Remote contractor management. Tips to control foreign freelancers

To avoid missed deadlines, you need to walk your freelancer through the following aspects:

• Tasks that need to be completed over the course of the project
• Stage-by-stage work plan with interim deadlines
• Potential problems and solutions for them
• Questions and comments

The next step is preparing a brief. This document must capture the idea and goals behind the project at hand as well as timelines in as much detail as possible. Before you begin work, your freelancer and you need to sign a contract where terms and conditions of your partnership will be noted. A rule to sign contracts keeps unreliable and fraudulent performers away from you.

It is important that you keep all agreements, compromises and deals in written form - either on paper or at least in a chat online. Fixed schedules and timelines help you navigate the work process and saves your team from asynchronous actions.

Set up dates for regular interim checkups and syncs. The initiative in this matter should be in the hands of the freelancer as they have the best view of their work. Don’t hesitate to ping them when a deadline is close and no work is delivered.

Intervals between checkups should not be too long. The optimal duration is 2-4 days. The reason is, if a freelancer ghosts you for some reason, the short interval will help you catch up on work with a new performer.

An important factor in your control over freelancers is careful check of acceptance certificates. It is important that you compare the brief and the original list of expected deliverables with the acceptance certificate. It is okay to request freelancers to complete some parts or make changes where necessary.

Payment methods and terms should be noted in the contract as well. Depending on how you see appropriate, work can be paid for in stages or all at once after the project is complete. If it is payments in several terms, then the deadlines for payment should be reflected in the contract.

Once a project is complete, ask your freelancer to share with you all the source materials, accesses and guides. You or your next worker may need them in future work.

• At some point in your partnership the freelancer disappeared and stopped responding. To avoid losing useful and vital information with them, it is important that you should establish a regular info exchange. So when there is a new freelancer to replace the previous one, they get to know the ropes fast.
• A remote freelancer has access to your internal databases and can use data from them for their personal purposes. To avoid this, you need to provide them with the set of data without personal or sensitive information.
• Unclear and incoherent brief. If its content is not straight-forward, the end result may be very different from what was intended. As a consequence, more time and money will be required to achieve the wanted results, and you will need to pay extra for changes made. That’s why it is crucial that you approach briefs attentively right from the start. If possible, you can ask for help from the freelancer themselves when compiling the brief.

Looking for remote workers with EasyBusy significantly minimizes the risks of hiring scammers and helps you control freelancers efficiently. With EasyBusy, you will be able to find verified and qualified performers that you can pay in any way you find appropriate.