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While the use of external consultants is a familiar part of working in the arts, the use of freelances in the sector has been a much shadier area altogether. Ian Duckworth illustrates how arts organisations can benefit from the support of freelance staff.

Though the UK has some of the lowest levels of unemployment in the EU and arguably the most flexible labour market, the arts sector does not utilise that workforce flexibility - namely freelances - to anything like the extent it could. Perhaps this is because freelances are seen as a tactical solution to cover the weaknesses of an organisation, brought in suddenly to get something or someone out of a jam. But in an employment market where finding the right skills can be a problem, it?s worthwhile remembering that some of the highest calibre arts professionals actually prefer to work as freelances. They prefer a tight definition to the task and do not like getting dragged in to the ?slow everything down to a crawl? nature of larger organisations.

The freelance advantage

An organisation may want to do something that is beyond its own speciality where two very different skills are required in the same person. An example of this is the classic difficulty in website design, where IT skills and design skills often seem mutually exclusive. IT services within the company are usually dedicated to keeping the administrative and financial systems going rather than facilitating the external needs, but the development of websites has highlighted the need for crossover skills between design content and IT skills. Individuals who combine these skills are rare and arts organisations often do not know how to find them. And yet, the burgeoning web industry has created many freelances of its own, with a crossover of skill sets.

Another tough area where a flexible, freelance approach would work is fundraising. As the arts world has had to meet more of its funding from private sources to match Lottery-funded expansion, it has found there are only a limited number of excellent fundraisers around, and the odds are that an arts organisation (particularly a smaller one) doesn?t employ one.

Freelances can also often tell an organisation what it doesn?t usually want to hear, in an acceptable way because they are semi-independent from the existing politics and hierarchies of control. Sometimes it takes a freelance to articulate what is self-evident.

Fitting in

Many organisations also now have the challenge of delivering on greater expectations without increasing headcount, a conundrum that can be sometimes be successfully negotiated by the use of freelances and consultants. But the advantages of using freelance staff are lost if the HR system tries to apply permanent staff processes to these temporary posts. Even worse is an organisation that wants to appoint but doesn?t know who makes the decisions on using a freelance, and appointment takes much longer to achieve or does not happen at all.

The person can be employed directly or through an agency. However, the simplicity of the situation can be endlessly complicated by organisations wondering how appointments can be managed within structured organisations. A clear understanding of why someone is needed, how they are going to fit into existing structures and how the equal opportunities policy or local conditions applied to employment fit the use of freelances should be cleared beforehand. Departments can sometimes panic, think they are doing the right thing and end up in a human resources mess.

The recruitment process

To effectively provide for freelances within the arts, a more accessible method of recruiting them needs to be developed. Most industries are well versed and familiar with the use of temporary freelance staff, but the mixture of permanent and temporary/freelance staff that characterises the commercial world is one that the arts sector is still unsure how to utilise naturally. Over-stretched organisations sometimes find it difficult to provide accurate briefs for temporary freelance posts, making for a process that would be entertaining at a children?s party. However, it?s not so much fun when a series of unsuitable candidates are appointed to do the work, because either the job outline was only one line long, or the job changes its nature a couple of times, making what were suitable candidates unsuitable as another requirement is added to the brief.

Clear briefs for consultants can be even more difficult to achieve. Briefs are often compiled and projects funded by multiple partners. Consequently they can suffer from many agendas. Like job descriptions they should assimilate what is wanted as a whole, and not be distorted by committee add-ons. What a brief for a consultant feels like as a whole is as important as what the detailed expectations are. Job descriptions that have been added to by several people who want different things can end up as little more than a list of tasks requiring unrelated skills.

A liberating experience

The use of freelances should be a liberating experience that adds real value to an organisation and benefits all concerned. A flexible approach, careful planning, tight briefs and access to the right professionals should ensure that this is the case.

Ian Duckworth is Operations Director of CLR Global Ltd, specialist consultants in cultural and leisure recruitment. t: 01733 866511; e: ian.duckworth@clrglobal.com