My 3 key takeaways from a joint dialogue with SME Owners
Recently, I participated in a joint dialogue session with more than hundreds of SME owners on tapping on alternative source of talent (ie. Freelancers). As one of the panelist, I have shared on the benefits, issues and challenges on leveraging on the freelance workforce to meet design, marketing and promotion needs of their businesses. The session was kindly organised by NTUC FSE Unit in partnership with the Singapore Business Federation.
Titled “Alternative Source of Talent for SMEs”, the session was opened by GOH, Ms Sim Ann, Senior Minister of State of Ministry of Communications and Information where she recognised that the business environment is changing rapidly and hence it is important for businesses in Singapore to look at various ways of recruiting and retaining talents and one such ways could be through freelancers. Flash back to how CreativesAtWork started driving the creative freelancing workforce six years ago, hearing this from a Senior Government Official truly warmed my heart.
I still remember, about three years back, I first approached Mr Ang Hin Kee of NTUC FSE as I read an article on him speaking about the freelance workforce. Very quickly, I got a reply from Mr Ang and shortly after a meeting was arranged with his team. Before that, freelancers were falling through the cracks of the system.
So much has changed since then. Great strides have been taken since that first email I sent out to Mr Ang. And, as much as growing a business has taught me, this dialogue session made me look back on the path the industry has taken - working hand-in-hand with the government, the freelance professionals, and our clients.
(Photo Credit: NTUC)
Here are some of my key takeaways, of how far we have come and where the future lies:
1.The potential of the Gig Economy
All the business owners that I met during the session are aware of the growth of the gig economy and its potential benefits to their businesses. However, they are still very much concerned with tapping into the freelance resources due to their own past bad experiences or of their friends’ and partners’ experiences. Their concerns are valid but there are certainly ways of mitigating such concerns. This further reaffirms CreativesAtWork’s direction of being more hand-on with our client’s businesses rather than just adopting a marketplace approach like many other freelancing sites. As we are dealing with creative transactions, it is not something that the machine can easily take over. There is a need for intermediaries like us to manage, advise and implement so as to ensure the freelancer and the client are on the same page and mitigate the chances of mismatched expectations. To further encourage more business owners to come forward to leverage on the freelance workforce, we have also started our Tap Talk series looking into concerns and various ways of helping our clients leverage on the freelance workforce for their businesses. There is still a need for better understanding of the freelance industry to make it work for SMEs’ businesses.
2. Importance of being Self-Responsible
One of the terms that stayed with me even after the session is that of “Self Responsibility”. This is very true. As freelancers are essentially their own bosses, they need to take up the responsibility, to ensure that it is a viable career option for themselves and for their families. It is important to recognise the circumstances and the various pitfalls before anyone should take the plunge to be a freelancer or self-employed person.
This is one of the key focus areas of our 2-day Freelancing 101 Bootcamp where we focus on helping freelancers to understand the business aspects of running a freelance business and, more importantly, the right mindset of being a freelancer. Which leads me to my next point.
3. Importance of sustainability
Sustainability is a big word. But what does it mean to a freelancer?
For anyone who is thinking of taking the huge step, you should consider the sustainability of every decision that you make. First and foremost, do recognise that one of the challenges of being a freelancer is that your income will be variable and may not come in every month. We advise that to ensure that you are still able to survive beyond the crucial first few months where you wet your feet and get your first client, it is important that you set aside emergency funds for that ‘extra padding’ before you leap.
On another hand, I often hear of freelancers trying to lower their price to get a job. While it is important to remain competitive, to undercut the market just to get one job is not sustainable both for yourself and for the industry as a whole. This may consequently lead to a spiral effect where no quality work is being produced and the reputation of everyone in the freelance industry is at stake, as we have seen being done in many cases, thus the misconception of freelancers being of a lower skill set than regular professionals.
Instead, we should adopt a more value-based approach where we should not look at just price alone but ultimately what is the value that you can bring to your client. To compete based on lowering of rate is not sustainable in the long run.
Fast forward 3 years since the meeting with Mr Ang, the progress that NTUC has made to the freelance industry is truly remarkable with more recognitions accorded to freelancers. Today, we have the tripartite standard on procurement of services from Media Freelancers driven by Infocomm Media Development Authority of Singapore. The Ministry of Manpower has also recently released the tripartite framework for Self-employed Persons.
Great steps and efforts have been taken in a relatively brief period of time. It’s the hope that with such protection in place, freelancers can then go about conducting their creative businesses more in peace and focuses on doing their work.
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