How to Give Feedback to Freelancers Constructively

Learn How to Give Feedback to Your Company’s Freelancing Employees

Carolina

Freelancers are great assets to businesses.

They are independent contractors who are able to help with specific projects and tasks without being a full-time employee and requiring a full-time salary and benefits.

Working with freelancers brings about many benefits that more and more companies are taking advantage of.

However, working with freelancers isn’t always smooth sailing. There do come times when you need to know how to give feedback to your freelancers.

Because you aren’t their direct manager, it can be difficult to know the best ways to go about giving freelancers feedback. It is essential that you do this in order to maintain a strong working relationship.

In this article, we’ll help you understand why giving feedback is important and walk you through the specific steps you should keep in mind in order to give feedback to your freelancers constructively.

6. Concentrate on Facts

You don’t want emotions to run wild during a feedback session.

While you want to make sure you are facilitating open dialogue with your freelancers, you don’t want the meeting to get away from you with hurt feelings and generalizations.

Focus on your facts and specific examples that you can provide. If you have any hard data, bring that to help showcase what you are talking about and to back up your feedback with facts.

7. Call Out Recurring Mistakes Immediately

While having regular sessions to discuss bigger issues might be a great way to set a regular cadence, you never want a recurring mistake to keep happening.

Once you notice that a mistake is being made over and over again, you can immediately step in to make the freelancer aware of it.

This helps you stop the freelancer from having to redo their work constantly and can nip a potential issue right in the bud.

Sometimes, these conversations can feel a little uncomfortable—nobody really enjoys being told they’ve missed the mark, especially more than once. Still, it makes things so much easier in the long run if you address repeated mistakes right away, before they snowball into bigger headaches. And honestly, most freelancers appreciate hearing directly what’s not working, as long as you keep things professional and specific. It spares everyone the dance of confusion or resentment later. Being too vague or letting stuff slide usually just drags out the pain for both sides.

8. Give Edits in Your Revisions

Revisions are a normal part of a freelancer and client relationship.

When you request revisions, you are asking the freelancer to fix certain parts of their work or finalize any mistakes.

These revision requests are a great area to give feedback in the form of edits.

Rather than just asking a freelancer to fix a mistake, explain why it was an error and give details so the mistake can be avoided in the future.

That kind of detail can seem nitpicky when you’re pressed for time, but even a brief explanation can go a long way in making a freelancer feel like a real partner instead of just a pair of hands. You’d be surprised by how much goodwill a simple “here’s what tripped us up and why” buys you for future projects. Besides, the more context your freelancer has, the less likely they are to repeat that same issue the next time—so it saves you both mental energy in 2025 and beyond. Nobody likes endless revision loops, so a little clarity now is usually worth it.

9. Avoid Micromanaging

There’s nothing more frustrating than trying to deal with a micromanager.

You need to have enough trust in your freelancers to allow them to do their work with minimal input. Feedback shouldn’t be constant corrections, as that is frustrating and unhelpful.

By having regular feedback sessions, you can avoid constant corrections and have a better working relationship with your freelancers.

10. Know When to Part Ways

The sad truth is that not every working relationship is meant to last.

Even when you give helpful feedback, sometimes a freelancer still struggles to take it into consideration or new issues consistently pop up.

You shouldn’t be afraid to admit when a relationship isn’t working out the way you planned, and even when feedback isn’t fixing issues, then it might be time to part ways with the freelancer.

That allows you to search for a new person to complete projects who fits better with your company’s needs.

When to Give Feedback to A Freelancer

Giving feedback doesn’t have to be a formal, long-winded affair.

You can constantly give feedback during your check-ins with freelancers or when projects and tasks are due.

In truth, the frequency of feedback isn’t as important as understanding the best way to phrase your feedback and approach your notes to freelancers.

If your feedback comes across as nitpicking and constant beratement, it can be incredibly frustrating and draining for your freelancers.

When you approach your feedback using the notes above, you can add in compliments and admiration for what they have done correctly, along with helpful notes for future work.

When you can build this strong relationship and direct communication with your freelancers, you can create a healthy working relationship that lasts.

That means you can keep the same freelancer or group of freelancers for a long time, which helps create more patterns of consistency and less feedback that needs to be given overall.

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Wrap Up

Working with freelancers is a great way to outsource projects without needing to keep everything in-house. But when it comes time to give feedback, it can be confusing since a freelancer doesn’t fall under your direct supervision.

When you know how to give feedback in a constructive manner, both you and your freelancers will benefit from that honesty.

Many companies are taking advantage of the benefits that freelancers can bring to their bottom line and their workflow.