Freelancing and Regular jobs - A Right Mix!

The recent debate on Freelancing and Regular Jobs prompted me to share this insight.

Currently, the market is in turmoil and most companies are looking at avenues of how to reduce cost - all in order to have a good cash balance - which can be utilized in many ways - new acquisition, mergers, and expansion etc - all in order to strengthen their stand in this fluid market. These measures have resulted in salary cuts and cuts in many other benefits that the employee was privileged to have earlier. This sudden lack of these benefits have resulted in low morale and in some cases stressed life style as the employee is no longer able to spend and enjoy life as they used to. The power of freedom was a great ego and performance booster which the organizations enjoyed as these aided in the organization having lesser stressed employees.

Now the situation is different and employees are stressed - as many of them have mutely accepted the fact that something is better than nothing and are taking the salary and benefit cuts etc. This does have an effect on their personal space - which on the longer run would impact the organization that they are working on.

In order to ensure that the employee morale is boosted; there are a few organization which is taking this situation to a great advantage.
The strategy that they have used is:

Promote freelancing work in areas that does not conflict with the company's interest
Employees are being allowed to work as faculties, visiting professors, or work in areas which are not in the core area of competency of the company's business.  This allows the employees to earn the extra money that they lose due to salary cuts and the external experience that these employees get would also aid in promoting the growth within the organization.

Reduce the working days of employees and Reduce salaries.
This has two flavors - either a 4 day week or a 3 week month.
This has many benefits.
The employee is free to do his/her freelancing work and the company is able to hire more employees as contractors or part-timers who would do the work in the days when the permanent employee is off.
There is a good job rotation and the company is able to reduce its risk on the dependency on one employee to complete the task.
Each employee will have the freedom and the power to choose what they want to do in their free time, but with power, also comes responsibility. So as an ambassador of the company, the employee, apart from gaining experience and money as a freelancer can also strive to do really well in the permanent job - thus being competitive and beneficial to the company.

RISKS
Each new approach will have its risks. One major risk is this new model would need a good amount of collaboration amongst both the full time and the part time employees as the end customer is NOT to be affected by this.

To promote such collaboration, the company should establish systems and processes that will allow this to happen. Establishment of such a system/process is time consuming, but on the long run, could benefit the company.

Customer Satisfaction - the end customers who are used to a certain way of being handled can get frustrated between the shifts of employees. This has to be handled in a proper manner - either by partnering with the customer or by providing the same service with limited window or reduced costs.

What I have tried to put together is a way by which both freelancing and regular jobs can be used to benefit not just the individual, but also the organization. Yes, I do agree that there is a substantial risk involved but if used properly, this can be a good way to ensure that the employees are happy and the company also benefits a lot from this partnership.