Transcribe your podcast
[00:00:05]

Hello and welcome to the Virtual Frontier, the Podcast about Virtual teams created by Virtual teams I'm Daniel, your host, and I'm part of the team here to Virtual Frontier. Today's topic of our Q&A session is "The 10 steps to the perfect freelancer experience strategy". Working with freelancers and project workers can be quite a challenge when a company is starting to expand into the global Talent Pool. From the job posting to right Onboarding setting expectations to building a supportive and safe work environment there's a lot to consider. Let's find out what important steps you can take when starting to work with freelancers around the globe to have an amazing experience for everyone in your team. If you like to show, subscribe on YouTube review it on Radio Public, Follow us on Spotify, Sticher, Audible, Google Podcast or any other platform you use to enjoy podcasts. You can also engage with our community Discord. All the links you can find below in the description. So without further ado, let's dive into the seventh CEO Q&A session at the Virtual Frontier. Enjoy the conversation.

[00:01:19]

Thank you very much for joining us today on our next Q&A session on the Virtual Frontier on our topic today is The 10 steps on to the perfect Freelancer experience strategy. How we arrived to this topic for today. I last time I checked on all the different platforms where we work and hire freelancers, we have a really outstanding reputation and ranking without self praising . But I want to get to the to the depth of it and see where this come from and what possible steps we have taken over the last couple of years to enable that.

[00:02:05]

So my first question is, in this process of working with freelancers, the first step is, of course, you have need and you need to hire a freelancer. How Podcast the job posting and the process works when you're offering a job and how you do that as a company?

[00:02:24]

Yeah, that's a good question. I think that's a really wide topic. But the more excited I am to dive deeper into that. A nice cat you have in your window, by the way.

[00:02:35]

Yeah thank you.

[00:02:37]

So it all starts from I mean, that's that's more general. But you need to know what exactly you want. You know, there is a study from the Harvard University that is called Building the OnDemand Workforce, where they describe that talent is the number one success factor for growth in the future, in the digital economy, in the Remote economy.

[00:02:59]

But it's not just talent. It's having the right people at the right time with the right skills and then in the right roles, because they also stated, I found this site very exciting. They said that most managers need that. They know they want to hire somebody, but they have no idea what the result of hiring this person should be and which exact skills they need. They just think, OK, I need somebody who does this and that.

[00:03:29]

And they typically are very stressed. So they don't really consider, OK, what is exactly what is the profile I really need. And the result is. They create some abstract descriptions where everyone looks at and asks himself, OK, what do they want from me? It must be a young and dynamic person. It must be a great communicator. An expert in technology needs to know marketing fundamentals and blah, blah, blah, blah. Nobody can really understand what that is.

[00:03:58]

The result is only most frustrated people that are desperate to find the new job will apply there because they feel OK, they are open for everything. So they will also take me. But those people that are really great experts, they will never say yes to such a job description because they exactly want to know when they are seen as a valuable contributor to the business and when they are successful. And that needs to be a precise description. So what I recommend is starting with a paper and a pen or take a template from Flash Hub how to define a role properly, which means you defined the purpose of the role. You define the skills you want to have, you define the availability the person should have to define the maximum hourly rate you want to invest so that it's profitable for your business. You want to define the accountability and the responsibility. OK, then you also should consider, OK, is it important that we have availability with a specified reaction time that might be relevant if the person is working in another time zone. But really nailing this role, getting really cristal clear about this role is important to find the person that fits this role.

[00:05:08]

Otherwise you might get somebody, but it's not really likely the person you really, really need. So the role is number one. Yeah.

[00:05:21]

I had also this experience so many times as a freelancer, if you look at job postings there are like three types of job postings. One is like a two sentence job postings. We need someone to help us, like just make it short. The second one is like a one kilometer long job description of several hundreds of lines. And there's the sort where one is like a specific one, transparent one, where you get just inside all the things that you mentioned before.

