Prospective employees rarely consider the challenges faced by employers in filling a position; if you’ve ever been involved in the hiring process, you’ll know that finding a good candidate can be so hard, many businesses would prefer to outsource more in order to cover areas of need. But in these situations, hiring and training the right person is still the best option.
Long-term roles
Many businesses don’t handle a constant volume of products, transactions, or inquiries each month. Seasonal changes in consumer patterns will drive the business needs up or down. Many London offices find that their in-house accounting team has little work on their hands during certain months; accountancy services are a great opportunity to outsource this sort of task. By contrast, if you find that a role is needed constantly, in the long run it’s best to bring someone on board to tackle it full-time.
Work involving core competencies
Successful businesses of any scale may dispute the pros and cons of outsourcing in various respects, but one thing they can all agree on is that you never outsource work related to the company’s core competencies. These are the areas where you bring value to consumers or clients, and which the competition struggles to emulate. Keep the jobs related to such vital functions in-house and in the hands of employees who are immersed in your company culture and values, and know the products and services inside-out; this way, you’ll retain control of your biggest competitive advantage.
Flexibility and responsiveness issues
In theory, handing off certain types of work to freelancers or business process outsourcing providers will let these third parties leverage their unique expertise to get the job done better than an in-house team ever could. But if the task is multi-disciplinary or not specific, or requires a quick turnaround in response time, your team could end up largely missing out on these benefits of outsourcing. Hiring someone as a ‘catch-all’ generalist for various tasks may prove a better solution, since their in-house presence makes them available to readily receive and apply feedback.
Information security
Many organizations can be reluctant to provide sensitive information to their outsourcing partners. A company can negotiate contracts to include terms of non-disclosure or non-compete; IT systems can be designed to restrict access to data based on user privileges and only through secure, monitored VPN connections. Still, it can be impossible to guarantee that a partner will never be able to potentially access and leak vital data. If a job requires a high level of access, and the risks involved are too high, that sort of work would be best kept in-house.
Growth potential is involved
Sometimes, employee growth can be affected when you outsource certain tasks. Leaders can forget that delegating tasks to junior employees gives them responsibility and the chance to fail, learn, and improve. Likewise, training shouldn’t be left in the hands of a third party; they can be brought on as consultants, but you still want to handle planning and assessment internally as much as possible. New hires can be the future of a company and major source of innovation, but only if you avoid outsourcing the sort of work which can open up their growth potential and keep them engaged and motivated.
The hiring process can be difficult, but in these situations, making the effort to find and train the right candidate instead of letting third party services take over will lead you in the right direction.
