Yes - I would love to see Upwork better support the concept of "putting on different hats," especially to adapt to the reality that people are really learning all kinds of new skills, but they also want to make sure that they can account for them properly.
If I'm doing two or more COMPLETELY different kinds of work, I really would appreciate the ability to connect a different set of tax info - bank and EIN. Whether it's multiple "profiles," or multiple "agencies," or both, the goal would be that the freelancer, within a single personal account, can put on a different "hat" to do a particular kind of job, even as the same "person."
If I do, for example, media production and, say, tax preparation, and maybe customer service type of work as well, there are very clear reasons that these should be distinct, accounting-wise, behind the scenes. If I'm doing a media job, I want that payment to go into the bank account associated with my media production EIN. If I'm helping someone with taxes, that should go into the bank account associated with my tax preparer EIN.
I actually don't mind reviews appearing "across the board." After all, freelancing is about the person as an individual, and the individual would continue to get reviewed, no matter which hat is on, for any given job. So, I'm OK to "meet in the middle" there - the idea that all of an individual's activity should be combined in a single "feedback profile." Perhaps allow viewers to "filter by job type" if they want to see a user's reviews as "Hat A" or "Hat B," or all combined.
But the addition of some way to "put on a hat" and select a complete profile when submitting a Proposal – not only a set of qualifications, but also of EIN and bank info – would be a big help that I think would clear things up for many people, and also ensure that people who put on multiple hats don't have to look at competing platforms in order to ensure proper accounting.
Feature suggestions:
- Allow user to add additional verified EIN/bank/business-name combinations, and select one (and only one!) of them when submitting a Proposal. Very similar to selecting a profile view.
- Allow user to create more than one Agency. This allows the user to team up with professionals in each distinct field.
This kind of setup, which could perhaps be offered as an account-status upgrade, would help individuals properly account for their Upwork activities, while also maintaining the transparency of each person as an individual.
