Should Freelancers Use Time Trackers for Work?



The gig economy is booming, and it’s not likely it will stop growing anytime soon. The freelancers are seeing this type of work as freeing, and it gives them a better work-life balance, while companies usually need one-time help, so it makes sense to get someone who will just handle that task and leave.

If you didn’t have an opportunity to work with freelancers, you’re probably wondering why you should hire them, and how can you be sure they’ll handle the work properly. It’s exactly what we’ll be talking about there today.

Why Hire Freelancers?

Imagine a scenario in which your employees are overworked, close to a burnout, but it’s just for a month, until the peak season pases. There’s no point in hiring more employees only to fire them after a month or two. The answer lies in freelancers. They are usually hired for one project, or portion of the project. Additionally, they can be hired as an outside consult/help on an ongoing basis.

What differentiates them from full-time employees is that they’re more often paid by the hour, they work from outside of the office, and they don’t work for you on an ongoing basis.

A great thing about freelancers is that you can virtually hire anywhere in the world, so you’re not limiting yourself to the talent pool that’s available in your country. Additionally, these are the people who’ve usually done a large number of projects for different clients, covering various industries and topics, so you can easily find someone who has experience working on the type of task you need them to do.

This all sounds nice, but managing a freelancer can seem daunting. How do you pay them? How can you be sure they’ve worked for as long as they say? What happens if they don’t deliver? Well, a time tracker for work can help you with some of these points, let’s see how.

Why Use a Time Tracker for Work?

While it is important to establish a trusting relationship with all your workers, including the freelancers, when you first start working with someone you can’t be 100% sure they’ll do the job. Especially when it comes to hourly payments, how can you know they won’t overcharge you and that they’re following the agreed deadline?

Time tracker for work comes in extremely handy in these cases. You just send an invitation link to the worker, and they’ll be able to set up the account within a few minutes. Every time they start working on your project they just start the timer, and it tracks how much time they’ve spent working on your projects.

Additionally, you can turn on the screenshot feature for ultimate proof of work. Some trackers also have a keylogging feature, but it’s a bit excessive, so it’s not necessarily a good idea to use them.

The best thing is you’re not the only one getting the benefits out of the tracker. Your freelancers do too. The tool can help them become more productive, but they’ll also be aware of how long exactly it takes them to complete various projects, so they can improve their estimates in the future.

Wrap Up

Using time trackers to measure your freelancers’ time on projects isn’t a new practice. If you’ve hired freelancers through one of the freelancing platforms, you already have experience with it. Only this way, you get to chose the tracker they’ll be using, and you can save all the data, from every project in one place.

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