Freelancer Management

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How to Maintain Company Culture with a Remote Workforce
How to Maintain Company Culture with a Remote Workforce 2281 1456 PayReel

Pixar’s cereal bar is the stuff of legend. The famous first stop for anyone who tours the studio isn’t what the company culture is built on, but it is a noteworthy expression of a company culture that cultivates creative expression, communication, and a feeling of purpose among workers.

You don’t need a cereal bar, but that feeling? That’s worth emulating. After all, the experience your workers have working with and for your company affects not just their quality of lives but your business overall, too.

Don’t misunderstand: A positive company culture is more than ping pong in the break room, nap pods, or free bagels day. In fact, you don’t need a break room, or even a workplace at all, to have a company culture.

You already work hard to foster the culture within your physical space. Here’s how you can maintain that company culture with a remote workforce.

Integrate culture into interviews and on-boarding

One way to maintain and strengthen your company’s culture when working with a variable, contract, or remote workforce is to start from day one. Provide a culture orientation that introduces new team members to the culture. Whatever form the message takes it should do the following:

Explain what your culture is
Define your mission statement and core values
Give examples of the culture in action

Share this information with new team members as part of the on-boarding process. Make it available for all employees to reference. Train your hiring managers and staffing or crewing agency to make sure potential workers are a good fit for both the role and the culture. You could also create a peer mentoring program where teammates on-board each other and train new members on the brand.

By integrating your culture from the very first touchpoint, you can set it up for success — no matter how many miles separate teammates.

Foster communication

In co-located offices, important information often gets exchanged in break rooms, hallways, impromptu meetings, and at after-work drinks. With a remote team, you have to go out of your way to overcome the “watercooler gap.” Create digital opportunities for teammates to connect and collaborate.

Tools such as video conferencing, instant messaging, and online collaboration methods like Zoom, Slack, and Google Hangouts can help shrink the miles. Detailed meeting notes and recorded discussions can help make sure the right people are in the loop, even if they’re in different time zones.

Use tools that reflect and support your culture

Just like connections, the personality and culture of co-located offices develop through the interactions they’re home to. It evolves through the proverbial watercooler talks, whiteboard sessions, inside jokes, and shared experiences. Your remote team (or team of short-term contractors) can develop something similar through the tools you use every day.

As Nick Francis said, “A culture’s effectiveness revolves around how information flows.” That means you need to adopt tools and processes that will foster communication and that will also serve as an extension and vehicle of the culture.

Engage workers

Another way you can help maintain company culture across your remote workforce is by creating opportunities for social interaction and employee engagement. While a weekly happy hour wouldn’t be realistic, something like a virtual book club could be. Or if you’re aiming to build camaraderie or foster teamwork, you could host a monthly game night where workers team up for an online video game tournament.

It doesn’t have to be all fun and games. You could host monthly lunch-and-learns over Zoom or Google Hangouts, or you could create a Slack channel where workers can recognize and give each other kudos. You might also consider implementing weekly video updates where you share company-wide news, birthday announcements, or whatever’s culturally relevant to your organization. There are countless ways you can engage remote workers. Find what works for your team and make it a habit.

The bottom line

It’s worth investing your remote workforce’s culture. Companies with strong cultures tend to see higher rates of productivity, be more profitable, and retain top talent. Thankfully, you don’t need a headquarters to reap the benefits of positive company culture.

Learn how partnering with PayReel to manage your contingent workforce can free up your resources to focus on strengthening your culture and bottom line.

ABOUT PAYREEL:

At PayReel, we minimize the time and effort it takes to get you ready for your project. Rely on PayReel to assume all of the risk associated with worker classification and get back to the business at hand. We make sure everyone gets paid quickly and easily and have Client Relationship Managers on call around the clock to answer your questions. All you have to do is call 303-526-4900 or email us. The PayReel team makes video production, live events, media, and entertainment payroll easier, faster, and seamless.

