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HR entrepreneur Mike Coffey, SPHR, SHRM-SCP engages business thought leaders about the strategic, psychological, legal, and practical implications of bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. As an HR consultant, mentor to first-stage businesses through EO’s Accelerator program, and owner of Imperative—Bulletproof Background Screening, Mike is passionate about helping other professionals improve how they recruit, select, and manage their people. Most thirty-minute episodes of Good Morning, HR will be eligible for half a recertification credit for both HRCI and SHRM-certified professionals. Mike is a member of Entrepreneurs Organization (EO) Fort Worth and active with the Texas Association of Business, the Fort Worth Chamber, and Texas SHRM.
When I started engaging in learning more and more about working with freelancers and independent contractors, I saw this as an avenue to deliver for my internal clients what they really need with value that I hadn't really considered before.
Mike Coffey:Good morning, HR. I'm Mike Coffey, President of Imperative, bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. And this is the podcast where I talk to business leaders about bringing people together to create value for shareholders, customers, and the community. Please follow rate and review Good Morning HR wherever you get your podcast. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, or at good morning hr dotcom.
Mike Coffey:We've discussed the the Department of Labor's recent updates to the independent contractor rule several times this year. And every time, we've pretty much come up to the conclusion that not much has really changed. For most employers, they were already misclassifying employees as independent contractors. But employee versus independent contractor isn't necessarily a businesses only option. Many companies are turning to freelance talent to augment their access to talent while sidestepping the whole employee versus independent contractor paradigm.
Mike Coffey:And today, I'm pleased to welcome Tony Buffum to the podcast. Tony is the VP of HR client strategy at Upwork, an online platform connecting businesses to freelancers and independent contractors from over 90 countries. At Upwork, Tony helps clients solve staffing challenges related to finance, procurement, and talent transformation. Tony has more than 2 decades of experience leading global HR teams at the most senior levels with companies like FLIR Systems, Stanley Security, and Stanley Black and Decker. He is also chair of the PEI Operating Partners Human Capital Forum and is an advisor to venture capital firms.
Mike Coffey:Welcome to Good Morning HR, Tony.
Tony Buffum:Thank you so much, Mike. It's great really great to be here.
Mike Coffey:I really appreciate you being here. So let's start by talking about the freelance workforce in the US. In 27 2017, it was estimated to be over 57, 000, 000, then 2020 happened, and most estimates seem to suggest the number's around 75, 000, 000 today. So who are these people who are working freelance?
Tony Buffum:You know, it's really everybody. You know, every generation is freelancing, but we definitely see a higher rate of freelancing as you probably guessed it with Gen z and millennials. Younger generations that are pursuing a much more varied type of career that's very much in their own control, like the accessibility of platforms or or anything else with the the amazing transparency we have now that gives them access to to really kind of control this new type of butterfly career that folks have. So, we see a lot of it across all generations, but a higher amount with these younger generations that are, kind of bucking the trend with traditional 9 to 5 jobs. So are most of these folks that are freelancers, are they working full time in those roles?
Tony Buffum:Are they augmenting? Is this like a
Mike Coffey:a side gig for them and they're working, you know, a a corporate job too? Or what does that look like?
Tony Buffum:Yeah. The answer is all of the above. You know, we see it across, all different types of employment. Upwork's research institute recently surveyed. I'll focus on Gen z because I know a lot of people are interested in that part how do we get that particular type of talent right now?
Tony Buffum:And when you look at that population, 39% are working this kind of portfolio career where they're not working AW2 job. They're out there just working projects and whatever they can whatever they can do on a freelance basis. Maybe about 26% are working long term freelance or independent consultant engagements. And then, you know, about a quarter are are doing this as a moonlighting option, as a side hustle as some might call it. And and that the rest is made up people doing, you know, kind of the short term gig work that some folks talk about or they're just founded their own company or agency, you know, via a platform like ours or another 1?
Mike Coffey:So, yeah, and here at Imperative, we've we've definitely used, Upwork to hire, technical people to you know, we do a lot of custom software stuff to meet certain client needs and weird APIs with their systems, and and we've used, Upwork folks for that. But what kinds of roles are typical, for you know a platform like Upwork? It's not really quite gig economy, you know straight labor stuff. So what kind of jobs do y'all typically feel at at the professional level?