[00:05:57]

And that's where good freelancers probably apply the most. When we talk about getting like talents or top talents for four year project, what do I need to really take care of when I want to work with top talent and how do I stand out as a company when I would like to work with them so they probably going to work with me and not with someone else.

[00:06:28]

So what you see very often when it comes to employer branding, so marketing to attract employees is that they put into the job description that you get paid well, which is self explanatory, right? I mean, you need to pay people well, that should deliver outstanding work. Otherwise, why should they do it? Then they write things like, we have a kicker. We have feel good so, but this is all not related to work, OK? You find people that want to have another social environment where they feel taken care of and that might be important, but this has nothing to do with getting results at work.

[00:07:09]

So, yeah, I think it's really important to provide clarity, to provide clarity instead of what you also said, like not taking your time as a as an employer to really write down what you want and then hire a person. You see that you don't get the result that you have expected and then you blame the person I would have expected differently from you. But that's I mean, this will never increase performance. What will happen is that the person feels blamed and good people will leave.

[00:07:41]

Because let me tell that story from four days of my life when I was employed in the business, because that's exactly what happened there. I was at the university and I had to pay my bills so I needed a job. And I thought, OK, like a student job. I tried. I was a software developer, so I applied for a company. They hired me. First day I came into this business, it was a small business, like sixteen employees or so.

[00:08:12]

And then the boss welcomed me but was totally stressed, had no time for me, and they sent me home because they didn't have the time to organize my workstation. That was back in the days when we didn't have like Remote work and laptops and smartphones. I need to have a desktop computer to do my programming work. So I had to go home and that is horrible for a student because I had I had one day completely reserved to earn money.

[00:08:38]

And then they told me, sorry, we don't have a laptop so you can go home, but you also don't get paid. And I was like, OK. Next day I organize things came into this business. He organized my workstation perfect. And then I asked him, look, I don't want to be here to earn money. I want to understand how I can become a valuable member of this business. So I want to understand what needs to happen like three months from now that you say, well, that was a great choice that we hired Manuel.

[00:09:09]

And he looked at me like, what are you asking me? And I said, of course, I want to be successful here. I just don't want to earn money. I can earn money everywhere and every business. They all offer me a job, but I want to be successful. And he just was like, OK, we have a project you need to get. The project done isn't perfect. I can just influence the coach. Do I have a team?

[00:09:29]

I said, no, you are the programmer. You need to get the project on as OK. So when I write code, I mean you do this for the last ten years. What is your quality standard? Are there any coding guidelines? How do you deploy. How do we quality assurance. How do we software testing? He had no idea about this, so what I did is I understood this and I started to work with high motivation to deliver great result, even without all these things.

[00:09:58]

Now, I did the best I could third day in this business. I came in, the boss looked like totally angry at me and asked him. Did I do something wrong, and he said, I mean, look at this code that doesn't match any quality standard that we have. And I was like, oh, now we are talking. You mentioned quality standard. Which one do you mean? I asked for that. I'm happy you have it, but I didn't see it.

[00:10:25]

And then you talked about some general abstract things. I had no idea you you need to use best practices. And i was like it's OK I do this. I use the Best Practice i learned at university. Which ones do you mean that should be different? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Nothing concrete, so we had we had a forty five minute conversation about thirty thousand feet, abstract ideas, I went back to my desktop computers, still had no idea what I should change.

[00:10:52]

So I knew that my motivation decreased by 250 percent because now I was sitting at my computer and I knew I could give my best still, it won't be enough. He will not be satisfied with my work, but can't tell me what I should do differently. That's that's a horror. That's a nightmare for people that really want to deliver outstanding results. So next day I came into the business well, knowing that I can do whatever I want, they won't be happy.

[00:11:23]

But then he said to me, a Manuel I know yesterday that wasn't nice. And I thought, oh, OK, he got it. So now I get great feedback instead, what he said. You need to work overtime today because tomorrow is the deadline the client asked for an earlier deadline. We accept that, oK, now I have to do it right. And he said yes, because the others are on vacation. And I looked at his desk and I saw that he had a bunch of bottles of Oettinger beer.