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A Dynamex Decision newsflash: It’s about to get real with Assembly Bill 5
A Dynamex Decision newsflash: It’s about to get real with Assembly Bill 5 6000 4000 PayReel

If you’re paying attention to the world of independent contractors (ICs), you’re already familiar with the Dynamex Decision (which we covered here). So what makes the recent Assembly Bill 5 news flashy? It’s that this bill approves codifying the ruling. That means the decision is one step closer to being iron-clad law (along with all the usual associated legalese and fines, of course).  

What are the arguments?

Reclassifying many ICs as employees protects workers

Supporters of the bill, such as San Diego Assembly member Lorena González said, “Big businesses shouldn’t be able to pass their costs on to taxpayers while depriving workers of the labor law protections they are rightfully entitled to.”

While it certainly affects many more industries than the ride-hailing apps Lyft and Uber, those companies do often end up at the center of the debate. Multiple class action lawsuits prove that plenty of drivers are fighting for the labor protections that come with being employees.

It’s not really about the workers

California frequently passes laws claiming to support the workers, but company representatives for the ride-hailing apps are quick to say workers like the freedom to create their own schedules. You’ll find many independent contractors (drivers as well as those in other industries) who agree. They like being able to choose compatible clients and projects and build a business for themselves instead of feeling like a cog in a corporate wheel.

Some workers could end up making less as employees. Employers don’t pay ICs the same taxes and benefits as they do employees and may start negotiating lower hourly rates for workers in order to keep their profits strong. That means newly-minted employees may make less even as they get access to benefits such as unemployment insurance, health care subsidies, paid parental leave, overtime pay, workers’ compensation, and a guaranteed $12 minimum hourly wage.

What is it most certainly about?

Money, cash, and dollar dollar bills

This goes for all parties. This New York Times article says companies like Uber and Lyft would have to raise their labor costs by 20 to 30 percent if they reclassify drivers as employees.

Big-time tax dollars (as in billions with a B)

According to the court’s ruling on the Dynamex decision, “the misclassification of workers as independent contractors rather than employees is a very serious problem, depriving federal and state governments of billions of dollars in tax revenue.”

Small businesses can avoid certain taxes with fewer employees and independent contractors can write off business expenses and may also underreport their income. Hence the resulting “deprivation.”

What about exemptions?  

Not all ICs want to be employees

Many hairstylists, for example, benefit from the “booth rental” model. As part of the salon, they get the benefit of the establishment’s marketing as well as possible walk-in clients. Still, they set their own schedule, manage their own business, and keep any earnings beyond their rent.

The bill seeks to accommodate such industries, hairstylists included, by exempting them from the ruling. There are plenty of other exemptions (such as doctors, dentists, lawyers, architects, insurance agents, accountants, engineers, financial advisers, and real estate agents) in the bill for professionals deemed true independent contractors who negotiate their own contracts.

The bottom line

It’s hard to overstate the potential impact of this subject. These headlines (from this week) demonstrate that this isn’t the last we’ve heard on the subject:

California bill advances, could shape battle in other states

This bill could make Uber drivers employees in California

Just can’t get enough of Dynamex?! We promise to cover everything you’d ever want to know about it and maybe a few things you wish you didn’t need to know.  

About PayReel:

At PayReel, we minimize the time and effort it takes to get you ready for your project. Rely on PayReel to assume all of the risk associated with contingent workforce management and get back to the business at hand. We make sure everyone gets paid quickly and easily and have Client Relationship Managers on call around the clock to answer your questions. All you have to do is call 303-526-4900 or email us. The PayReel team makes live event, corporate media, and brand management payroll easier, faster, and seamless.

 

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The biggest myth about the gig economy just got busted
The biggest myth about the gig economy just got busted 4000 2764 PayReel

The internet and all its digital descendents (apps, mobile workspaces, etc.) have made it logistically easier than ever to both be and to hire a creative, freelancer, and side hustler. That much is true. Beyond that, there are a whole bunch of splashy headlines and semi-educated guesses about the gig economy’s reach and impact.

