It’s a reasonable question: why should my freelance clients work with someone who can only devote part-time hours to their project and is committed to an employer for three days a week? I think it’s actually an advantage. Here are my reasons.
It’s still sometimes perceived as ‘less than’, but it’s definitely a plus. I love being a ‘part-timer’ with a foot in each of two worlds, and think it’s time more of us who do it championed the advantages to employers and clients.
I work three days a week as an editor for Tearfund, an international development organisation. I also run my own editorial business, providing various writing and editing services for other charities and Christian publishers.
People sometimes assume that makes me a bit half-hearted: half an employee, or half a professional. As someone who is no stranger to working six-day weeks, I’d argue the opposite. I think being part-time in two different contexts is win-win for all parties.
Tearfund benefits from the range of work I do elsewhere. Every week, my freelance work brings me into contact with other organisations – their stories, their language, their challenges. I’m seeing what’s going on across the sector, and learning from the way different audiences are served with a huge range of resources. I’m exposed to new ideas all the time. That helps keep me on my toes.
My freelance clients get someone who is actively embedded in a professional organisation, working collaboratively with colleagues from other disciplines, delivering and receiving training, establishing and upholding editorial standards, and keeping up to date with in-house working methods. That helps me to relate to them and the pressures they face, and to understand what they need me to deliver.
And the benefits for me include a great mix of security and variety. I’m refining my skills and methods constantly, in more than one environment, and enjoy the creative challenges of both working styles. In both contexts, what I especially enjoy is working on projects that make a difference. That might be editing copy for an animation that explains how to set up a credit and savings group so communities can lift themselves out of extreme poverty (Tearfund). Or writing up a case study about foster carers for a fundraising pack that moves someone to donate (Action for Children). Or finding a tiny typo in ‘dehydroepiandrosterone’ in a chapter about HRT (British Menopause Society) – yes, that was me recently, and it was very pleasing.
My view: part-time isn’t second best, it’s an advantage. I’m not less invested, I’m more versatile.
Fellow freelancers and part-timers: what benefits to your work does your situation bring you and the people you work with?
Employers of part-timers and clients of freelancers: have I missed any of the advantages you receive from this arrangement?
Let me know what you think by commenting below, or drop me an email.
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