Connecting businesses with HR freelancers for optimisation and agility

I’m Katharina Hinn, an Associate Director at Frazer Jones – supporting businesses and interim HR professionals across West, North and East Germany and in all sectors. It’s my role to connect businesses with experienced and talented interim HR professionals.

Our main focus is recruiting HR freelancers for projects where a knowledge gap needs to be filled quickly. Freelancers are specialists with their own entrepreneurial interest to complete projects conscientiously, professionally and with outstanding quality within a certain timeframe.

In today’s world, every company should explore various forms of recruitment to ensure that ongoing processes and projects run smoothly and predictably from a business perspective.

While permanent employees guarantee the stable internal growth of the company, freelancers provide flexible, highly-qualified knowledge on demand to boost company goals in the short term. The combination of stable growth and agile external influence is indispensable.

The increasing demand for interims in Germany

The demand for interim HR professionals in Germany has been increasing as more businesses rely on freelancers across HR – including HR Managers, HR Transformation Leads and Chief HR Officers.

These freelancers can cover an array of specialisms, ranging from HR generalists to specialist experts. We’ve noticed a particular increase in roles across diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), compensation and benefits, HR digitalisation and transformation.

According to 2023 study by Freelancer, Germany is one of the top 10 countries in the world for freelancing. The Gen Z workforce prioritises flexibility and independence over 9-5 office jobs, so SIA predicts that over 50% of the global workforce will be freelancers by 2027.

How do businesses benefit from hiring interims?

This increased demand and appetite is driven by a combination of benefits for employers and for HR interim professionals themselves. For businesses, freelancers offer a huge number of advantages to support their HR objectives and strategies:

• Fresh perspective: hiring an HR freelancer gives businesses access to a fresh perspective and unique expertise gained from a cross-section of experiences – which could be from different business sizes, sectors and more. Freelancers in HR often have specialised skills that can be applied on a short-term basis to cover someone’s leave, or to focus on a specific project. 82% of freelancers’ time is spent on productive tasks
• Short-term availability and flexibility: one of the greatest benefits for businesses when hiring an HR freelancer is their ability to work at short notice. As many freelancers go from short-term contract to short-term contract, they are usually available quickly to support the business
• Cost saving: it’s expensive to employ full-time HR professionals, especially when you consider added costs like annual leave, benefits, bonuses and office space. HR freelancers work on a short-term basis and can cost the business substantially less, especially if they work remotely. According to Freelancer, 64% of freelancers work remotely, while 33% prefer hybrid and remaining 3% on-site

What are the benefits of being a freelancer?

In turn, there are also many benefits freelancers. According to Freelancer’s study, 73% of freelancers say they became a freelancer partly because they like to be their own boss. 52% cited better opportunities for a higher income. 51% said they like the flexible working hours. Other benefits include:

• Flexibility, independence and work-life balance: interim HR roles can often provide more flexibility than permanent positions. Professionals also have the chance to choose which projects they work on and can manage their own workload independently. 77% of freelancers will reject a project if the hourly rate is too low
• Improved skillset and knowledge: freelancers can develop their skills by working with a diverse range of companies and projects. They are often challenged to solve unique problems, and have the opportunity to work with different people and perspectives
• Financial benefits: interim HR professionals are also tempted by the competitive compensation they can receive because of their specialist and expert skills. This is especially true for day or project-based rates. According to Freelancer, 73% of interim professionals are satisfied with their income

How can Frazer Jones help businesses and interim professionals?

At Frazer Jones, we always try to find the right match for businesses and freelancers. We work proactively with clients to make sure our specialised talent pool is accessible at any time. This pool and our market knowledge enables our fast delivery of highly-qualified candidates within 48 hours.

The other ways we help include:

• Ensuring all processes around interim specialists are compliant by law
• Working with candidates to ensure their soft skills are also suitable for businesses
• Strategic support and cooperation, where we work on a basis of trust with both businesses and freelancers to ensure success for both parties
• Recruitment consultancy to help both parties overcome any challenges – throughout the initial recruitment process and beyond

We can work with new and existing clients to connect them with interim professionals. We see freelancers as the perfect addition to traditional permanent recruitment – helping businesses become more agile in the face of all eventualities.

To discuss your interim hiring needs or career, please get in touch with me directly at katharinahinn@frazerjones.com or complete our form below: