One thing is certain – many will raise their own rates in order to keep their income. However is it the time to raise your rates now that UpWork has increased their fees? For those who wish to continue paying the insane fees of UpWork, this is the only possible way they could earn something. However, not every client will keep up with the increase of taxes and rates at the same time. After all, people hire freelancers for it is a low-cost solution.

The Excuse of UpWork is also not backed up with any evidence, only naked words. The management of the platform has not given its users anything to support their words, just a fact – We are raising our fees, deal with it.

With the new fee structure of UpWork, not only freelancers, but employers will have to pay insane percentages of their budget for simply using the services of a site, who as we all know has a lot of problems, crashes often and so on. UpWork claims it will be more effective for the expensive contracts and the continuity of the work connections, yet in most circles a  project rarely goes beyond the $500, not to mention $10,000 .

Furthermore, employers will have to gift 2.75% to UpWork for every payment, and the freelancers will have to pay extra fees for transferring the earnings to their bank accounts. The more freelancers you have hired the more you pay in taxes. Usually, promotions work the other way around. What kind of a business owner would be happy about the increased taxes of UpWork? Now UpWork instead of encouraging employers to hire freelancers from their website, as they think they do, they actually repel them.

The only advantage now stays with those freelancers and employers who have worked together for a long time and trust their work relationship. The most common alternative is the usage of a time tracking software, so that freelancers can record their time and get paid on their own terms, instead of giving up about 25% of their earnings to UpWork.

Surely, with all these pricing changes, many employers will seize to use the services in the UpWork platform. The new “lower” commission for the usage of the website will repel other employers for using it and will cause the downfall of UpWork. As many freelancers will migrate to either other websites, or start using time and attendance tracking software to keep their working hours, and those who haven’t had the luck to find a job there just yet, will most likely give up their search.

Even at this moment a small search through the web will reveal the opinion of freelancers and employers about the UpWork fees’ increase coming in the beginning of June. The talents hunt on UpWork is about to change, and the entire freelance market will shift into other directions.

Many of the administrative, marketing, support and accounting services can be Outsourced and thus the pressure over the in-house workers will be lower, hence, they will work more effectively. The outsourcing market is vast, and the things you can outsource are numerous. Take a peek here, if you wanna see the most trending services.

Outsourced employees are ideal for short and long-term tasks. They can participate in any project as long as they are needed, working full time, hourly, part-time or once in a while. Whichever is convenient. This way you can save unnecessary expenses and hire someone on a long-term contract with a monthly payment when that person’s services are used rarely.

Outsourcing expenses are flexible. You can always come to an agreement for the price of the Outsourced service. There are strict prices, but depending on the work you need to be done and the outsourced service providers, the payment can be negotiated.

Outsourced workers are self-learning professionals or officially certified ones, with more or less experience and extra skills and abilities. Outsourced workers are usually trained, experienced and need just a little information on your requirements and standards to take on any task they are hired for. As long as you understand and follow the need of regular communication and feedback, your outsourced employee can be extremely useful and provide only quality work. No one can know how your company works, but if you are responsive and explain your idea and need, chances are you will stay happy with the outcome.

Outsourcing is not so hard to manage. As any other, the outsourced worker and their task need to be managed, monitored and tracked. Not only for your projects’ safety and success but for the convenience of accurately and appropriately used time and budget. Using a time and attendance tracking software with screenshots and activity levels is extremely helpful for the monitoring and accounting of your outsourced tasks and their proper risk management.

Outsourcing is a helpful solution that will boost the performance and productivity if you use it wisely. You can use it to accelerate your projects and cost-effectively complete them, without compromising the quality of the outcome, the wellbeing of your in-house staff and the standards of your company. Outsourcing, however, will meet your expectations only when you understand how it works and how to manage it.

To assure the quality of the service or product you are outsourcing it is common to create a strategy, system and standards which cover those requirements. The more efficient is the system you develop, the less likely it is the requirements are not met. However, for the system to work you need to apply time and activity monitoring – in other words, quality and time control.

When you use a time tracking software to manage your outsourced service providers as a part of your quality control management, you get insight into their very process and can actively participate in their tasks, give guidelines, spot errors/mistakes, assign convenient milestones and distribute tasks.

Outsourcing projects demand a great deal of attention to all details. Quality and time managing an outsourced process would require a regular communication during and before the process, clear and organized information upon assignment and availability if any further questions should arise.

Therefore, when using the outsourcing solution will be best to:

Schedule regular meetings with the outsourced team/employee if it is not a one-time job. Meetings are the perfect opportunity to catch up on the current condition of things, improve the organization of the work process and the strategy, as well as clear any doubts, issues and problems.
Monitor and time track all ongoing projects assigned to the outsourced service providers, in order to check up work times, hours, payments and quality.
Be responsive and open to questions as often at possible, if you would expect things to be done exactly the way you want them to be.
Be realistic about the time windows and if not sure how much time a task should take – ask the one who is supposed to do it and come up with a convenient turnaround that works for all of you.
Ask about the work time of your outsourced professional if you are not in a similar time zone, so you can optimize your schedule or your manager utilizes his time around it, since if the project is long and ongoing, it will be best to have some hours in which to communicate.

Outsourcing your projects is a step up the ladder to organizational and performance improvement, yet if the management is not up to the level it can be quite the opposite. A common solution among companies who hire outsourced professionals is to make a separate strategy for the very project being outsourced and assign a manager to the outsourced team/employee.

Excellent Time and Quality management of outsourced projects are  mandatory, therefore, using every tool and technique to ensure the smooth workflow is in your best interest. Outsourcing, as it is well known is a profitable solution, for those who use it right.