Tony Buffum:Yeah. Upwork is made up of this merger of 2 platforms, Elance and ODesk, some 10 years ago, 1 that focused very much on tech or IT talent. And so that was a huge population. That was pretty much the primary population for them. And the other that focused on marketing talent, creative, you know, content development, that type of thing.
Tony Buffum:As they merged, those continue to be really our most popular areas. But the fact of the matter is you can find any type of of skill level, skill, capability on the platform. So I found HR folks on there. There's legal talent, of course, finance, actuarial talent. So what I like about the Upwork platform is oftentimes people are drawn to looking for that hard to find in need tech marketing or especially now AI talent and folks with that, you know, generative AI capability.
Tony Buffum:But that's what gets them started. And as they dig deeper, again, just like I did when I was a client, you find that you can really get just about anything done with a variety of different skill sets. And oftentimes, things that people don't expect that someone that's available on a on a, you know, fractional, you know, capability platform to to to find.
Mike Coffey:There was once that idea that freelancers were these folks who were misfits. They couldn't they couldn't make credit in the corporate world. Those are also called entrepreneurs because I'm an example of that. I was good for 5 years at this time and then had you know, I couldn't stick around much longer than that. But I think that idea that, you know, just freelancers are these exiles from corporate America has really changed in the last 10 years or so.
Mike Coffey:So why do most of these professionals work freelance? You mentioned flexibility, but maybe expand on that.
Tony Buffum:Yeah. Well, 1, III agree. Maybe it's not excels either just from corporate world. People that just have have moved on from what they recognize is no longer an employment contract, but like a a lease agreement. They they they don't have the security that they had maybe when my dad was working at Xerox for his whole career.
Tony Buffum:That that's changed a lot. So you have a lot more people, and I would say that's 1 of the top reasons. The opportunity to define where your career goes. And I think a lot of people do it primarily for, for that level of control, control over their career, over their hours. So certainly, it provides flexibility, but they may still be working 9 to 5, but they're doing it on projects that they want to work on with companies that they want to work with for durations that they also choose.
Tony Buffum:So they have so much more control over the work they do. And oftentimes, it's something that they're really passionate and really good at. And I I try to help remind folks that are are as I'm trying to break down some of the myths like you described, like this idea that there are people that just couldn't make it, It's oftentimes people, they they really love doing a particular thing, and they've developed that as as with a level of expertise that they can do it more efficiently than someone in a generalist job doing it part time and trying to learn while they go. And they know that they can deliver speed and value to lots of clients, and they can build on that while at the same time, upskilling and reskilling themselves on the technologies that will continue to make them better, faster, stronger in the future.
Mike Coffey:Is there a difference between what we think of as gig jobs and the gig the gig economy and the freelance workforce?
Tony Buffum:Yeah. There is. I mean, when we think of a lot of the gig work, oftentimes, because it's what we probably use most often or is things like Uber and Lyft or DoorDash or WAG or all these much more kind of, hourly labor focus roles. And that's been great. I think that's been great for our economy.
Tony Buffum:It's certainly transformed industries. But when we look at freelance and independent contractors available on platforms like ours, this is more of that, white collar skill set. For ours in particular, think of anything that could be done behind a computer screen anywhere in the world. You can find that talent on our platform, and they're doing things that are longer or they're gonna be any kind of variety of of length or a statement of work project in and any kind of skill level. You know, I've worked with clients whose head of procurement negotiating our renewal is someone that is an interim procurement leader that they found on our platform.
Tony Buffum:So I I would think, okay. So we've already made the value proposition clear. Now it's just a matter of working out the numbers. But, truly, if you can find someone that's an interim officer and someone that can design your app, this is a lot different than we have with the the skill set that's, you know, doing more of the gig work.
Mike Coffey:Well, that's interesting because I didn't I never thought about it. Like, that fractional CFO or that fractional HR leader, we just did an episode about a month ago around that topic, fractional leadership, and I never even thought about going to 1 of the platforms like Upwork to say, you know, I need this HR support, you know, I need the strategic side. You know, we've got tab a and salade. We've got that stuff, but what we need is somebody to help sit sit sit down with us and talk what our long term strategy needs to be.
Tony Buffum:Well and, Mike, you mentioned at the beginning of this conversation the growth of freelancing. So it's it stands to reason that not only from a generational perspective as we see more and more higher percentage of the newer generations choosing this as their their career, self guided, kinda choose your own adventure career. You also see folks that are near the end of their careers, maybe retiring early or, you know, they they decided they wanna go into business for themselves, seeing platforms as a way to give them access to essentially hang a shingle without doing the same type of individual sales and marketing work because they know they can go and find the need available on the platform and bid and compete for that that that need. So I think we're gonna continue to see a shift of folks searching that out, you know, even, while while the rate for millennials and gen z's between 44%, 50%, respectively, still about 25% of boomers that are participating in in freelance and independent contract work. And to me, that speaks to this.
Tony Buffum:Folks that have the experience, but maybe and maybe they are retired, but they just wanna slow down. They wanna work on their own on their own schedule. They maybe wanna take the summer off, or maybe they wanna take the winter off. Whatever it is, they can create those opportunities by working through a platform like this. And I think we're we'll continue to see that grow as more people just become aware and, of the opportunity and as the stigmas, like you touched on earlier, as those shake loose more and more.
Mike Coffey:So it's been consistently growing the number of freelancers in the market. How much of that do you think is technology that's made it easier to do that and platforms like Upwork versus 2020 and the pandemic and the lockdown? That's Or maybe there's another factor. I'm not sure. I mean, Neil, what do you think is driving the growth in the market, I guess, is a fair question.
Tony Buffum:It it definitely starts with technology. And when you look at the the impact this is something I really love. The impact that technology has had on talent, labor, and their relationship to work and their relationship to employers, that's been rapidly changing. I mean, 10 years ago, I wouldn't have dreamed of having my resume posted online for anybody and everybody to see 247. And now if if some if if someone you know, I meet somebody or someone applies for a job and they're not on LinkedIn, I wonder if they're a real person.
Tony Buffum:Yeah.
Mike Coffey:You wonder what's going on here. Right? But
Tony Buffum:yeah. Why why don't you exist? What are you hiding? But that that's an example of technology has created and introduced this transparency with things like Glassdoor where you can get, you know, increased an understanding of the culture of companies, but also their interview questions, how much they pay. You can see any opportunity for any job posted on any board anytime.
Tony Buffum:That increased transparency has created all of this change in in much more frictionless movement from 1 job or opportunity to another, then the pandemic took this this change and transformation that was already in place and just accelerated it, and it really just took off. And so many people said, you saw there's an opportunity as the traditional job market bottomed out. Said, alright. Well, I'm I'm gonna get out there and do something, and so I'll embrace this. And not it wasn't for everybody, but for it was more and more people that got traction with that and said, I think this can be a career.
Tony Buffum:And don't think they're not telling their friends and neighbors and, you know, previous coworkers about this experience they've created for themselves. So I think it ex you know, the pandemic accelerated this transitional this cultural and technology driven trend already in place. And I think the more that it gets exposure, the more frankly that larger enterprises embrace it, the more that we'll we'll see that momentum continue to grow.
Mike Coffey:So when does a business typically turn to a freelancer for, you know, for assistance versus just trying to hire their own or maybe going to, you know, a local staffing agency or something like that.
Tony Buffum:Yeah. I I mean, to me for me and for so many enterprise clients I talk to, it's when they're desperate. Like, they they they try their traditional hiring. They have temps, agency partners, and it's just not working. They're not getting the talent they need fast enough.
Tony Buffum:They're struggling to get in demand talent competitively, and they can't hold on to it. And I experienced that as a client when I was at Stanley Black and Decker leading HR for our global security business. Just so many time like, so many circumstances where I just struggle to get our organization and our business leaders what they need. And as an HR leader, I think of it as Maslow's hierarchy. Like, that first level, you know, is food, water, shelter, benefits, payroll, and getting the right people the right jobs
Mike Coffey:Right.
Tony Buffum:At the right time. And when I'm not doing that, I just constantly felt like I was chasing this ball downhill. And so out of that desperation is when I finally started answering emails from Upwork who had been knocking on my door for months months months, and I ignored it because I I to me, freelancing, like, we don't do that. Like, that's not that's for tech companies. It's not for, like, an industrial service driven comp whatever whatever we are.
Tony Buffum:And and finally, I said, I need to consider what this is because nothing else is really what I'm doing right now isn't meeting the moment. And when I started engaging in learning more and more about working with freelancers and independent value that I hadn't really considered before. And I think a lot of organizations find it in the same way. They're like, we wow. We really need this tech talent or we need the we need AI talent.
Tony Buffum:We wanna experiment like everybody else is, but we we know we can't hire someone full time because that's just we don't even know what we wanna do. We just wanna experiment and try it out. We don't know what we don't know, and they start that's when they start listening to, well, what about a freelance? What can we learn from a freelance expert in gen Gen AI that we can we can experiment and and practice with and train ourselves and then maybe venture into new spaces. And and actually from that point, start to define a strategy that could work for us longer term.
Mike Coffey:Well and definitely, I mean, that's we've had we've benefited with freelancers for on the IT side with some mentoring. I mean, we we're trying to figure out an API and didn't have the in house experience with it. And working I know working with some freelancers, they were able to even do a little training on our end so we can either maintain whatever they helped us build or just build the experience out, you know, and and internally. So are most of the freelance roles, are these mostly just single projects and employer says, I've gotta do this right now, or we just we need this twice a year, 3 year times a year, or do you have employers who have ongoing needs who basically are not let's not say employers because they're freelancers, but let's say businesses who are on an ongoing basis using the maybe the same freelancer over a long period of time?
Tony Buffum:It's really both. And and maybe I would say it probably wasn't both 20 years ago, but it's grown so much. When you're looking at, I think it's, like, 86, 87, 000, 000 people in the US freelancing by 2027, which will be about 50% of the US workforce. It's not just 1 category anymore. You're like, you're walking into Target, and everything that you want is all in 1 place.
Tony Buffum:Whether you want ongoing, you know, contracts that last years or you just have a project that is gonna last a couple days. It really runs the gamut, and employers also run large employers run the gamut. Some are are using talent on a regular basis, and some are still working in just that project, you know, circumstance. Like, I think a great use case is organization that's doing a lot of m and a. M and a, and for anybody that's gone through that, there's this spike in demand both pre and post deal where you have to do a lot of due diligence effort, and you're pulling your people out in the field.
Tony Buffum:So maybe you're augmenting your team with folks that can step in and take care of some of those tasks, or it's post deal where I mean, to me, I see a lot of acquisition integrations fail due to lack of things like communication. Something that's super easy, but you're so busy with systems integration, which you can also get help with. But you're trying to make these strategic decisions, getting everybody on the same email and benefits programs that telling everybody what's going on is a easy thing to kind of let slip. When you could bring on freelancers to augment the team and help create that content, drive it to the organization, and keep the the employee population, engaged and interested in feeling like they're still part of what's taking place. So I think things like there's always great use cases like that that pull employers in to going, hey.
Tony Buffum:We know we need extra help. We can't keep just stretching out our team. It'll burn them out, and we'll we'll continue to see high turnover, which, you know, even though the great resignation is over, higher than pre pandemic turnover is still the norm. And so a lot of that is related to things like burnout or things like putting too much on your teams as a as organizations in 2023 and probably the still the first half of 20 24 apprehensive of adding headcount. If they don't have another lever within their ecosystem of opportunities to pull, they're gonna keep pulling the same lever, which has just put more and more work on our fixed head count.
Tony Buffum:And and that's a that can be a recipe for lower productivity and higher turnover.
Mike Coffey:And let's take a quick break. Good morning, HR is brought to you by Imperative. Bulletproof background checks with fast and friendly service. You're an HRCI or SHRM certified professional, this episode of Good Morning HR has been pre approved for 3 quarters of a recertification credit. To obtain the recertification information, visit good morning hr.com and click on research credits.
Mike Coffey:Then select episode 155 and enter the keyword freelance. That's FREELANCE. And if you're looking for even more recertification credit or you just want to learn something, I'm hosting a webinar on July 11th entitled the ethical and practical considerations on the use of AI in human resources. We'll talk about the history of artificial intelligence, the ways we use it every day without realizing it, and how generative AI like ChatGPT can bring value and risk to the organization. We'll also consider the ethical issues employers face as they implement AI.
Mike Coffey:This free webinar is pre approved for an hour of recertification credit from both HRCI and SHRM, and you can register at imperativeinfo.com/webinars. And now back to my conversation with Tony Buffum. And so, you know, especially if it's gonna be an ongoing person, who's, you know, providing support to us, you know, there are still employers who are pretty hesitant about remote work at all, but or maybe they they're in a hybrid situation, but there may be circumstances because of data security or things like that where they feel like this work needs to be done on premises. Are there situations where freelancers don't work, you know, work from their bedroom or remote and they actually, you know, come in on-site to, an employer or employers or a company's premises?
Tony Buffum:It certainly happens. It's, you know, for a platform like ours, it's the exception, not the rule. But, you know, we we put on just about every other month our own kind of small conference for prospect companies and existing customers alike to, help them understand what's changing in terms of trends in the economy and how to think about change management, how to think about embracing this workforce ecosystem, and I I think it's a phenomenal event. But we, of course, hire freelancers to help support us in that event that are doing things like recording video or supporting that, you know, the the the production of the event. So there's lots of examples where freelancers show up on-site.
Tony Buffum:The classification questions come into into play when you think about the level of direction, the requirement around their time, and the the the extents, how extensive that is. So there's a lot of things that, frankly, a lot of HR leaders or organizations that are are thinking about using freelancers, and they want to engage with them, but they're not sure about how to do it the right way from a classification perspective. Frankly, it's a part of why I chose Upwork because we have a such a phenomenal classification team, and 1 of our product offerings indemnifies employers. So they when you're reading all these lawsuits and all these fines, for me, again, when I was a client before I joined Upwork, that was something I said, alright. We I want that risk to disappear.
Tony Buffum:We can't handle that internally. Let's take the the path where we know whatever the right classification is, we're gonna get it, and we can go back to just worrying about what talent do we need to fit, what what outcome or deliverable that we need and get it as quickly as we can.
Mike Coffey:So when a company works with a platform like Upwork, to bring that that talent into, you know, for a project or for longer term, let's say, imperative, we are connecting we're really contracting with Upwork. Right? And you're paying those freelancers directly and our agreements with you. And so it's like if we used, you know, a major accounting firm for our account, and we've got an account signed to us. They're giving us what you know, and we're asking them to help us and do this and this project or whatever, but we're it's still the accounting firm that we you know, that we're dealing with.
Mike Coffey:And and there's that kind of that's mostly the relationship y'all have. Right?
Tony Buffum:Yeah. You can think of it that way. I mean, for sure. And I think what makes it easier is is you're working with different freelancers, some that may be ongoing several months or a year or working on a a project that's just a few days. We take care of paying them as soon as the project's over because freelancers can't be working on 60 90 day terms.
Mike Coffey:Mhmm.
Tony Buffum:But we invoice you on a monthly basis consolidating all that spend. Again, you know, I think the the 1 of the big value props for Upwork is focus on the talent. Like, focus on what you need, what the tasks are that need to get done, and what the skills are required to do that, and who are the people that have it. And then and then go find them, and we really take care of the rest all the way to w twoing employees if that's what's required. So we take care of all that for you, so talent is what remains in focus for the
Mike Coffey:organization. But you mentioned w twos. Are there situations where somebody would come to a company through, like, an Upwork and end up getting AW2 from that company? Or would that just be, how does that because you and you also mentioned independent contractors versus freelancers, so maybe we need to clarify that too.
Tony Buffum:Yeah. So I let's start with for there's circumstances where the classification you want the project you wanna get done, w twoing that talent, it might be the appropriate classification for the type of work. So we take care of that. We take care of the payrolling for that employee or for that person that's now an employee, and we bill you accordingly. There are also circumstances where someone that's a freelancer or independent contractor.
Tony Buffum:I really you said definition. I kind of use both Okay. Interchangeably. But that individual may be interested in converting to a full time employee. And now I think last year, we came out with a badging system where someone could say, raise their hand and say, I'm willing to be converted, and and organizations can post jobs saying this is a job that we're interested in potentially converting people to full time roles.
Tony Buffum:We created that out of a demand for really a lot of our enterprises that asked that question upfront because, frankly, when they work with someone for a short time, they're used to using that as a part of their screening
Mike Coffey:process. That temp to hire process that
Tony Buffum:would be easier.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. Right.
Tony Buffum:I think that's that's a mentality that a lot of procurement HR organizations engage with us in, frankly, because they're still used to the paradigms that they're used to. So even when they're thinking about working with independent contractors, they're thinking, yeah, but I can convert them. Right? Because what if I really like them? And I always tell them as long as they want to be.
Tony Buffum:But remember, not everybody that's out there that's contracting wants to work for a company. And it's kinda like where we started the conversation. There's a lot of folks that are like, hey. I I wanna do this project for your company, but then I wanna choose who I work with next. And maybe I'll come back and work with you later.
Tony Buffum:And maybe for a company, they wanna know, like, if you're a good fit, I wanna be able to pull you on board. So I think, you know, the opportunity is there, but I think a lot of folks that are looking for engaging with this freelance population, they need to be open minded, and they need to think about how much of this is driven. This idea that I want to convert them is driven by that that long time paradigm and how much is actually driven by the the true need in the in in, you know, kind of the investment onboarding center that you wanna hold on to once you get that person on board.
Mike Coffey:So if an employer is looking at working with freelancers, what are challenges that they would face? I mean, let's assume that we don't have the tax issues that we're we've eliminated those. We're working with a partner for for that. So what are other challenges? I think about, you know, things like, you know, working with other staff and trying to figure out communicate to them who are you know, what our values are, kind of give them an idea of what the company is, those kinds of things.
Mike Coffey:But then also, like, things like quality assurance and managing progress on a on a on a project, and then what are their legal and compliance issues? Those kind of things. What kind of things should an employer be ready to consider?
Tony Buffum:I like the way you you you kinda walk through the examples because the truth really, Mike, is the biggest challenges are all internal cultural. Again, I keep referring to these paradigms, but things like you mentioned, like, well, how do we work with someone like this? And and in cases where remote is relatively infrequent for a company, like, how do we work with someone even remotely? Or how do we work with someone that's a freelancer versus employee? Do we treat them the same way?
Tony Buffum:Or, how do we identify and introduce this opportunity to hiring managers who are probably just gonna resist the idea of not just having a a generalist headcount. They could just throw things at without having to define what does success look like, what are the milestones, and they're used to kind of just getting a headcount on board and just giving them whatever comes up. So there's a lot of change management, a lot of cultural change that that really needs to take place to maximize the benefits of a freelance program. But there's also things that I think, a lot of organizations that are just tactical, things like security of the systems, NDAs, things that just make the the the work happen. Like, how are they gonna collaborate?
Tony Buffum:What tools do they get access to? What folders, files, that type of thing? Those, I think, are are tactical things that can be really different in a lot of different organizations. Like, how are they gonna get access to our systems? Are we gonna send them a virtual desktop or we can send them our own equipment?
Tony Buffum:That's a lot of organizations have different risk tolerances or just kind of cultural norms driving. Yes. We have to send them our equipment. And if you're sending freelancers your equipment, that might be what your organization needs to do, but it might limit the type of projects that you're willing to send out equipment for. Like smaller 2 day projects, if you have to send it out, then you're probably not looking for talent in that space.
Tony Buffum:So I think at the end of the day, it's really what I love about this job is helping people understand this isn't just a decision tree that's like, when can I work a full time employee? When do I choose temp? When do I choose a freelancer? In embracing this type of work ecosystem, they have to take a step back and just look at the work without jobs. They have to look at what are the outcomes that we're trying to deliver, break them down from jobs, and then figure out what's the best resource within the ecosystem of not just full time employees, temps, freelancers, agencies, but also technology.
Tony Buffum:Sometimes that lever that you wanna pull is automation that can be provided by a onetime provider, and then from now on, that's an automated task. When you take that approach, the you're gonna have a lot more success embracing a system like this than if you just are thinking, can this job be freelance? Because you're still thinking in that that job mentality, and there's nothing wrong with that. To me, that's the crawl of the walk run, you know, progress. But the long I think the long term effectiveness is is folks realizing again, like we started this conversation, technology and talent are changing so much and so rapidly that the work system that we're deploying activity and we're aligning resources with has to really undergo this transformational change too, or you're still you're just trying to solve the, you know, new problems with something that looks and feels like the same solutions.
Mike Coffey:And I know, when we've worked with, freelancers for on the, you know, IT side, we've even created test datasets. So we're extracting any PII or anything like that and provided that so that they could they've had a a dataset to work on. I don't think we've ever even considered, even though we've got, you know, remote desktops. We've never even thought about providing remote remote desktop remote desktop access, but I can see where that would be useful. But the other thing is because, you know, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Mike Coffey:We are a background investigations company. And so before we ever gave access to anybody, especially on the IT side, we just made it really clear. We're gonna run the same kind of background check, little different authorizations of disclosure language, but we're gonna run the same background check we do on any other employee before we give you access to the, you know, the keys to the kingdom, especially in the IT area. Do you see other employers doing that? I mean, I I know so many employers get burned by just in house contractors.
