When operating a business, many companies choose to outsource tasks to reduce the work necessary for regular staff. These outsourced individuals take on full-time equivalent (FTE), roughly eight hours of work a day. There are multiple outsourcing types, including freelancing, offshoring, pay per task, business process outsourcing (BPO), or incorporating a dedicated team member model.
When a company outsources, they use staff that is not part of the business. These independent workers can be part of an outsourcing agency or solo.
One option for finding applicants that can handle outsource work is to hire freelancers. There are numerous sites with experienced workers who are willing to accept your outsourcing gigs. Upwork and Freelancer are two of the best.
You can use multiple workers or find one person to handle all the tasks with FTE. This option is great for establishing continued relationships with one or more independent workers for repeated or long-term tasks.
There may be times when you have a single task that you want to outsource. In these cases, it’s often easier to pay per task, which means you set a flat rate to complete the job. You can outsource a freelancer or hire a flex worker using a site like FlexJobs. Once the job is complete, there will be no further work with the contractor.
The third option is to have one or more full-time employees hired specifically to handle outsource tasks. When you use a dedicated team model, you’re ensuring the same people manage the job. There won’t be any issues with new workers learning your preferred methods or needing to have training.
There are benefits and drawbacks of each of these three methods.
The benefit of hiring a freelancer is that you can be sure that you’re using someone experienced in handling tasks of a specific nature. The downsides of using a freelancer are:
When you outsource on a Pay Per Task model, you get the benefit of paying varying costs. You can set your own pricing or allow a worker to pitch a bid to you with their set price. But the cons of this method are:
When you use a dedicated team model, you’re establishing a long-term relationship with the same worker(s). Although they are not part of your company, they manage your outsourcing as FTE, allowing them to build on their experience to match their work to your values.
These employees become invested in your business, and over time, they can start to make decisions that will lead to improvements. Working with full-time staff also allows you to control how the workers manage their time and set deadlines.
The bad thing about using a dedicated team model is that it’ll cost you more monthly than using a pay-per-task method. However, on an hourly basis, you’ll pay less than you would with a freelancer.
Many businesses are relying on outsourcing to manage non-core work tasks. When outsourcing, you can choose from freelancing, pay-per-task, or dedicated work models. All three methods have benefits and drawbacks. If you want to establish a working relationship with the same staff who understand and support your company, you will do best with having full-time employees.