Elance updates tools for hiring, managing contract labor

Online jobs marketplace Elance is getting a big update next week, designed to bring more small businesspeople into the world of hiring workers they don't know and will never meet.

The service will layer in a workflow that should make the whole Elance process easier for newbies. There's a new time-tracker widget for contractors that automatically feeds data into the project page and the invoicing system. (It can be configured per job, if the contract is for piecework instead of time-based.) Elance, by the way, does not support keyboard logging or periodic screen capture of a worker's PC, as ODesk does.

Time served.

Also new: free voice and chat communication support for hiring managers and contractors. People will be able to place anonymous calls even to contractors they haven't yet hired, if they want to talk with them first. (The service will call both parties and connect them, protecting the caller from revealing his or her caller ID.)

Elance is also launching a skills testing program, much like ODesk's, that allows contractors to get certified for particular types of work.

As before, hiring managers must place some of the funds for a job into escrow accounts, from which Elance will pay contractors when work is delivered or time milestones are met.

All the tasks that are under way get their own status page where customer and provider can communicate on their project. The system enforces the creation of status reports and requires each page be flagged with either an "on schedule" or "problem" tag. The goal is to keep communication open and keep projects moving.

All these additions to the Elance product set are designed to make users more comfortable with the evolving service economy, although as CEO Fabio Rosati says, the train has already left the station: there's a "huge exodus of work that used to be done in offices and face-to-face, and it is starting to move online."

Rosati's goal is to make Elance into an "online workplace." By providing matchmaking tools, workflow helpers, and communications services he wants to make the site, essentially, into a virtual office building--not just the bulletin board Elance was before.

The business is certainly sound, and the timing is right for this push. Elance takes a cut of all contractor payouts (4 percent to 6 percent depending on the volume of business the hiring party is doing on the site). That's a small overhead to pay given the reticence businesses have now to hire new staff. Elance is about more than just that, of course, but in this economy, that's probably enough to get the attention of a whole new troupe of users.

You can check out any time you like.

See also: Crowdspring, Taskmarket, RentACoder.

[Vindobina]

Looks good...but what about mobility? I know TSheets just launched an iPhone app, any word if Elance has plans to do the same?

[thomsan]

i think that "if you are not confident that you can do this, than it's better to hire people who have expertise in that field?. From last 1-2 decades the % of outsourcing or hiring people has tremendously increased. and i have done same thing.
But i have selected different path.i mean to say that i haven't go though the freelancers or any bidding site.i preferred to search directly a good and reliable virtual service providing companies. The actual reason behind this is ?searching and selecting freelancers or bidding site is quite time consuming?. And after placing your requisite over there it will definitely take around 1-2 months to get the required virtual employees. it means that over all process will might take 2-3 months.
And the bottom line is wastage of time as well as money.
So, i moved to marketraise (www.marketraise.com) virtual service providing company. And i am fully satisfied with there services. so i will suggest you all to carefully hire the people for virtual services along with keeping in mind the most important factors ?time and money?.

thomsan

[dcrsol]

Good day&night

I'm top100 on elance www.dcrsolutions.biz aka connects.elance.com and would like to clarify several aspects:

1. Last year Elance changed their subscription plans and got expensive by intrducing the "connects", since then I grown my business with 150%, why? so simple, quality. (avg project on me is above 3k right now)

2. If you're looking to get something done professionally and you do not have a development background, then that's the way to go; if you know programming and looking for a 100job, then rentacoder.com is the best fo you; I'd strongly suggest to avoid using sites like guru.com that encourage people submitting templated bids.

3. There is an earlier comment that encourages virtual assistance; maybe... however, I really doubt someone can tell me better how to achieve my goals, especially when that person is a marketing 3rd party with the main objective to increase market i.e. spend your money.

4. Even Elance, as the largest such business and as being in business for over 10 years, has bugs into that marketplace; it's very hard for me to believe there is some other super market super professional and without any problems; (and I do makrting all day long, not only through Elance).

Good luck!

[dcrsol]

Forgot one thing - oDesk is something very rudimentary compared to Elance, and I tested that myself half year ago - trully full of bugs, hope they improved since.

As for the iPhone support, let's get real here, I don't even use Elance from my pda (win mobile), the mobile market seriously lacks in supporting some very important technologies, like AJAX; (some do support that, but believe me, you don't want to test it fulltime)