Labor law notwithstanding (you should always comply with the law and seek qualified guidance in that arena), I'll comment on the financial and cultural implications from my experience.

Financial -- I have run firms with both 100% payroll and 100% contractors. In other words, W-2 vs. 1099. My first company had eight professional services practitioners on payroll. The challenge here was always have to match business development and cash flow to the required payroll cycle. Whether or not you sold enough gigs you were going to have to make payroll. I found that every business has seasonality and that cash flow can be severely squeezed if you don't plan for that. For example, it's very likely that professional services revenues will drop on average in December and January because of budgets and the slowdown for the holidays (at least in the US). You need to plan for all of that.

Cultural -- In my experience there is an over-weighted emphasis put on the connection between full time employees and culture. I have discovered over time that you don't have to have full timers to have them contribute to culture. It really depends on the culture you want to create. People on salary are incentivized in different ways than people on contract. People are contract, in my experience, are going to be hungrier because their performance depends on their working. Also, it's easier to remove someone on contract than someone on payroll. There are all kinds of implications around training, retention, etc. that also need to be considered.

Contractors simply give you more flexibility and I personally think you can build a great culture of people who are not tied to your payroll.

Happy to discuss with you to offer more personalized perspectives.