Due in part to two Ivy league economists’ predictions, 2015’s descriptions of the gig economy conjured images of companies dismantling their corporate offices while employees flee to the beaches with their sunscreen and laptops. Now, the question is up for debate again. Is the gig economy the wave of the future? Did it ever happen at all?

Either way, it’s time to revisit one of the biggest misconceptions about the gig economy.

The biggest myth about the gig economy just got busted by the same economists who predicted it

Myth: The gig economy is taking over the world!!!  

The 2015 study that launched a thousand predictions said that from 2005 to 2015, the proportion of American workers engaged in “alternative work” jumped from 10.7% to 15.8%—accounting for nearly all of the job growth during that period. This led many to believe the gig economy would supplant the traditional workforce in grand, irreversible ways. As always though, the truth tends to be a little more complicated than surface numbers can tell us.

Estimates indicate that the contingent workforce makes up somewhere between 10.1% and 35% of the economy. It’s none other than the Bureau of Labor Statistics that reported the higher number in 2017—saying 55 million people were gig workers. They went so far as to project the number would increase to around 43% by 2020. That seems like a whole lot, but one important note is that its estimates include everyone from the freelance writer with steady retainer contracts to the weekend Uber driver supplementing her income with an occasional shift. As is always the case with estimates, every difference—from definitions to the source of information—influences the results and leads to large gaps in the findings. 

One common cause for confusion is the fact that contingent workforce and gig economy are often used interchangeably. In reality, the contingent workforce pie consists of many different types of work arrangements (only one of which truly constitutes the gig economy). The first two slices of pie include staffing arrangements and independent contractor projects that are defined by an SOW and milestone based contracts. True gig workers make up the third piece and include those in micro-burst jobs and hourly gigs. They typically find work and get paid through a platform (such as Uber).

Additionally, the same economists who wrote that influential 2015 study now say it was flawed—based on inaccurate data inflated by the recession. This article indicates that, with the benefit of hindsight, the labor economists who wrote the study have revised their findings. Rather than accounting for nearly all of the job growth between 2005 and 2015, they say the gig economy grew modestly—more like one or 2 points.

Rather than an “explosion,” the gig economy seems to be in the decidedly less sexy category of a steady progression.

What we know

Things are changing just like they always do. For workers looking to freelance as a career or thinking of it as a stepping stone to a dream job, it’s never been easier to take the leap. We’ll be keeping an eye on how things continue to shift, including how legislation such as the Dynamex Ruling changes the way we do business.

Whether the predictions that led to a hyped narrative around the gig economy were entirely accurate or not, the government is still paying extra close attention to accurate worker classification. No matter where this evolution leads, it behooves employers to stay on top of accurate worker classification. The consequences of misclassification don’t change with the headlines.

About PayReel:

At PayReel, we minimize the time and effort it takes to get you ready for your project. Rely on PayReel to assume all of the risk associated with worker classification and get back to the business at hand. We make sure everyone gets paid quickly and easily and have Client Relationship Managers on call around the clock to answer your questions. All you have to do is call 303-526-4900 or email us. The PayReel team makes live event, corporate media, and brand management payroll easier, faster, and seamless.

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Our most popular posts of 2019 — to help you make the most of your new year
Our most popular posts of 2019 — to help you make the most of your new year 5184 3456 PayReel
As we find ourselves squarely into first week of the new year, let’s not forget about some of 2018’s most popular posts. We covered everything from how to eat like an adult human (even when you’re working like a dog) to the ever-present discussions around worker classification. Dynamex Decision, anyone?

Here are 5 of 2018’s most popular posts

When an independent contractor becomes an employee: A chain of events

Pumpkin spiced lattes! Babies! Generation Z (move over, Millennials)! What do they all have in common? They’re a constant reminder that there’s nothing so constant as change. With its ever-narrowing definition of an independent contractor, California is embarking on the real-time evolution of the gig economy. Here’s the chain of events a company and its workers might go through in response to such changes. Read more.

