ClickUp

ClickUp to Manage Employees and Freelancers

September 3, 2024

How to Use ClickUp to Manage Employees and Freelancers

If you have to manage employees and freelancers at the same time, a project management tool will be your best friend. Because freelancers have different schedules, project needs, and roles compared to your employees, you’ll need a tool that can manage them and your in-house team members.

So, meet your agency’s new BFF for employees and freelancers: ClickUp. Read on to see how ClickUp can streamline and strengthen hiring, onboarding, collaboration, and more.

Have a clear hiring process

Hiring an employee compared to hiring a freelancer may be different when it comes to paperwork, taxes, and legal stuff. But process-wise, it’s basically the same. Which is great news if you want to follow a consistent system and save time!

We love ClickUp for hiring because you can use it for the entire hiring process. You don’t have to toggle between forms, docs, and other CRMs to keep track of everyone and everything.

Use ClickUp to create a job description and application form that funnels into a database. Then, you can customize a workflow to manage applications, interview notes, and applicant info. As you move along the hiring process, you can change the status of each applicant, and even loop in others for review.

Set expectations during onboarding

Once you’ve found your employee or freelancer, what’s next? You introduce them to your company, the team, and their role. Using ClickUp, of course.

With ClickUp, you can create onboarding-specific workflows that help your new team member:

  • Complete all the necessary paperwork (contracts, 1099s or W-2s, payroll info, etc.)
  • Learn how to use ClickUp according to their role (employees will likely have access to more projects and tasks, while freelancers’ access is more limited)
  • Get acquainted with the company
  • Understand the scope and expectations for their role (communication, hours, and workload will probably be different for your employees vs. freelancers)

Onboarding with ClickUp is simple, and it’s essential. Don’t skip this step! Whether you’re hiring someone full-time or someone temporary to help out, you want to set them up for success.

Psst…we have a ClickUp Hiring + Onboarding Template available in our shop to make it easier for you!

Use forms to gather and store important info

We mentioned how handy ClickUp’s application forms are at the beginning of this blog, but that’s just the start. You can use ClickUp Forms to create and customize workflows for team management, too.

Whether your agency is lean and scrappy or expanding quickly, you need a simple and easy to use database to manage your team. ClickUp allows you to store all your team members’ information in one spot (and have it accessible to everyone, if you’d like). You can store info such as:

  • Job role
  • Employee or freelancer status
  • Pay or salary information
  • Expenses
  • Payout schedule (weekly, biweekly, monthly, etc.)
  • Banking information

ClickUp does even more of the heavy lifting by turning form responses into tasks, too.

Let’s say your new freelancer just filled out a form about their pay. They included their hourly rate and their direct deposit information. They’re set up to track and submit their work hours. ClickUp will pull all that relevant information from their responses and create tasks or workflows to get them paid. It saves you time and ensures your bases are covered.

Manage sharing and permissions easily

One thing that can get tricky with a team of employees and freelancers? Giving people the right access to the right information when they need it — without compromising security or overwhelming your team members.

You typically bring in freelancers for a specific, time-sensitive project, while your employees work on ongoing projects. That means your freelancers only need access to specific tasks and materials while they’re part of your team. So, how much access should they be given in ClickUp?

Remember, the ClickUp Hierarchy sorts and organizes your company by team, project, department, or whatever system you decide. Here’s what the Hierarchy looks like:

  • Workspace
    • Space
      • Folder
        • List
          • Task
            • Subtask
              • Checklist

From there, you can add employees or freelancers as members to a large department Space, or something as small as one Task. You can even add a freelancer to a List or Task as a Guest instead of a Member to limit permissions further.  It’s up to you.

Here’s an example. Whenever we have a graphic design project and hire someone to create our animations, we add them to that particular task…and that’s it. They only see the information they need and don’t have (unnecessary) access to the entire company's backend.

ClickUp is key for team management

Having a team of both employees and freelancers can benefit any agency. You want great employees on your team that you can train and invest in. And you can bring in freelancers to get through busy seasons or add expertise to a project.

It’s important to manage employees and freelancers well to keep things running smoothly and your team happy. Use ClickUp to make team management easier and your processes better!

Need help getting your team systems up and running? We’re here to help you create automations and workflows that make collaborating and completing projects a breeze. Let’s connect and get your team flowing in ClickUp!

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