[00:11:54]

So he was sitting at his desk drinking beer, telling me I have to work over hours because the deadline is tomorrow. And I said, I will now say five minutes at my desk top, right, my cancellation letter and goodbye, you will never see me again. And that was the time when I decided I want to create a better business and different a business that provides clarity for people, that treats people that really want to perform with this clarity and supports them instead of blaming them, because I also don't know what I want from them. So clarity, I would say, is is the key to really keep good people in the business.

[00:12:33]

And now also for our listeners now, you have to like also the negative example how you shouldn't do it when you want to retain top talent.

[00:12:43]

Oh, you say I'm a top talent. Thank you very much. That's an honor to hear.

[00:12:48]

Yes, your are. Manuel there is the next step. Like we already touched a little bit in your example in the story, you told is transmitting the why? Why is it important to know your company Why first for yourself and how to make sure that freelancers or project workers are committing to that Why also?

[00:13:12]

So why is it important to know the why of the company, because how would you describe or determine the way of hiring somebody else? I mean, very often companies are created and the why is the business owner needs to make money. So when you hire somebody, the why is that you want to make more money with this person. That's typically the way when you have a business and the purpose of the business is making money, which is the purpose of most corporations as they are solely measured on shareholder value.

[00:13:45]

Then you hire people to leverage their time in order so they make more money for the business. But this is not fulfilling for people. They don't want to work for a boss knowing that the boss wants to make more money with them. I mean, they don't tell it. That's why we all have intransparent salaries and hide everything and talk about internal stuff and about people, but not directly to people. OK, that's the kind of that's the kind of culture that exists, I don't support that. What I think is another, if you turn it around, what is the purpose of a business?

[00:14:20]

It's to solve problems for clients. That's the only way or the only reason why your business can exist in the future, because it's valuable for clients and solves problems for clients. So now, once you understand that your business needs to solve problems for clients, you need to define for which clients and which problems and what are your offers to solve these problems. Once you have them based on your offers, you can align the rest. You build teams that build your critical client flow, your value chain, basically, OK, and in these teams you hire people that contribute to that.

[00:14:57]

So, for example, if your business is, I can say from my own experience, a software development business or any service provider, you want to make sure that you have somebody that leads your clients. OK, so for that purpose, we we have a team, it's called a squad. And the squad has the purpose to, on the one side, make the client happy and satisfied and on the other side, make money for the business, because if the business doesn't make money, it will die and then we cannot serve clients any more means no problems are solved for clients anymore.

[00:15:27]

OK, so money is important, but it's not the purpose. Now we have this squad and one part of the squad is making and ensure the clients are satisfied. We hire a person which is called Customer Satisfaction Manager. The purpose of this person is to ensure the client is satisfied and if not organize, arrange things, but first of all, find out why he's not satisfied and what he or she needs to be satisfied and then try to arrange these things.

[00:15:55]

That's what a customer satisfaction manager does, and that's the purpose of this particular person. So this is how we define the roles and the line, the purpose of the business with the purpose of the teams, with the purpose of every individual person in a team, and then people know what they are doing. And that's more fulfilling than just blindly executing stupid tasks.

[00:16:19]

How you could make sure as a company owner or even more on a team level, that is why it's understood an already integrated into a daily work and a teamwork, because often I have the feeling on many companies see freelancers, like adjusters, task fulfillers. And and that's also like the level of integration that the freelancer feels and and gives.

[00:16:44]

Yeah, of course. Yeah. How to make that. Sure. First thing is you need to know it. Of course most if you, if you ask people in the business, complete the sentence, you need to be in the team so that.... Guess what they don't know, why they have to be on the team, then maybe they say because I need to do the work of this guy, that delegates work to me or so. But that's just what you say.