Mike Coffey:Their IT people bring somebody in and then they get a data breach and they don't know why and Well, your IT contractor wasn't doing good background checks, and you never asked. And so do you see those kind of arrangements? Do you see employers taking the same level of security concerns, with some of these freelancers?
Tony Buffum:Yeah. I mean, like I said, I think that the the breadth of of clients that we have now is so so wide that I see it all. And there are there are plenty of clients that have to background check every single person. They just refuse to do it differently, and and that's fine. Like, that's what works for them.
Tony Buffum:My view is, alright, then then do that. And because if that's where you need to start, then start there. But I think is if if that's what helps them kind of get the ball rolling in terms of embracing change, they may over time start to think, you know what? Maybe there's some work we could get done that we don't need to do a background check. Maybe if we're gonna have someone turn around a PowerPoint slide that Right.
Tony Buffum:You know, communicates what our new benefits options are to our internal employees, I don't know if we need to background check that person. But, you know, if they're going to be integrating new systems from an acquisition, may wanna background check that person because they could potentially have a lot of impact on a lot of different things that affect our clients and our and our, internal employees and whatever. So I think, you know, I I like to think of it as more of a menu of options and organizations that say for these type of deliverables and and these types of skills and projects, we need to we need to apply the same type of controls that we apply to our our employees that we hire because it gives a sense of, you know, security and and safety. I understand that. I I think, you know, they they might identify over time more opportunities where they just don't they don't think
Mike Coffey:that's necessary. So Yeah. If I just need a PowerPoint that's not full of proprietary information, I'm not gonna sweat it. Right?
Tony Buffum:Yeah. Yeah. And and I think this will open the door for them when they see the kind of quality and the kind of talent and how much they can trust it. Like, I often you know, we we talked about stigmas before, and there's a lot of myths, I think, that, you know, extend to the the freelance independent community. At the same time, there's a lot of missed kinda or a halo effect that we attend, apply to our employees.
Tony Buffum:Because as much as we can say, hey. There's a data breach from your your independent contractor. Does it never happen with employee populations, or do employee populations never download a bunch of data before they leave and go to a competitor? Like, similar things happen. What I think is different now what I know is different with, this contract community versus employees when you we hire a full time person.
Tony Buffum:More often than not, when you go on LinkedIn and you review their resume or you review their profile and you get their resume and review that and you call the 3 people that they asked you that that they told you you could call, all you're getting is what they want you to know. Right. You're not getting the 5 star rating on their performance on all the jobs they've done so far in the platform. You're not finding out how much money have they made so far, how many jobs have they completed, and what is their job completion score. Things that, like we talked about at the beginning, bring transparency to this type of work that make it much more of a reputation based transaction than AAA interview in charisma and trust transact like, trust everything I put on this resume, and I I believe me that I can do all these things.
Mike Coffey:If all the applicants were honest, I would be out of work. I mean, let's be honest. So yeah. You're totally right. And and to get good feedback.
Mike Coffey:So you mentioned ratings, total earnings that that freelancers made on the platform, and, what was the oh, the number of projects completed.
Tony Buffum:So Project or I should say project completion score. So Oh, okay. You do a 100 projects, you complete them all the time, you're gonna have a 100% Oh,
Mike Coffey:okay.
Tony Buffum:Completion score. That means that that means that the the the customer, when it was done, said, yes. They did everything I asked them to do. They did it on time, etcetera. So when the the
Mike Coffey:you've got those 3 factors. Is there anything else that when an employer is looking at a freelancer that they should be evaluating? You know, how do I pick the right freelancer? If I've got you know, if there are 2 dozen of them available who respond to my, you know, my request for quote or whatever. You know?
Mike Coffey:What is it typically? I'll call it a request for quote or whatever. What do you call that normally?
Tony Buffum:They're they're they're bidding on a job.
Mike Coffey:Bidding. Yeah. Bidding on a job. So I put that out there, and then I get 2 dozen responses as as the company that's looking for that talent. How do I how do I evaluate those?
