The difference in working with an offshore freelancer and a Virtual Employee?

An offshore freelancer and Virtual Employee both work remotely with their respective clients. An offshore freelancer works from home and a Virtual Employee works from VirtualEmployee.com's office in India, New Delhi. However, although both work remotely each works very differently with a client.

A Virtual Employee is a dedicated, full time employee working for only one client. Clients hire Virtual Employees for long term and permanent positions. Hiring a Virtual Employee is thus just like hiring a local employee. The only difference is that a Virtual Employee works remotely from India as opposed to physically from the employer's office.

In contrast, a freelancer is neither an employee nor a dedicated resource. Freelancers are contracted for short term, low budget projects and they often work with multiple clients simultaneously. The difference in working with an offshore freelancer and a Virtual Employee will inevitably be very different.

The concept of the Virtual Employee centres upon employer and VE working directly together; collaborating, communicating and interacting together just like any regular employer and employee physically working alongside each other would. Although a VE works from a different office than the client this does not preclude or hinder VE and client from working closely together. This is because all VEs are equipped with the latest and best hardware and infrastructure which makes physical distance irrelevant. An employer and VE will thus interact, collaborate and communicate just as regularly and as often as an employer and employee working physically from the same office would. Thus the first dimension to working with a VE is that a client works directly, closely and no differently with a VE than a locally hired employee, despite each working from two different offices.

When hiring a freelancer, however, client interaction is minimal. Freelancers predominantly work independently and collaboration is mostly limited. The project specification will be submitted by the client to the freelancer and the freelancer will mainly work autonomously on the work. Client and freelancer will interact from time to time, so that the freelancer can showcase the completion of any segment of the project and for any feedback on the work. But the freelancer and client will not directly work together on the project. In addition, a freelancer is not a dedicated resource; this means that unlike a Virtual Employee they are not available during all office hours. Freelancers work their own hours and because offshore freelancers can be situated half way around the globe this can mean their office hours drastically differ than the clients. Additionally, offshore freelancers work from home, often with poor hardware and infrastructure. This makes close collaboration using video conferencing, VOIP phone calls, PC sharing etc impossible even if the client and freelancer wanted to work closely together. Another factor that circumvents client and freelancer working directly together is the fact that many freelancers work with several clients together at once. Working directly with a client would thus be impractical. The distinguishing aspect therefore, is that freelancer and client do not work directly together, they work independently only interacting intermittently.

The second dimension to working with a Virtual Employee is that the client is in complete control. The client specifies the VE's daily/weekly activities, instructs how to complete the work, sets the employee's project deadlines, provides any required training, supervises the employee's work and provides constructive feedback. Employer and VE are in constant dialogue with each other throughout the day. In summary, the client outsourcing the project manages their dedicated Virtual Employee and the client has the same level of control and authority over a Virtual Employee as a locally hired employee.