Due to some technical problems we weren't able to post entries last Wednesday and Friday. Oops. But we seem to be back on track now.
We've added a new category for posts, "Recession." Very often this blog will offer some advice on not only how to survive an economic downturn, but also on how to take advantage of the opportunities it presents. This new tag should help you find those articles and keep your head above water while you wait for conditions to improve or adjust your business model.
One obvious concern for employees and employers is unemployment. As a leader you want to do your best to hold onto people so you can grab new opportunities as they present themselves and keep those employees out of the hands of your competitors when your market turns up again. This is particularly true of Creatives, who often have unique talents you can't find in just anyone.
When we talk about the unemployment rate we tend to think about our full time, permanent workers. Unemployment figures account for those individuals who are looking for full time work but haven't found it yet. However, there's an important segment of the workforce missing from those numbers, and that's free agents.
Free agents are your freelance or other self-employed workers that you typically hire on an "as needed" basis, and while they might be few in number for some firms, in others they make up the bulk of the workforce. For the leader, a big advantage of hiring free agents is that you avoid full time having workers sitting around, and collecting a salary, when there's no work for them. Now, with things not going so well, you can reduce costs by cutting the number of free agents you use so that it only matches your immediate needs. This can help you get through any current problems you might be having.
But wait...
Some recent news articles have suggested that the free agent "industry" is facing a bit of a crisis. As free agents lose work they don't qualify for unemployment benefits, and over time the idea of staying in the free agent word may not seem like an option. They may have to shift to a full time job (if they can find it), possibly doing something other than what they did as a free agent. You might think that's just the risk they run by taking on the challenge of being a free agent, but as a leader you need to think about how this affects you and your business.
As we mentioned before, in a creative field you often employ Creatives with unique talents. You want to keep those employees now, because as competitors fall by the wayside you want to take on the work they left behind. Thinking more toward the long-term, as conditions improve you want talented and experienced Creatives, not a new batch that's untested. When it comes to Creatives, all of this is just as true for free agents as it is for full time workers. If you use a lot of free agents, you need to think about who will be available when you need them. As you cut people loose now you can't be sure they'll be there when you need them, as they may have to go do something else in order to survive.
So yes, you have a vested interest in helping out your free agents. What can you do? Well, you might consider keeping more free agents on contract with fewer hours each, rather than cutting a bunch of folks and keeping a few fully employed. This means everyone will likely have to find other income to stay afloat, but finding additional income is a bit easier than starting from scratch. You might also consider allowing them to do work for your competitors; many free agents are required to have a "no compete" clause in their contracts, but you might consider not doing that so they have a better chance of being fully employed. Don't worry that you'll lose them to your competitors; if you show you're willing to work with them, you're liable to generate some strong loyalty.
The objective here is to help your free agents find a short-term solution in order to avoid long-term problems for yourself. This isn't to say you should be running a charity, nor should you put yourself out of business in an attempt to provide work to your free agents. But you need to think beyond your full time employees, and realize that your free agents are facing some special pressures of their own that you might be able to address, in a way that helps you both.
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