3 common freelancing myths, plus the truth (can you handle it?)

To overworked, underappreciated 9-5ers, freelancing may seem like the holy grail. But going out on your own isn’t just a world of free-flowing creative juices, coffee breaks, and wads of money. Freelancing can make you feel just as burnt out and unstimulated as whatever made you take a hike from your previous gig in the first place.

Here are 3 common freelancing myths–plus ways to make the road less traveled work for you. Read more.

Who’s FICA? Why’s he getting all my money?

Today, we’re going to dive into the light, easy, totally uncontroversial world of taxes. As in, “Who’s FICA? Why’s he getting all my money?”

About once a week, the PayReel office phone rings with someone on the other end of the line referring to the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) with exactly the same tone you’d expect with a four letter word. We understand. Read more.

5 skills that will make any freelancer ultra-hirable and profitable

Freelancing is a balls to the wall, pride-swallowing siege and these days, it seems everyone is fighting it out for business. How do you make that business yours? One way is to solve the problems clients have (the ones they called you about) and then go even further by solving the ones they haven’t even thought about yet. That’s when you become an advisor clients can’t live without rather than a freelancer they can replace tomorrow.

Every freelancer should seek to be as hirable and desirable as possible in today’s competitive marketplace. Here are 5 of the most coveted skills as well as where you can hone them for free/next to free. Read more.

How have “work relationships” changed as offices become obsolete?

Gone are the days when “work relationships” are made up of people we see on a regular basis. We can literally have an entire functioning relationship without ever seeing a person or even hearing their voice. Talk about an evolution from the days when sharing an office building was a prerequisite. Here are some of the biggest ways work relationships have changed with the evolving workplace. Read more.

Onward!

With rulings like the Dynamex decision changing the way businesses operate and the digital workspace becoming more common, we are in the middle of one of the biggest evolutions in the modern economy. We will be keeping an eye on the quickly-evolving business dynamics of the 21st century. The one thing we can always be sure of is that change is around every corner.

About PayReel:

At PayReel, we minimize the time and effort it takes to get you ready for your project. Rely on PayReel to assume all of the risk associated with worker classification and get back to the business at hand. We make sure everyone gets paid quickly and easily and have Client Relationship Managers on call around the clock to answer your questions. All you have to do is call 303-526-4900 or email us. The PayReel team makes live event, corporate media, and brand management payroll easier, faster, and seamless.

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5 skills that will make any freelancer ultra-hirable and profitable
5 skills that will make any freelancer ultra-hirable and profitable 5760 3840 PayReel

Freelancing is a balls to the wall, pride-swallowing siege and these days, it seems everyone is fighting it out for business. How do you make that business yours? One way is to solve the problems clients have (the ones they called you about) and then go even further by solving the ones they haven’t even thought about yet. That’s when you become an advisor, clients can’t live without rather than a freelancer they can replace tomorrow.

Every freelancer should seek to be as hireable and desirable as possible in today’s competitive marketplace. Here are 5 of the most coveted skills as well as where you can hone them for free/next to free:

Network and Information Security

With hackers making headlines, it’s no surprise that people who can combat this threat increase their desirability. Whether you’re primarily a writer, video producer, website developer, or designer, being able to offer clients additional peace of mind is priceless. Especially for small businesses, who may not have a team dedicated specifically to security, your expertise adds value and makes you an essential team member. Coursera offers Information Security: Context and Introduction Coursera, LinkedIn Learning offers IT Security Foundations: Network Security, and Udemy offers The Complete Cyber Security Course: Network Security.

Instagram API

There are a lot of ways to use Instagram’s API—from turning a website into a living museum to converting sales. Often, companies spend a lot of time creating and posting content but fail to convert views into action. Add knowledge of Instagram API to your resume and you can become a conversion superhero. Learn more at Consuming the Instagram API by LinkedIn Learning and Build a Photo Web App Using Instagram API (cape not included).

