Let’s Get Serious About Growing The Freelance Revolution

Investors in Tesla just agreed to turn over 46 billion USD in shares to keep Elon Musk in place and motivated as CEO. We’ve all heard “Past performance is no indication of future performance” but no one betting on Musk believes that.

The growth of freelancing is just as good a bet as Elon Musk, but you wouldn’t know it from the behavior of big corporates. At least, not yet. There are many reasons to bet on freelancing. Big corporates generally experience strong ROI benefit from bringing on freelancers. They find and deploy top talent more quickly. Curated freelancers typically have deep expertise and experience. Being project based, on-demand, and typically using their own tech and real estate, freelancers are a bargain vs fulltime employees.

Nevertheless, big corporates are late joiners. They are less committed, less confident, and less well set-up to benefit from what freelancing delivers: a more flexible, agile, expert, cost-efficient, blended workforce.

What’s the problem? First, global freelancing has not done a good job of showing why corporates can trust freelancers. As a recent innovation, the global freelance community must take seriously the worries of big corporate. A recent survey suggests four factors particularly concern executives:

• Compliance risk. Ensure we are operating legally and protected from suit or fine
• IP risk. The platform and talent respects our requirements for confidentiality
• Outcome risk. The platform commits to delivering promised outcomes and doing what’s necessary if outcomes are missed
• New-to-me risk. Working with freelancers feels risky. Will you help mitigate the risks to me and my team?

Second, freelance platforms only recently began to see HR and Procurement as stakeholders rather than bureaucratic obstacles. Ignoring gatekeepers is always unwise. Moreover, deep relationships exist between big corporates and traditional recruiters, MSPs, and VMSs like Beeline and Magnit. For freelancing to succeed at scale with the corporate community, deeper partnerships and more established two-way communication channels are needed.

There’s a third driver of acceptance that global freelancing must embrace. It’s time to better organize and collaborate. Freelancing deserves a bigger seat at the resourcing table, but it must claim it’s place.

If we look to past movements and zoom out, the freelance revolution is missing a few things that have driven successful social movements in common.

Trusted leaders who generate excitement and conviction. The great anthropologist Margaret Mead once quipped, “Change takes a monomaniac on a mission.” Saul Alinsky, author of Rules for Radicals, wrote: “Any radical movement will need an organizer who can give the community direction and function as a catalyst for decision-making.” In the 1950s and ‘60s the Quality movement led by Deming and Juran transformed manufacturing. In personal computing Steve Jobs symbolized the “computer for the rest of us.” and changed the industry. With ChatGPT, Sam Altman captured the world’s imagination and catalyzed a trillion dollars of investment.

The freelance revolution is as powerful and important as any of these historic or contemporary movements. But Mead and Alinsky got it right: Freelancing needs a trusted leadership to proselytize and coalesce around. It’s time for a group of well-respected leaders to organize and speak with the voice of the global freelance community.

Early adoption cases that generate enthusiasm and attract advocates. There are too few great examples of the blended workforce in action. For example, freelancing is now a multi-billion dollar business, growing at a highly respectable 15% CAGR. UST doubled their business through the deep involvement of freelancers. Meta, Microsoft, and Google have been users of freelancers. Big audit firms like PwC and Deloitte regularly augment their professional workforce with external specialists at scale, making freelancers a key delivery partner.

Freelancing needs many more stories, told repeatedly and convincingly. After 20 years, freelancing hasn’t yet found its place in the public imagination. Our challenge is sharing success stories far and wide. The CEOs of Code.control, Uplink, and Freelancermap recently produced Freelance Unlocked, a successful German freelancer conference. Spain is also rising as an organized community through the leadership of Outvise, Shakers, and other freelance platforms. Africa and Latam are logical next locations.

Ambassadors that bring people together. Successful movements have ambassadors. For those that don’t know the American tall-tale of Johnny Appleseed, he planted thousands of early American acres with apple trees. The Johnny Appleseeds – or influencers – of past movements like the quality movement included consultants, professors, conference organizers, think tanks, and journalists.

Together and separately, these influencers can animate interest and organize venues that bring investors, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders together with key practitioners. For example, RBL Group sponsors the RBL Institute, a community of 50 CHROs that share best practice and collaborate on new initiatives. Organizations like Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) also provide a venue for sharing and learning together. But we need more.

Experts sponsor, teach, and lead best practice sharing. In the 1980’s, GE, Exxon, Honeywell, PepsiCo, H-P, and IBM were successful big corporate innovators in management development and organization change. New methods like “Work Out” and Hi Po programs were taught in business schools around the world. Research collaborations in work design between Sweden and the UK, and America and Japan, excited corporate interest. We saw collaborations between industrial engineering and psychology. Consultancies were formed and expanded. Specialists were in high demand. They received high fees and were an active channel for innovation sharing. Books were written. HR leaders recognized what was new and important; they actively collaborated through benchmarking, conferences, and industry studies. Many became prominent consultants and speakers.

This is not an unreasonable vision for freelancing as well. It’s too big to be engineered and intersectional in the short term, but its organic growth can certainly be fostered by greater leadership, collaboration, and communication.

Accepted standards of practice. Over the past decades, the principles of the Quality movement have become part of what we might call the global management canon. The stuff we know makes sense, once an innovation, is now a standard of good practice. Our goal for freelancing must be no different: Freelancing should be seen as a respected career choice for individuals, and an essential part of the blended workforce in workforce design.

The path to acceptance, in turn, relies on freelancing leaders working together to establish industry best practices. There is, for example, no common utility for basic information about the industry at a national and international level, no place to access reliable statistics. Are there 4.2 million freelancers in the UK or 3.6 million? The Human Cloud Quarterly Freelance Trend Tracker is a good start, but an information hub would help all freelancing stakeholders and build trust on solid facts.

Nor is a there a strong voice speaking on behalf freelancers in the hallowed halls of government, advocating for better treatment and access to services more easily available to traditional employees. It’s time for freelancing – a large and well-educated community – to have influence commensurate with its large and growing population.

This is a propitious time for the freelance revolution. So many challenging economic, political and technological cross currents. At the same time, more individuals than ever are choosing to freelance or other self-employment instead of pursuing a traditional employment path. And more and more organizations than ever are adapting to the need for an agile workforce that depends on freelancers.

It is freelancing’s moment. Will industry leaders step up united?

Viva la Revolution!