[00:17:07]

It's just executing tasks because somebody has work to do and you do it for him or her. And that also means you are highly dependent on this person, because if he or she doesn't tell you what to do, you have no idea what you should do because you don't know the purpose. You can't figure out yourself what you should do to expand this purpose, to contribute to these goals. And I think this this clarity can be created with KPI's, I mean, you might have a purpose, but that's still abstract, that's thirty thousand feet.

[00:17:41]

OK, now how to go down to the ground so that you can walk alone to the goal. Where you want to be is you need to measure things. You need to measure how your team expands or progresses towards this purpose. As a example let's pick the example of a Customer Success Manager again. If the purpose of the Customer Success Manager is ensuring that clients are satisfied, first thing this person needs to do measuring, how satisfied are the clients?

[00:18:07]

OK, now the next question is how you can do that. And that's by measuring like with the net promoter score, asking the question on a scale from one to ten, how satisfied are you? Very easy thing. So with this with this question, you can measure everything and anything, even if it is personally related and very subjective. You can always ask people, how are you doing today on a scale from one to ten? OK, and if it's a six, the person needs to ask, OK, what can we do differently so that you give us an eight or nine?

[00:18:37]

So what this alignment brings and this purpose is leadership with clarity and measurable results and anything else doesn't matter. It's all about results. It's not about tasks and activities. What you said when when freelancers or employees are hired just to execute work, they have no meaning. They don't know what they are doing in the business, why they do it. So they just say, yes, I do it because the boss says, I should do it. They do it and then they deliver it.

[00:19:03]

And then what happens is the boss comes sometimes and says, but you should think a little bit ahead. You should not just execute stupid tasks, but how should a person think ahead if the person doesn't know why he or she is here in the business and how his work contributes to the business? So if possible and instead of relying on, like, subjective opinions of a manager or boss telling you or Daniel, you are doing great and you feel, yeah, nice, but you have no idea what you are doing good.

[00:19:33]

And what you should continue doing and what you should stop doing. But if I give you actionable feedback, very concrete then you know what you should continue doing, and I know that you understood how you can improve. So it all comes down from my perspective to clarity, measurable results that ensure that your work that you do really follows the purpose of yourself, the team and the business. I think that is that is really crucial.

[00:20:03]

All right, um, let's assume the first steps that we already talked about are completed now we're entering like the phase of Onboarding new team member. Can you tell us step by step how to Onboarding, Workflow and cycle is arranged at your companies or your company?

[00:20:24]

Yeah. So once we have the role defined, we know the purpose of this person based on the purpose. We know the skills the person needs to bring to be successful in this job. Then we have two onboarding Workflows one Onboarding Workflow is the general Onboarding to the company. That's a checklist saying person needs an email address. Person needs access to all kinds of Tools OK person needs to get a video training for specific company related things. Then the person gets a role Onboarding, which is also video training.

[00:20:57]

They get enrolled into this training that are small tests and at the end of the video training there is in this in this checklist they process there is one action item, which means precent your role to the team that hired you. And then they present their understanding of the role while the team gives feedback. And that helps both to understand what the role does, what's the purpose, what this person understood, and the team can give feedback to this to this person.

[00:21:27]

So, that's basically that's the two step Onboarding. Onboarding to the company, Onboarding to the team, and once you need specific knowledge, for example, you get on board to a project team of a project that lasts for like six months or longer or maybe even just two months. But then you you need to get a lot of knowledge from what happened in the past, why they did it, what are the problems, what's the current focus? And I recommend to have like presentations that should happen every two weeks in the project team record it.

[00:21:59]

And when you record that the person that joins the team can simply watch the previous 10 videos and got all these historic discussions, features and changes in the project. So they have the knowledge, persistent from the system instead of like just needing to spend time with a mentor that knows a little bit, but not everything. And then so many people are involved. Yeah, it's maybe an Onboarding as a self-service. Because if you have that, then you also see if those people you hired, if they really want to be successful in the job and you see that by they do the Onboarding, then the present the role and they have no clue what they're talking about.

