One day Steve Pruneau was thinking about work and his future. He'd done both traditional employment and project/contract work, and of course he knew about other options that just seemed unacceptable (staffing agencies, temp work, etc.). Steve liked the freedom, flexibility and good pay of contract/project work, he also liked few hassles, plenty of time with family and to relax (a real work-life balance), and not a lot of focus on paperwork and other things that weren't directly related to what his profession was really about. Expense reports, accounting - not his favorite thing. He also didn't like continually competing with gazillions of others seeking the same job in the same employment market which he knew to be anything but safe and secure.

That's when he asked himself what might not seem to be a revolutionary question. "Why can't I have the best of all of it, and none of the drawbacks." Put another way, "Why can't I have the best off both words?" That's when the idea was born that germinated into the company Free Agent Source (FAS). Says Pruneau, "I wanted to build the kind of company that I want to work for. The kind of company that creates the kind of work life and environment that I want and that I'm hearing a lot of other people wish for, but think can't exist."

What Steve Pruneau did was in fact, wed the worlds of contract work and regular employment, a new kind of "hybrid" (a concept then becoming popular in automobiles in Steve's area of Southern California). From employment, he would eliminate the constant pursuit of standard benefits, which would change whenever you'd change jobs, and he'd give traditional employees access to the flexibility and often better pay of contractors. From contract and project work, he'd eliminate the constant hassle of expense reporting and, in the case of 1099 contractors, accounting and basically running their own one-person corporation. He would replace that with the security and loss of headaches that come with a full benefits package.

"Frankly, this had never been done." says Daniel DiGriz, Marketing Director for Free Agent Source. "Steve was cooking up not just a new business structure or set of processes for us, but a whole new way of working for anyone who wants to 'live free", that being one of the company mottos. Says DiGriz, HR professionals and hiring managers get to hire without the concerns of traditional employment (shifting economy, uncertain future, enormous expense) or the hassles of a staffing agency (workers constantly looking for work elsewhere - e.g. for regular employment with benefits, the expense coupled with low pay for those same workers). And best of all, they get to bring people on (or bring them back, if they're previously laid off professionals) with the security and professionalism of a corp to corp contract.

Employees of Free Agent Source ("Free Agents") obtain contract work, opening up new job markets for them, instead of limiting them to competing with every other traditional job seeker. As employees, they get full benefits, as contract workers using the FAS corp to corp contract, they can often obtain work situations that are potentially more lucrative and more flexible and comfortable, frequently with travel and expense perks, but FAS does the accounting, manages expense reports, and maintains the corporate structure, freeing evenings and weekends up to enjoy. 

The buzzwords at Free Agent Source are "live free" and "enjoy the best of both worlds". DiGriz says there's a general attitude of "eliminating institutionalized hassle". Recently, FAS launched a series of free 20-minute webinars for both work seekers and companies (HR professionals, hiring managers, project teams). Registration is at http://www.freeagentsource.com/webinar  [note: register ASAP - web seats are going fast]. Whatever your role as full-time employment seeker, contract employee seeking a change, re-entering the workforce (mothers, returned military vets, semi-retired), temp who is tired of the staff agency rat race, or company representative, becoming a Free Agent may be just the solution to give you freedom and security without the hassles traditionally associated with that trade-off.
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