Before we know it, we have to bid farewell to 2018. It has been a rewarding, challenging and exciting year for us and our freelancers. As we open our arms wide to welcome 2019, we would like to share with you the 3 key highlights for CreativesAtWork in 2018.

Freelancing means you are an entire business unto yourself. To many, that’s part of the attractiveness of being a freelancer. As a freelancer, you manage your own workload, set your own work day, and choose your own clients.

As the gig economy continues to grow and change the way businesses operate, we are finding both SMEs and larger corporations turning to freelancers to help them manage their complex project needs.

It’s no secret that the competition for freelance contracts is fierce. Every day I hear stories from our freelancer network, telling me how the competition is growing.

Today I met up with a new freelancer. I try to meet with all the freelancers who are a part of CreativesAtWork – there is nothing like face time to get to understand how people work, and where their strengths lie!

If you’re a freelancer, you know it’s tough out there. Competition is fierce, deadlines are fast, and somehow there are always too many things to do. With all the plates you juggle, it’s easy to lose sight of the big picture of your career, and the face that you present to the world.

Singapore is a diverse little Red Dot, with cultures from all over not only SE Asia, but indeed the whole world coming here to live, play and work. Furthermore, given our size limitations, Singaporean business must be comfortable working outside our little borders, with neighbours in the region and beyond.

At CreativesAtWork, we don't use the usual corporate titles. We like to call ourselves what reflects our job role the most like for me, I am the Chief Businesswoman. Plus I don’t think I’m the typical CEO as well even my personal habit. I don’t wake up at 5am, work out for an hour, have my morning espresso and continue a full regular day at the office without interruption – the kind that you hear CEO’s often have, and cite as a key to their success.

Recently, I participated in a joint dialogue session with more than hundreds of SME owners on tapping on alternative source of talent (ie. Freelancers). As one of the panelist, I have shared on the benefits, issues and challenges on leveraging on the freelance workforce to meet design, marketing and promotion needs of their businesses. The session was kindly organised by NTUC FSE Unit in partnership with the Singapore Business Federation.

You finally broke free from the cubicle and are now a freelancer. But don’t be too quick to give yourself a pat on the back yet…

CreativesAtWork has been working with freelancers for years now, and we feel like we have a good sense of the issues freelancers face as they work with clients large and small.

In 2012, we had an idea: to bring talent from across the world to projects that needed diverse skill sets. We wanted to connect project managers to talented individuals through a freelancing network, providing talented people with contracts, and companies with access to skills they needed. That was when CreativesAtWork was born.

In a fast-paced bootstrap economy, companies have to be creative problem-solvers. When projects demand particular skills sets that your team doesn’t have, what can you do?

At the first TAP series launched by CreativesAtWork, a group of company executives attended the event with a mission: to learn about how they could tap on the expertise of freelancers to better accommodate their growing business needs.

As the official lunar new year comes to an end, it feels like the year is starting to power up. We have had a phenomenal 2017 and have attained many firsts in our business. We celebrated our 5th anniversary, completed 2 documentaries – one in partnership with Discovery – and secured two new international broadcasters as clients.