WordPress 

With 50,000 new WordPress sites added daily, the Internet is basically one big WordPress matrix. Even if it’s not their core business, content creators who can build, update, or fix WordPress sites will keep businesses from having to hire additional people. Saving clients money is one surefire way to get in their good graces. Complete WordPress Training for Beginners is a free course that will absolutely give you a return on your time invested.

SEO 

The only thing as constant as change is changing itself…and SEO. A clever behind-the-scenes glut of the right words doesn’t get results anymore. SEO has gotten much more sophisticated and tough to crack. The real key is increasing traffic organically. Having the tools to have an intelligent conversation on the subject and being able to point clients toward solutions makes you extra valuable. HubSpot offers a free course and Udemy offers SEO Training Academy: Learn Search Engine Optimization.

Sales Funnels 

Sales funnels are a key to converting all that organic traffic into action. If you already have some knowledge of landing page design and content strategy, ClickFunnels (or something similar) is a great way to take your skills to the next level. You can learn enough about ClickFunnels (which seems to be the tool of the moment) to get you started with Udemy’s course here.

Bottom Line  

If you want to have an edge in the marketplace, it’s time for you to learn some of the most marketable skills of 2018: This is how to make all the dolla dolla bills, y’all.

Note:  General Assembly’s course matching service offers guidance on courses you may benefit from. Additionally, we used this article (where you can find skills we didn’t mention) for many of the resources above.  

 

About PayReel

At PayReel, we minimize the time and effort it takes to get you ready for your project, make sure you get paid quick and easy and have Client Relationship Managers on call around the clock to answer your questions. All you have to do is call 303-526-4900 or email us. The PayReel team makes event payroll easier, faster, and seamless.

The next time you work an event or a production, tell your supervisor you love working with the PayReel team.

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3 common freelancing myths, plus the truth (can you handle it?)
3 common freelancing myths, plus the truth (can you handle it?) 5184 3456 PayReel

To overworked, underappreciated 9-5ers, freelancing may seem like the holy grail. But going out on your own isn’t just a world of free-flowing creative juices, coffee breaks, and wads of money. Freelancing can make you feel just as burnt out and unstimulated as whatever made you take a hike from your previous gig in the first place.

Here are 3 common freelancing myths–plus ways to make the road less traveled work for you:

Myth 1: It’s easier than your 9-5

So you want to work from the beach? Excellent. You want to decide which people to work with and which jobs excite you? More power to you. But hear this: Once you go out on your own, you live and die by your own work. The allure of working from home in your pjs and not having a boss breathing down your neck is real. But the struggle of life without a full time, “safe” job is real, too. It’s awesome. And terrifying. It’s not easy. Whether you’re on your own or working a “safe” job, you will kill yourself (and I mean that literally) if you don’t find balance. If you want to build a solid business, you have to put in the work. The hope is that, because you’re building your own dream (and not someone else’s/one you don’t believe in) that you’ll at least enjoy it more. And while it can be enormously satisfying and liberating to build your own business from the ground up, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Myth 2: It’s too risky

The “too” is the operative word above. Because here’s the deal: in comparison with a 9-5 job, freelancing is risky. You’re not looking for someone to whisper comforting words and say this is a safe route, right? You absolutely could lose everything…or at least be very, very hungry at times. I mean it. You could have clients who pay late or don’t pay at all. You could have slow months that land you in the red and times you’re trying to figure out how to create a meal from whatever you can find in the freezer and the last quarter cup of rice in your pantry. Risk aversion is real, but if it keeps you in your swivel chair at a 9-5 you hate, then you’re afraid of the wrong kind of risk. Because there’s nothing more risky than staying there in your cubicle feeling like you’re wasting your life.

