The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2018 - 12

STANDING UP FOR THE FREELANCER continued
thinking: this talent liaison is more like
Superman or Superwoman. You're right.

UPDATING OLD WORKFLOWS

who freelancers really are: they're the
talent in translation. Second, we
wanted a word or phrase to describe
the go-between freelancers and our inhouse team. We created a new
name for this very important position:
talent liaison.

MAKING THE CHANGE
We then looked for the person in
our company who would be best
suited for this new position. Although
our previous resource manager was
awesome in many areas, she was not
an out-of-the-box thinker. The person
who would fill our talent liaison
position needed to have excellent
communication skills, since it would
require communicating with freelancers,
mostly in English. Although our
standard practice when looking for a
translator is to consult ATA's online
directories, some language requirements
require the use of alternative search
methods instead of a public database.
Let me share this example. Years ago,
we were asked to provide interpreting
services for an injured worker who
spoke Nahuatl. He was to be seen by
a doctor who spoke only English. We

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The ATA Chronicle | March/April 2018

searched high and low and couldn't
find such a language combination.
Finally, we found a priest in San Diego,
California, who spoke both Spanish
and Nahuatl. We then secured an
interpreter for Spanish and English.
Yes, you're ahead of me, we used
two interpreters and the project
was a success.
How did we achieve this? Our talent
liaison looked for innovative ways to
solve our problem. She was an out-ofthe-box thinker. One can have great
ideas, but if you don't have the ability to
carry them out with the proper authority,
your ideas will stay shelved. Our talent
liaison was given total authority on
all translator-related issues, which she
needed to make things happen.
She also needed experience in conflict
resolution. Business relationships are
never perfect and, yes, sometimes
agencies and freelancers don't view
things the same way. To make things
worse, many of us allow our emotions
to dictate how we communicate. For
this reason, the talent liaison must
negotiate challenging problems so
everyone is happy. I know what you're

Project managers prefer the first
freelancer they contact to take the
assignment, and they know those
freelancers who are unfamiliar with the
word "no." We decided to look at our
database of freelancers, which hadn't
been cleaned up in years. We had over
3,000 freelancers, and 200 of them were
used on 90% of our projects. Only 151
had updated files, and the categories we
used for subject matter experience were
too broad.
Because of this, we cleaned up our
database and forced project managers
to use new freelancers. This was not
an easy task. We found that project
managers are often too busy to want to
try new freelancers. Instead, they prefer
to go with what they know. But they
were given quotas to meet and asked
to make sure a seasoned editor was on
the project to minimize potential risks.
Within the first month of cleaning up
our database, we were able to add more
than 84 new freelancers to our projects.

The interaction between a
freelancer and an agency is
a relationship. And just like
any relationship, it takes time,
understanding, patience,
and hard work.

Another eye-opening experience
was the realization that we treat
freelancers as employees. I'm not
referring to the legal definition of
employees, but the fact that we count
on freelancers to handle tasks that are
not related to their job as a translator
(i.e., "Can you just perform a light
formatting task on this project?" "Can
you work out terminology differences
with the editor?").

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The ATA Chronicle - March/April 2018
