asked every month \u2013 was that employee worth it? It might give some interesting answers. Equally, as employees \u2013 if we imagined ourselves as freelances, billing for our monthly salary \u2013 would it feel justified?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a purity about freelancing. You don\u2019t get invited to team meetings, inter-departmental working groups or corporate events. There isn\u2019t clinical supervision or formalised 1:1s. You come in to do a very specific thing, and the rest of the organisation carries on around you (and rightly often without you). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But for all the benefits of not getting involved in organisational extras that take up time, you also have the increased pressure to knuckle down and get the work done. The importance of being efficient and effective with your time is huge \u2013 you just don\u2019t have the flexibility that being part of a bigger team, being on a long\/permanent contract\/flexibility across your week not to be really precise with your time. There\u2019s no catch ups about the weekend, long coffee making rounds on a Wednesday or pub lunches on a Friday, all your breaks are accounted for and there\u2019s a sudden and stark realisation of how much you check the news, your phone, put washing on…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It’s not wrong that you\u2019re side-stepping the extra infrastructure in an organisation, it\u2019s absolutely right and expected. Personally I really like the clarity of focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On both sides, there needs to be a recognition of the value of your time. Not just that they\u2019re paying you, and at an agreed price. But that for anything that\u2019s asked of you, it costs. Want me to undertake training with the wider team? Fine, that\u2019s a day of my time. Attend a meeting \u2013 that\u2019s hours off this week\u2019s tally. One client recently asked me to present at their conference. A one-hour slot out of my five hours a week for them. However, in addition to the prep and delivery time for the session to run, it took five hours travelling up, at least an hour\u2019s buffer for potential train delays and another five hours to get home \u2013 an additional 11 hours. Which is equivalent of two weeks\u2019 worth of work for them. Was it worth it? Ultimately, that\u2019s completely up to them but part of my role is to carefully highlight that so that they\u2019re aware of the opportunity cost and can make an informed decision about where they best want to use my time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve equally been part of meetings set up to explore an issue, where I haven\u2019t necessarily needed to contribute, but instead just needed to know the outcome of the meeting. I think this is a classic employment Vs freelance split \u2013 the default in employment to inviting everyone for inclusivity, whereas with freelance, the default is more – is this a good use of time for each person? And nothing focuses the mind like having a bill to pay for your decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s something I once heard years ago \u2013 the question of whether it change our approach if, at the beginning of every meeting, someone hit a button that calculated the cost of the meeting based on everyone\u2019s salaries? I think it would. Those meetings that neatly end at an hour, because that\u2019s the time that you had everyone booked for \u2013 were they realistically done at 40 mins? There\u2019s a lot of weight to that idea that the work expands to fit the time, I think meetings are the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You\u2019re not a core part of the team. You don\u2019t have the history, the proximity, the same vested interests as employees. One of the biggest aspects of your value is your objectivity. You can highlight the weaknesses, open those Pandora boxes and ask the difficult questions. In the same way you have that window of opportunity when you start a new employed role, you never really leave it as a freelancer. And I think there\u2019s always a greater openness to your inputs and insights, given you\u2019re being paid specifically to look at a particular area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of these things sound mostly great to me. Do they always work in practice? Absolutely not. And there are things you miss \u2013 like having a wider team to bounce things off of, have the occasional weekend debrief on, or a little more flexibility on a deadline or how you map out your week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve worked with an organisation who have used a consultant before and gave some great suggestions for boundaries in the relationship, payment schedules and how we\u2019d keep in touch. Another had never used one before and there were some major oversights and some awkward conversations about how to handle their asks, particularly the time and cost implications. Equally in an interim role I\u2019m undertaking, I\u2019m trying to balance a sort of half-way house on these things \u2013 being very output driven with a business mindset but at the same time being involved in team meetings, wider development ideas and socials. Success probably does come down to experience on both sides of the arrangement, with the interim role being a bit of an anomaly and one I\u2019m celebrating as it\u2019s a unique balance of the best bits of both sides. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Photo by XiaoXiao Sun<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After being an employee for 15 years, it\u2019s easy to get stuck in an employee mindset. But freelancing is a very, very different. You need to break out of old habits and set new boundaries. So, what\u2019s different and how do you hold onto not being an employee? It\u2019s a business arrangement First…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[28],"tags":[13,12,21,25],"class_list":["post-267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-productivity","tag-charity","tag-freelance","tag-non-profit","tag-self-employment"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t