[00:22:40]

That means they didn't watch this video and the Onboarding or they watched it, but they didn't understand it and they didn't ask for support. And I don't want to work with people that don't achieve their goal. And doing the Onboarding as a self-service is the first goal. And if they don't ask for support, they simply don't want to be successful. So that is the that is the rule and the process of Onboarding.

[00:23:09]

When someone is already working with the company for a while recognizing their work and their achievements will really important in the preparation of our conversation today, I found there was a study done a while ago from Globeforce Workforce, and they have like a mood trackers what they do. And they found out that 69% of the employees say they would work harder if they felt their efforts will be better recognized. And this is, I guess, a huge topic. So how you can assure that this there's a culture of recognition of the achievement that someone has done in the company and how you can nourish that, so as we know, 69 percent of them would work harder. And I think there's a lot more of positive benefits doing that right now.

[00:24:06]

Absolutely. I mean, the rule number one is the leader should do it first, right? If the leader is a role model in any case. But if you are poor role model and you don't appreciate people, why should anyone else in the company do it? So start with the leaders. Appreciate people publicly. OK, there is this rule, appreciate it publicly and punish one to one. And in a Remote culture, of course, it's not that easy because you can go to an office and then there are like 20 people and say, hey, Daniel, you did a great job because of.

[00:24:38]

And it's important not just not just to say you did a good job, but also to appreciate the concrete behavior, because that's what people remind. And then they will continue doing that or others will see it and they will start doing that. OK remind or appreciate the concrete activity, the concrete behavior. We have a Slack channel which is appreciation alert, where people can appreciate others. But that's really a cultural challenge, as in most businesses, people are there to solve problems.

[00:25:11]

If you don't need to solve problems, then you wouldn't have a job because then anything else would be automated. But if you need to solve problems, the downside is that your brain always is just engaged with problems and you get a focus on problems. And when you are focused on problems, it's hard to see the good things. And if you can't see the good things, it's hard to appreciate somebody because you simply don't see it. That's what I see in our business, even sometimes.

[00:25:38]

And that's why I push people hard to really say and observe what's going well. That's like an attitude of gratitude, right? If you if you always do that, this doesn't work. That doesn't work. This doesn't work. You will have a miserable work experience because everything is just about problems. Nothing works. And but but if you take the different perspective, you appreciate what works and you appreciate people for what works, then you have a much better feeling.

[00:26:06]

And if you have that, it's easier to solve problems because then you just don't look at the problem and think ohh fuck another problem. You feel like you are empowered to solve any kind of problem as there is so much working out there and you welcome the single problem and solve it and you are proud because you did something that contributed something good to the business? That's a different perspective on problems, but it's not common sense to think like this. And I think it's a leadership, an important leadership skill or duty even to help people see the good things and appreciate each other. And it starts from the leader doing that.

[00:26:52]

Yehahe next step on this journey and having a great experience for the Freelancer and also for the company is asking or getting feedback from your co-workers. So showing that the company cares. And I would like to ask you how how you get to how you get the feedback and on how well the team is actually the well being and could this also be done at a bigger scale and probably how?

[00:27:24]

You mean how I, as a leader could understand how my team is doing? How is their well-being? Right.

[00:27:33]

How to get a feedback and why is that important?

[00:27:35]

I ask them every week. I mean, I ask them every week. But asynchron Check-in. We have like a bot that asks them every week for some check ins, for some reporting, some data. And they also report, OK, how are you doing today on a scale from one to ten? You know, they should also get it right. Yeah. So and that is that is just helpful to see. OK, this guy has an eight, OK, this guy gives a ten.

[00:28:00]

Then I would ask, whoa, OK, why is it ten? Because most people never give a ten but some people just give us six. Last time I had a person that just gave me five and I was like whoa. And I want you to contact the team immediately. And that's the power of numbers because you see the person always has an eight or nine. And then he has a five something must be wrong and maybe it's so wrong that they don't even feel like, OK, I now can ask for support also, but it's a hidden help.