Tony Buffum:There's a couple ways. I mean, you could do it kind of the traditional way, which is looking at the different profiles, see if they wrote a cover letter. You can require a cover letter. Maybe they'll give you a better sense of what exactly does this person feel like they have that suits what I need. You might require that every person that's apply bidding on the job answers certain questions.
Tony Buffum:Like I, when I first started at Upwork, I posted a job for someone to do research, HR research to help me start to, you know, comb what's out there around different topics that I knew I'd be talking about. But I wanted to be someone with previous HR experience because any just any researcher might think something's relevant to HR that really isn't. Someone with experience knows how to filter and and knows what the, you know, what what categories kind of fill fit together better. So then I wanted to know, what is your HR experience? How long have you been in HR?
Tony Buffum:What types of roles have you had in HR? And what type of research have you done before? Like, those are things that I can quickly filter on. Look at those questions and go, oh, that's not quite the experience I'm looking for. This is a lot deeper.
Tony Buffum:Because you're right. You will post a, for a job and get a lot of candidates really quickly, and you wanna you wanna filter. The reason I say that's more of the traditional way, now we've launched AI generated AI tools that help you do that. Of course. Of course, we did.
Tony Buffum:Like, everybody is. So, of course, we launched AI tools that help filter the candidates for you and make recommendations. You can still see everyone that's bid, but maybe that that initial filter shows you 3 that are really good fit based on all those things that you set. And you look at it and you're like, wow. These are all great.
Mike Coffey:It'll be easy to pick 1. Interesting. So we're almost out of time, but just you mentioned that you know that in by 2030, maybe half of the US population might be working freelance either full time or at least as a side gig. What do you think the future holds? What do you you know, given your unique perch there at Upwork and seeing all of that and your corporate experience, what do you think the workforce is gonna look like in 15, 10, 15, 20 years?
Mike Coffey:Do you do you really see the trend gonna be more and more, you know, you know, freelancers and independent contract type work?
Tony Buffum:Yeah. I I mean, I definitely think that's going to continue to grow. It's growing internationally. And, certainly, as governments kind of catch up and try to figure out, like, how they want to regulate, it's gonna continue to be different, not only in different countries, but in different states and even cities. That'll evolve and change along with it.
Tony Buffum:There's certainly a lot of things that I think all sides need to to kind of balance and think about, but I think this is absolutely gonna continue to grow. Companies aren't going to forego any of their full time employees. And, frankly, as we, you know, as we head into 2030, and you you can read really interesting articles about the kind of skills gap we're gonna experience over that period of time. I think we need all any kind of resource available to any to companies that's possible, possibly available. In addition to all of the advancements with technology, organizations need to have every lever or every option available to them to be able to sustain and compete for the next 5, 10, 15 years.
Tony Buffum:And I also think what it's going to do, it because it already is happening is it's gonna continue to democratize opportunities. 1 of 1 of my favorite sayings in this space is talent is distributed evenly everywhere in the world, but opportunity isn't. And the purpose for Upwork is to create economic opportunities so people live better lives. And that is something that resonates deeply with me and part of why I joined the company because I truly believe that there's people in countries that won't have an opportunity to work for some big name fortune 500 company in the US. But because they have access to the computer, because they have an Internet, because they can train themselves on skills that are in demand pretty much by just going on online and learning it for free.
Tony Buffum:They might have access to those types of opportunities and develop and grow as a professional. And I think that democrat that democratization is just going to continue to spread to more places, giving more people these great opportunities, bringing more skill to bear for companies that desperately need it. And and I think we're gonna have a lot more universal, a lot more global, a lot more diverse workforce as a result.
Mike Coffey:That is a perfect place to end it, and we're out of time. So thank you so much for joining me, Tony.
Tony Buffum:Absolutely. It's my pleasure, Mike. Thanks so much for having me. And, I look for hopefully, we can talk again sometime in the future.
Mike Coffey:Yeah. I hope so. And thank you for listening. You can comment on this episode or search our previous episodes at goodmorninghr dotcom or on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube. And don't forget to follow us wherever you get your podcast.
Mike Coffey:Rob Upchurch is our technical producer, and you can reach him at robmakespods.com. And thank you to Imperative's marketing coordinator, Mary Anne Hernandez, who keeps the trains running on time. And I'm Mike Coffey, as always. Don't hesitate to reach out if I can be of service to you personally or professionally. I'll see you next week.
Mike Coffey:And until then, be well, do good, and keep your chin up.