Myth 3: You have to do it all

You think it’s easy to have your life and energy sucked away by a “regular” job? What about when it’s your business? When every dollar that comes in is as a result of you pounding the pavement to find the client and then pounding the pavement again to produce work they’ll rave about? When you’re in business for yourself, it’s easy to just do, do, do all the time. And the lie that traps you is that you have to. But you give yourself out completely and guess what? There’s nothing left. There’s nothing left for your bedtime routine with your kids, or those glorious miles on the trail with your sneakers and your headphones. And here’s the real, counterintuitive kick in the pants: if you don’t have time for the stuff the fuels you, you don’t have a business. Because when you’re a freelancer, your business is you. It’s’ your creativity, your talent, your brains, and your guts. That’s something you simply cannot phone in. You have to be fueled, which means you can’t give everything to your business. You have to give something to yourself, which in turn, gives everything to your business. See what I mean?

The truth

Here’s the truth about freelancing, if you can handle it. And you can handle it, by the way, because you are scrappy enough to think about launching out on your own in the first place. It’s hard, gut-wrenching, kick you in the seat of your pants, pride-swallowing work. And it’s all yours, which is effing fantastic.

 

About PayReel

At PayReel, we minimize the time and effort it takes to get you ready for your project, make sure you get paid quick and easy and have Client Relationship Managers on call around the clock to answer your questions. All you have to do is call 303-526-4900 or email us. The PayReel team makes event payroll easier, faster, and seamless.

The next time you work an event or a production, tell your supervisor you love working with the PayReel team.

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The avocado toast generation and the case for hiring Millennials
The avocado toast generation and the case for hiring Millennials 5397 3598 PayReel

Gone are the days when you could rely on your workers to put in their time at the office and stay loyal to one company from cradle to grave. These self-indulgent, entitled youngsters want to get promoted just for showing up. Millennials want avocado on their toast, purpose in their jobs, and a healthy work/life balance. Ugh. Let’s put aside any bewilderment about the fancy toast and $5 lattés with frilly foam designs for a moment and consider the case for hiring Millennials–those born between 1981 and 1990:

 

  1. Millennials work hard

    Boomers may grimace and fight the urge to growl, “Pay attention!” when they see young, talented managers texting away in a meeting. But the truth is, Millennials work really hard. They may even be the most workaholic generation yet.

  2. Work/life balance is good for business

    It may come as a surprise that it’s just as hard for Millennials to achieve as anyone (noted above), but these young laborers do value a work/life balance. Facilitating and cultivating this balance is actually good for business.

  3. Diversity is good for business

    Each generation brings a unique set of attributes to the workplace that, properly interwoven, can create a focused, exuberant, high performing workplace. Keeping multi-generational workers engaged is the key. Engagement equals performance, and performance equals results.

  4. They’re the most highly-educated generation in history

    As education opportunities have opened up to men, women, and all ethnicities, this generation has become one of the most highly-educated of all time.

  5. They want to contribute to something that matters 

    People of any age will work their tails off if they’re personally connected to and inspired by their goal. They’ll give their best for something they believe in. Tap into that desire to work for a purpose, and you’ll access a goldmine of creativity, talent, and time

The bottom line

Avocado toast has become the shorthand for all that’s supposedly wrong with Millennials but it’s a tale as old as time. Until they’re the older generation, the young generation is always the worst. Through the lens of hindsight, the young rabble rousers of the 60s became celebrated flower children. Recognizing any generation’s weaknesses and strengths allows hiring managers to leverage those strengths to build a solid team.

 

About PayReel

At PayReel, we minimize the time and effort it takes to get you ready for your project, make sure you get paid quick and easy, and have Client Relationship Managers on call around the clock to answer your questions. All you have to do is call 303-526-4900 or email us. The PayReel team makes event payroll easier, faster, and seamless.

The next time you work an event or a production, tell your supervisor you love working with the PayReel team.

 

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How have “work relationships” changed as offices have become obsolete?
How have “work relationships” changed as offices have become obsolete? 400 266 PayReel

Gone are the days when “work relationships” are made up of people we see on a regular basis. We can literally have an entire functioning relationship without ever seeing a person or even hearing their voice. Talk about an evolution from the days when sharing an office building was a prerequisite. Here are some of the biggest ways work relationships have changed with the evolving workplace.