[00:28:30]

And then I contacted this person and we figured out that at home there's really big problems. It wasn't even related to the business, but at home there were big problems. So within 30 minutes of the call we identified it's better if this person takes four weeks off and we arrange in the team that two other people try to replace him for four weeks. As a result, this person could make four weeks off just after a 30 minute call. And this gives the person confidence and the support, because I see when they always give an aid and then it's a five, I know there is something definitely wrong and this person needs support.

[00:29:07]

And if I see that as a leader, I can go in and simply help. If I just see people like they complain and they everyone just complains once a day or so. But I don't know if that's really a big problem or right. But getting really the number and comparing the numbers over time not to punish people and say, oh, this guy always has just a five I fire him, but to support people. I think that's really powerful and people appreciate that when they see that you care, but I can't just care what I know, right.

[00:29:39]

Sometimes it happens that I had that in the past. The person didn't answer for two days and said, sorry. I mean, that's not good because we agreed on a response time of the day. I had some questions. I need your support. You didn't reply. So from my perspective that feels like, I cannot rely on you anymore. And then the person started crying. I said, OK, my grandmother died. So that's totally fine, but tell me if you tell me I can know it, if I know it, I can respect it.

[00:30:11]

But if you don't tell me I make my own story, that might not match your story. That's why you might be disappointed that I don't have understanding for your situation. But I have I just need to know to be transparent about what happens and then everyone can understand it and support you. That's how how I would deal with it.

[00:30:32]

Well, you almost answered a good chunk of the question I had for you right now What strategies can be used to work with the received feedback in a structured way? Probably you can give us a little more insight about how the our standup bots and everything is arranged around that. So people get a little bit better insight.

[00:30:56]

Yeah. So the bot is owned by the team leader and the team leadcan put the question into the bot. That means if I am a team lead, first thing I need to know is that the quality of my questions determines the quality of the answers. If I just ask. Are you projects going well, the quickest answer you can get, at least if you have a lot of work, you say yes. Can I work with that? No.

[00:31:22]

Or asking, OK, how are you doing? Typical answer is good. So what are you doing with that? Nothing. So better ask a question that is more aligned with what you want to get. For example, not asking how are you doing? But how are you doing on a scale from one to ten where one man's miserable and ten means in heaven? So this is always the first question. Then I try to help people reflect on why they feel as they feel.

[00:31:47]

So I ask them which one word would describe your mood best. And in the beginning, that makes people think, OK, what does it mean, but then they reflect on, OK, why am I feeling like this? And maybe how can I change that by giving the things another meaning or doing something differently. So these are the two emotional and well being parts. The rest is related to the work. For example, what's your revenue forecast for the next month?

[00:32:12]

What's your profit forecast for this month? Who is who are your three most happiest clients? Who are your three most unsatisfied clients? Why is that? What can you do to change that? OK, it helps people to every week reflect about those things that are really important because it's so hard to stay focused on what really matters in everyday distractions. But this bot that happens that that ask the same questions every week always brings the questions that are really important top of your mind so that you get back to focus on what really matters.

[00:32:48]

That's basically what this stand up bot does. And after checking in, sometimes we have a question on which question do you want to discuss personally? And then we can have a meeting, if there's a question. But in most cases, there is no question some people, they just want to talk. Then it's OK. We make a 15 minute just to talk. Yeah, this is how it goes, that takes a lot of time and unnecessary meetings where people are just sitting there typing at their computer, hoping that nobody sees that they are not present in the meeting.

[00:33:18]

But if they don't have, that's the same with purpose. If you don't know why you should be in this meeting and what you should contribute, you just feel it's a waste of time. You are just the meeting, because somebody invited you maybe it's your boss. So you think you have to be there, as this person told you, but it's not beneficial for everyone. If you're sitting in a meeting, just listen, have no idea what it's about, what the outcome of the meeting should be, right? Most most meetings just have to result they have another meeting because things are still not clarified. I think that's a total waste of time, so we decided to those Check-ins asynchronously and that's save me, I don't know, 10 to 12 hours per week.

