Employment and freelance tradeoffs
Employment and freelance medical writing differ in who controls the work, who provides support and who carries the business responsibilities. Flexible hours and independence come with demands on time, money and professional contact.
Autonomy and responsibility
A freelancer's comparison lists the following advantages.
- Flexible hours and a child-friendly schedule.
- Flexible work location.
- A working environment adjusted to the writer's needs.
- Selection of interesting projects and clients.
- Unlimited earning potential.
- Running every business function: sales and marketing, invoicing, contracts, technology troubleshooting, tracking tax-deductible expenses and making estimated tax payments.
- Ownership and control of decisions.
The same comparison identifies these disadvantages.
- Finding clients can be difficult.
- Solitude takes adjustment.
- Colleagues are unavailable for discussion of daily work issues.
- No paid time off, maternity or paternity leave, or company-sponsored health benefits.
- Inconsistent work and cash flow require adjustment to feast and famine.
- No one provides backup during sickness or injury.
- Overworking makes learning to switch off necessary.
- Every business function has to be managed.
Independence does not remove obligations to other people: each client has expectations and ways of working to which the freelancer has to adapt. A flexible schedule needs careful planning, and a workload surge or family emergency can mean evenings or weekends, requesting a deadline extension, or using a subcontractor if the contract permits.
For one consultant with three children under six, an 8am start at a full-time job felt impractical, whereas a consultancy allowed a variety of short projects and subjects such as pandemic flu one week and breastfeeding the next. She valued accepting or declining offers and fitting work around family and voluntary commitments, while finding that the search for the next project continued during the current one.
Other freelancers value control of projects, clients, schedule, location and fees, ongoing learning from scientists and doctors, and variety that avoids boredom. One freelancer particularly valued the growth opportunities and problem-solving involved in owning a business. Another, after a career mainly in contract research organisations, formed a company and valued the independence of running it. Two business owners valued flexible hours and locations so highly that they could not envisage returning to answer to an employer, despite having to manage accounting, clients and travel themselves.
Hours and workload
Employment in pharmaceutical companies and contract research organisations can differ, and home-based employment can blur the distinction from home-based freelancing.
In one experienced freelancer's comparison, employees had partly imposed timetables, minimum hours and limited control over concurrent projects, whereas freelancers could plan their time and steer the number of projects as long as work was completed. The same comparison treated refusing a client as harder than refusing a boss, because the client might find another writer and never return. It contrasted unpaid additional hours under an employer with paid additional hours requested by clients. Activity peaks were busier without colleagues to delegate to, but the writer found them less stressful when controlling the time and interruptions.
Working from home avoids a driving commute but can require deliberate effort to get exercise that a walking or cycling commute previously supplied.
Working from home can allow quick switches between work and household duties, but can also make it feel as though the writer never leaves the office. Rearranging the day for personal activities still leaves the working hours to be completed, and the work can remain mentally present after the office door is shut.
A single writer's calendar comparison covered freelance work from June 2007 to June 2012 and employment from June 2001 to June 2007. The freelance period showed greater variation in workload across the year and weekend work indicating unpredictable demand and tight deadlines. The writer attributed part of the difference to employees' access to colleagues and other resources and their lower burden of accounting and marketing, even where internal deadlines might be just as tight. The writer judged that less commuting, a relaxed home environment and freedom to walk the dog or nap during quiet periods could be eclipsed by workload fluctuations, work during holidays and household expectations that a home worker also provides care and domestic work. On that experience, freelancing was unsuitable for someone seeking a stable workload and more everyday freedom, and could only be fully understood by trying it.
One experienced freelancer cautions that full-time freelancing involves administration, marketing, operations and IT, and requires harder work than part-time freelancing or employment in that writer's view. In that view, its appeal is control over work and the convenience of home working, with somewhat flexible but long hours, rather than more free time.
Colleagues, support and overheads
An employee may spend substantial time in meetings while a freelancer spends it on technical support, administration and bookkeeping. Tasks handled by others in employment, including paperwork, insurance, IT maintenance and business development, become the freelancer's responsibility. Freelancers may lack a secretary, immediate IT help and employer funding for professional meetings. Working onsite to supplement permanent staff can also be difficult when the premises, resources and colleagues are unfamiliar or the staff are unhelpful.
Employment can provide on-the-job training and funded courses; a freelancer may struggle to find both the money and time for courses. Freelancers have more choice of professional-development topics but pay the cost and use non-billable time. When a specialist clinical or statistical question arises, an employee may ask a colleague; a freelancer may need to ask the client, develop the expertise or use outside connections within confidentiality constraints.
One freelancer regarded freedom from hierarchy, performance management, targets and shareholder priorities as allowing effort to concentrate entirely on the work. That writer also valued direct access to clients to clarify what they wanted and needed, while recognising that personal procedures had to be justified to clients without the support of company rules or client-relations experts. The writer valued client trust, positive feedback and control over business decisions, but considered a clear head essential at all times without colleagues to provide cover. The writer also valued clear responsibility for individual mistakes rather than having to cover for substandard work in another department, finding that most clients accepted an occasional small slip in an honest relationship.
Freelancing can involve isolation, lack of peer feedback, insecurity, multitasking stress and feeling like an overlooked person at the end of an email or telephone line. Some writers enjoy solitude while still missing exchanges with colleagues. One comparison captures the difference as sometimes being exasperated by colleagues in employment and sometimes missing them in self-employment.