In today’s business industries, more and more people are becoming freelancers. Freelancers are most common in fields such as journalism, copywriting, computer programming, graphic design, and other professions in creative sciences such as…Automotive Industry!
However, Experts in nearly any field are freelancing these days. During a downturn in the Economy, Companies are apt to hire freelancers over full-time employees to meet budget constraints.
Being freelance, you do not get Company benefits, such as paid vacation, health insurance, and a retirement plan. However, there are plenty of perks to freelancing. It allows for more flexibility over when you work. This may provide more of an opportunity to, for example, raise children.
But, in reality, what is sometime holding Companies back from hiring freelances? Let’s see, making few consideration based upon the current scenario in the automotive business industry…
As previously mentioned, due to the last decade economic global crisis, automotive industry has been the one who most suffered. Consequently many short term solutions and drastic decisions to re-organize and restructure the Organizational Charts have been taken by Companies to face the dramatic falling market demand, and consequently limit cash flow losses.
However starting from the second semester 2010, the industry business gradually began to roll up, putting the same Companies to face the situation of starving more skilled resources on board (who have been made redundant, put in early retirement, or sacked most part of the times)!
Apparently, the best immediate solution was to completely revolve the current professionalism of the consulting hired people, transforming them in pure leg-works (such as operations and functions managers, white and blue collars). Somehow, this is good, because it always allow Organizations to cope with skills and flexibility, accommodating the internal development industrial plans and current market quality service requirements, without incurring in a risk of having to, eventually, keep extra-labor in house whenever the industry will wave down again.
Therefore in the recent years the labor market seemed more and more oriented towards this kind of organizational resource management practice, getting very consistent. Nowadays I wonder if this is also going to be the right long term solution since a Company can undoubtedly benefit in a short term. Discussing the long term benefit, the general perception is you take the risk to create a parallel market made of generalist and mercenary professional people that do not really care about hearing the old “Company Flagship” story. At the end of the day, not many people completely own a cynic and ambitious character to keep on practicing and interpreting this new business role and responsibility. Of course. Responsibility! Have you ever met a consultant or leg-work who is getting proactively fully responsible about his tasks unless someone commanded them? Finally, what about the retention of the historical know how in the Company Business Life? Usually the higher resources turnover, the less possibility to enhance, within the Organization, a fruitful and sense-making practice to boost and consolidate efficiencies and efficacies. You do not really need to go far, if you are after some examples, such as OEM Organizations, etc., ect., etc.,….