[00:34:01]

Yeah, so true, and it works really well for our team setting. Yeah, next step on our journey on shared knowledge, be supportive, especially in Remote environment, access and fluency of information and knowledge it's just really important. Why is it indispensable to have this like completely 100 percent fluent knowledge inside the company? And how do I make sure my documentation and the structure are all settled for this sharing attitude?

[00:34:36]

I would separate that a little bit. Because I think we don't need to overcommunicate and share every knowledge to anyone because that's results in this email copy recipients where you have one e-mail, you send it to 20 people, everyone is distracted. Most people have no idea what they should do with it, but they spend time with the e-mail for no results. So that just stresses people if it happens too often and it wastes time and money. So I am for understanding which information, which piece of information needs to go to whom and why.

[00:35:12]

That's what I call structured communication. For example, this check-in bot I need to know, the data regarding revenue, well-being and customer satisfaction. So I specifically ask for that. And then I get this data and I can do my job. That structured communication on an asynchronus channel. We don't need to have a meeting for that. That's what I mean with asynchronously. But I am for reducing information in the company to prevent information overload, which we all have from our digital life.

[00:35:45]

So that contributes again to clarity. If you build a business that is made to provide clarity to clients and employees, leadership will be easier because you can focus on things that really matter instead of just getting distracted with all kinds of communication every day that will increase the performance and reduce the stress level. So this is what I would focus on, really structuring your communication and clearly understanding which information needs to go to whom and when and where.

[00:36:16]

Right. Now, the next step on our journey is also like them, and I think you're a big fan of that on the evaluation and the review process. Why do we need to focus more on objectives and progress rather than, let's say, for example, presence and subjective control?

[00:36:39]

Yeah, that's what we talked about in the whole Podcast, right. Because if people just execute what somebody tells them, that's stupid work and has no meaning. And even most importantly, if you don't tell people what they should do, they don't do anything as they don't know. Why they are here. If they know why they are here, they can figure out themselves what they should do. So I think that's an important that's a very important part to give people a meaning and with that give them a purposeful work environment.

[00:37:15]

OK, um, as we have experienced over the last year um where companies were forced to work remotely over the globe a lot of things have shifted and now we already have like several news... this phrase like of the nomad company, right, the nomad workers. What does it look like we work with freelancers and globally distributed teams over the last couple of years? Right. What does it look like when you have, like, a 100 percent virtual company, a company a nomand company where co-workers are arranging their work completely flexible and self organized, and how did it change your perspective?

[00:38:06]

Yeah, it works. And it feels like working with adults instead of having a kindergarden of people that need to take care of that, always want to help you, want me to help them solve their problems. And like, yeah, it feels like working with adult people with people that really want to take ownership over their work experience over their life, people that appreciate independence, self-determination in the same way as I did it. That's why I became an entrepreneur.

[00:38:36]

And it feels like I'm aligned with a team that shares the same values and pulls the same rope towards the same direction, instead of me being the boss pushing other people to deliver the results I want. Yeah, it's much less stressful, it's it simply feels more like a cooporation instead of me against the team.

[00:39:01]

Great, Manuel, thank you very much for your time today. I think we got some good insights and it was fun talking about this experience and the different steps. I hope this will serve some of our listeners and see you next week and next Q&A session.

[00:39:17]

Thank you very much. Take care. See you next week.

[00:39:22]

I want to thank my for the great insights on how to get a perfect, freelancer's experience strategy in place and what steps you might need to consider on the way. If you want to learn more about how to scale your business at any time working with global top talents and make work better visit flashhub.io/start to get free access to the virtual business training. Learn in this free training how you can build, grow and scale your business with virtual teams and global freelancers.

[00:39:51]

You can subscribe to the Virtual Frontier on Apple Podcast Google Play, Sticher Spotify YouTube of Apple Podcast can be found. And while you are there you can give us a review. On behalf of the team here at the Virtual Frontier I want to thank you for listening. So until next episode, keep exploring new frontiers.