There comes a time for many companies when they need to grow the team. Whether that’s to tackle a specific short-term project, or to handle seasonal demand, there’s several reasons why outsourcing might be a better fit than a permanent hire, depending on your goals.
However, with outsourcing naturally comes a lower level of control: you don’t get to hold the outsourced workers to the same level of accountability that you might for an internal member of staff, and if you use an agency, then you won’t be able to choose the staff that work on your project. Yet the benefits of outsourcing often outweigh these concerns, when managed correctly.
In this blog, we share four tips to help your outsourcing run smoothly, so you can achieve the results you’re looking for.
Carefully decide which tasks can be outsourced
Outsourcing is primarily about offering more capacity, or about allowing you to perform tasks that you don’t have the skillset for in-house, without the commitment of a permanent hire. When deciding to outsource, bear these two objectives in mind, and check that there’s no-one who could reasonably complete the tasks internally instead. There’s little point in paying for administrative support, for example, if you have an administrative staff member in the company with the skills and capacity to take on the work. Outsourcing can also naturally lead to concern for your own employees, so making sure you’ve not ‘taken away’ the work from an internal staff member can help workers understand why you’ve chosen to outsource.
The other reason to outsource is to take more basic tasks off someone’s plate, freeing them up to work on more high-value tasks. In this case, you should ensure all stakeholders are involved in the conversation, to give them a chance to raise any concerns and reduce risk or bad feeling in the team.
Do your research on the company values
By working with an outsourced company, you do have to accept that they are a different business to your own – they’re not an internal team, and so are unlikely to be a perfect match in terms of process and values. However, working with a company or individual that is a close cultural fit can help make things run smoothly, so it’s important to research their values before committing to any contracts.
As a larger business, you’ll also likely to be under some scrutiny from your customers and employees, so doing your research on outsourced company ethics is important to avoid any potential issues around how they treat their staff or how they do business, which could backfire onto your company reputation. It’s also just the right thing to do to ensure sustainable business practices in your supply chain.
Understand who will manage the outsourced work
It can be a challenge for your employees to manage outsourced work, especially if it requires a new process or line of responsibility. You should make sure it’s clear who is responsible for what, as well as how they can raise any concerns. This goes for both sides – the outsourced workers should also know how to flag any issues to you so they can be dealt with appropriately.
Provide training if necessary to any employees who are taking on management tasks for the first time, and recognise this in their job responsibilities and compensation if appropriate.
Set clear expectations
Successful outsourcing relies on clear communication and setting expectations right from the beginning. Make sure you and the outsourcing company have agreed on the key deliverables and objectives, how these will be measured, and what the next steps are if these aren’t met.
Hopefully, everything will run smoothly, but if not, this means you’re able to end the contract without concern over potential repercussions or lost expenditure. Making sure teams provide detailed briefs when submitting work to be done is also essential to avoid tasks having to be done again at the expense of time and money.
Ensure data security
When handing out business data to a third party, you need to ensure that their data security protocols – and your own – are watertight, to avoid any potential data breach issues. Even seemingly simple virtual assistant tasks can grant access to calendars and email inboxes, which then contains sensitive information that should be kept confidential.
When you’re choosing an outsourcing partner, make sure to gather information about their data security practices. How will they keep your information safe? How will the files be sent between you in a secure manner? Who should have access to the information you share? Establishing these guidelines before you begin and getting the relevant NDAs in place will ensure that you can start the partnership with confidence.
Take your time to get things right
When the pressure is on and you need extra support for a project, it can be tempting to rush into the outsourcing process in order to meet demand. However, even if you’re trying to be quick, it’s important to be careful. Be thorough about finding the right outsourcing partner to avoid headaches further down the road.
Author bio: Clare Holden
An HR manager with over 15 years of experience, Clare is well-versed in outsourcing best practices. Her writing aims to provide actionable advice that HR professionals can take forward and use in their daily work.
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