To reduce the hassle businesses face while managing distributed members, oDesk, an online workplace platform, has come up with oDesk Private Workplace, a solution designed to help companies manage their contingent workforce in a private online workplace.
For many years now, oDesk has been enabling businesses and freelancers to work together on-demand via the Internet. The company now hopes to help businesses better deal with remote management, global payments and team collaboration. The new oDesk Private Workplace brings freelancers together in the cloud via the Internet. This method is designed to save money, time and effort.
oDesk sets up a virtual team room for the business and supports sub-teams so that various hiring managers have control over their own virtual offices. There is also software to track hours as work is performed; it does not require manual entry of time into online or paper-based timesheets.
As an additional bonus, oDesk Recruiting Services is bundled with oDesk Private Workplace, which provides support in finding, screening, and hiring freelance talent. In addition, the oDesk Enterprise Solutions team offers strategic consultation to help businesses make the most of their online teams.
“Smart companies are innovating their teams and creating flexible benches of contractors in order to get more done,” said Matt Cooper, vice president of enterprise at oDesk. “As businesses build these contingent teams, however, they’re realizing that having people widely distributed and working remotely can be challenging -- requiring manual time cards, data entry, and painful disparate payment methods for example. oDesk Private Workplace erases these pain points by bringing these teams together online.”
The company had pre-launched the oDesk Private Workplace for use by select businesses prior to official launch, and initial feedback indicated that the new system can offer 20-percent cost reduction in business processes.
“Just switching from traditional time sheets to automated tracking, average hours across our team fell from 40 hours per week to 32 overnight,” said Andy Montgomery of Trilogy Software. “We’ve moved hundreds of contractors onto oDesk, and we see big savings every time.”