From office space to any space: Working in the same vicinity as people used to be a necessity. If you couldn’t walk down the hall to knock on someone’s door or get together in a conference room to discuss the next initiative, you couldn’t get much done. Now, you can work from anywhere. That means you can have meetings across time zones and without even leaving your home. You may still see your co-workers virtually, but you’re less likely to have spontaneous conversations at the proverbial water cooler.

Blurred lines in the work/life balance: There used to be a somewhat forced separation of work and home. While you could take your work home with you, it was a lot harder to reach people with a random thought or question late at night or on the weekend. You were unlikely to call someone’s home and risk waking their kids at 9 PM. But shooting off an email or a text at 9 PM is socially acceptable and reading work communication as you’re going to bed or first thing in the morning is expected. Getting responses in a few minutes is so much the norm that a “delayed” response of even 10 minutes can cause concern. Now, it almost seems like you literally have to go underground (on the subway) or take a flight in order to get a break from electronic communications.

Communication is easier and harder: With this level of access, it’s incredibly easy to communicate in a moment. It’s incredibly easy to reach people and get a response. But we arguably have just as many communication errors since we can’t truly read people over email or text and emojis don’t quite replace seeing a live human face. Replacing live communication almost completely has its own challenges.

The bottom line

Work relationships have changed massively in the digital age. FaceTime often substitutes for face time, emojis often substitute for actual facial expressions, and all our “time savers” eat away at more and more of our time. It will be interested to see if the pendulum swings back to more personal interaction or if we will lean more and more on technology to replace the live interactions that used to be necessary.

About PayReel

At PayReel, we minimize the time and effort it takes to get you ready for your project, make sure you get paid quick and easy, and have Client Relationship Managers on call around the clock to answer your questions. All you have to do is call 303-526-4900 or email us. The PayReel team makes event payroll easier, faster, and seamless.

The next time you work an event or a production, tell your supervisor you love working with the PayReel team.

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Throwback Thursday: Hiring contingent workers pre e-anything
Throwback Thursday: Hiring contingent workers pre e-anything 4404 2477 PayReel

On the rare occasion I pay a bill the old-fashioned way, I marvel. It wasn’t so very long ago that, for each bill, we’d sit down, handwrite a check, and then actually put it in the mail. Just as online bill pay has become the way of the modern world, so too have email, job boards, and social networking sites have proven the ultimate game changer for hiring practices. They’ve made a once-tedious and manual task more efficient and also brought the phrases “freelance” and “work from home” or “work remotely” into our modern language and culture.

Hiring short-term engagements via pre-electronic mail, pre-E-lance, and pre-e-anything was a totally different ballgame. As the founder of PayReel, I’ve had a front-row seat to that game and its remarkable evolution. It’s hard to believe we have gone from faxing and phoning to pointing and clicking in my personal 30-plus years in the business. It’s even harder to imagine the days before my involvement.

A brief history of hiring contingent workers pre-internet

Sometimes I wonder how anything got done before we had the power to hold the whole world wide web in our hands. But early hiring tools included job fairs, notices on community bulletin boards, government employment offices, or even a good old-fashioned “now hiring” sign. Here are some of the significant markers in the history of hiring contingent workers.

The 1800s, “free lances” fight for pay: While freelancing as we know it today may feel like a rather new phenomenon, the word’s origins date as far back as the 1800s. Merriam-Webster defines “free lances” as soldiers who sold their soldiering to the highest bidder.

The 1700s, “Help Wanted” ads appear: The Boston News Letters began carrying ads in 1704. Paying by the word, employers put an ad in the classifieds and waited for a response via snail mail. One such ad, from 1892, would be subject to anti-discrimination laws today. It sought, “A young lady of German parentage; must be a 36 bust and understand bookkeeping on a small scale.”  

