Freelancer, an increasingly important employee in business
A talent shortage has accelerated an already strong trend among young professionals with new aspirations, according to a study.
From a marginal phenomenon, the use of freelancers in companies is becoming a fundamental trend in French clubs. This phenomenon has been accelerated by talent shortages in many sectors in recent months.
The appetite of young workers for this status, which offers a quality of life of greater independence and freedom, and the current context of shortages indicate that freelancing has been in place for a long time. Cooptalis recruitment specialist. Especially since these independents are now in a strong position.
“Their independent, outside and free status does not prevent them from being hired, taking into account the risk of lack of resources to ensure the development of projects. Therefore, freelancers now have the opportunity to choose their missions and work conditions. work, concludes this study. In turn, companies this are beginning to develop appropriate HR and management strategies to attract and better manage the new external resource and maintain these inherently changing profiles”.
Specifically, 44% of companies surveyed increased the number of freelancers this year.
Strong presence in small tech companies
Not surprisingly, they are found in smaller tech companies, which may represent more than 30% of the workforce in 61% of the startups surveyed. In the majority of SMEs (88%), they make up less than 5% of the workforce.
In fact, the larger the company, the fewer there are: at the large accounts surveyed, freelancers make up only 1-5% of the workforce. But “some large groups use it en masse to avoid blocking their development projects (especially digitally). This has the effect of encouraging the structuring and formalization of new practice. free politics“, we can read.
Not only are they becoming more and more numerous, but their assignments are becoming more and more limited to one project. 43% of companies surveyed mention assignments lasting several months.
Longer tenures, stronger integration: like any other worker?
“The difficulty of finding the right profiles in certain sectors prompts companies to extend assignments, regardless of price. Many of them also hope that by extending the contract, they will have more opportunities to convert freelancers into internal employees,” the study emphasizes.
And if the freelancer often remains an actor working from home in multi-clients, more and more hiring companies are trying to integrate them more. In order for freelancers to be more involved in community life, projects and management rituals, companies are increasingly applying presence policies to freelancers.
In short, a freelancer becomes an employee almost like any other without restrictions. “Classic” is enough to encourage employees to seriously freelance…
More and more employees are asking for a change of status
Thus, in 58% of companies that use freelancing, there were cases where employees wanted to work independently. What further increases the cohorts of these employees in companies. Remember that according to another study, 40% of workers in France said they wanted to settle their accounts post-Covid.
These aspirations – particularly among the youngest, full or hybrid telecommuting and the balance of power in favor of workers – once again call into question the traditional model of wage labor and working time.
Can the sacred CDI be replaced by ‘customer/supplier’, ‘customer/freelance’ relationships?
“Maybe not in general, but it is true that several types of relationships with the company, CDI or non-CDI, will coexist. And this will quickly create another problem: France is very structured around CDI, it will have to review the plans. If tomorrow there are 30% of people in the service model, we can’t say that the self-employment model is crazy efficient in terms of social protection,” he explained. There is very little about BFM Business Benoit Serre, vice president of ANDRH. and HRD of L’Oréal France.
“I don’t know that we will go towards the end of the wage system, but it is true that we will go to a different labor market based on the contract. We know that the number of professions that can work remotely is expanding. If tomorrow a job in France that covers 50 or 60% of people who work partially remotely, we will definitely working time to ourselves, but above all we will have to ask the question of its accounting, “he said.
*: Survey interviews with 526 HRDs or CEOs of French companies, representing a representative panel of all company sizes, between July 1 and September 10, 2021.