1890, Consultancy and recruiting agencies incorporate: Before online databases, where you could vet and possibly even book talent from a pool of candidates in minutes, we had telephones. Hiring managers might reach for the Yellow Pages and start down the list of consultancy agencies. The very first of such, Arthur D. Little Inc., was founded in 1886 and incorporated in 1906. The company broadened over the years but at first, focused on technical research. In a sense, as someone hired to do a very specific job, these early consultants were the first freelancers. Like today’s freelancers, they kept companies from having to hire full-time. Similar firms cemented their place in the U.S. economy in the 1900s.

The 1980s, Fax machines take over office buildings: While inventor Alexander Bain first sent an image over the wire in 1843, the fax machine didn’t make its way to frequent commercial use until the 1980s. These miracle workers reduced turnaround time by taking resumes out of mailboxes and into the printer room. Employment agencies (who still had to pull resumes from their giant paper databases) could now send candidate details to employers in minutes, leading to speedier vetting and hiring. While bulky by today’s standards, the fax machine was one of the early innovations that led to greater efficiency in the hiring space.  

Significant moments in hiring contingent workers post-internet

Of course, with the internet, things really picked up. In evolutionary terms, it’s comparable to a leap from apehood to personhood.

1994, Email brings mail to inboxes everywhere: We all know what happened when email came out. The whole world changed. Suddenly, candidates could send resumes as digital files that were instantly received and could be printed in perfect quality. Individual candidates sent resumes as attachments and agents sent them to employers electronically, too, making rolodexes and endless file cabinets of resumes obsolete. This was the tool that made a paperless world imaginable.

1995-1998, Online job boards post positions: Yep, it’s the biggie. Platforms like CareerBuilder, HotJobs and Monster took over the internet. Email brought mailing resumes to a halt and then these job boards nearly replaced emailing. This is where filters that allowed hiring managers and recruiters to sort candidates (by skills and location, for example) came into play.

2003, Online interviewing tools : Video chat services such as Skype allowed recruitment agencies to conduct initial interviews online, no matter where in the world the candidate happened to be. This reduced travel costs and turnaround time. It also reduced dress time for the candidates, who only had to look professional from the waist up.

About PayReel

Producing multimedia content and executing live events is chaotic. At PayReel, we make sure our clients can hire who they want when they want and that everyone is paid properly. Leave the details up to the PayReel team so you can focus on pulling off a flawless production. Contact us anytime at 303-526-4900 or by emailing us here.

Relax. We got it.

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February 2018: Month in review
February 2018: Month in review 5808 3876 PayReel

January took forever and February flew. Just like that, the second month of 2018 is over. Below are a few of the topics in employment and politics that made news in the shortest month of the year.

 

The FMLA turned 25…and had a quarter life crisis 

On Feb. 5th, 1993 the Family and Medical Leave Act, which gave employees job protection to care for sick family members, was enacted. Some of the questions coming up around its birthday are:

  1. Should that time off should be paid? It’s up for debate, but at least two Trumps and a Rubio say yes.
  2. Who qualifies as a family member? Austin’s guidelines leave room for interpretation.
  3. Does it go far enough to protect everyone, including low wage workers? And what about parents?
  4. Will the Koch brothers and cronies be able to win the fight against the aforementioned FMLA expansions?

 

People got sick…or at least sick of work

Thirty-precent of prison guards called in sick for Super Bowl Sunday. And it happens every year. But it turns out, the real problem may be that Americans don’t take enough sick leave. Meanwhile, Airlines sued Washington State over sick leave laws and Maryland’s sick leave laws got delayed in Senate.

Interns and ballers said “Show me the money!”

As Vogue took criticism for unpaid internships, Carmelo Anthony and others called the NCAA corrupt. It all brings up the bigger question: is it time to classify internships and treat college athletes like employees?

It was quite a month in employment. What stories caught your eye?

About PayReel

Producing multimedia content and executing live events can be chaotic. At PayReel, we make sure our clients are able to hire who they want, when they want and that everyone is paid properly. Leave the details up to the PayReel team so you can focus on pulling off a flawless production. Contact us anytime at 303-526-4900 or by emailing us here.

Relax. We got it.

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