Contract employees can bring numerous benefits to your organisation.
Gig economy, which was already booming, got a shot in the arm with the pandemic.
Pandemic forced companies to lay off a large number of employees. Many organisations turned to contract staffing to fill the talent gap, having realised the benefits it offers.
According to a recent study, jobs posted for temporary or contract workers has increased significantly. Moreover, people are more willing to take up contract work as opposed to permanent employment today as compared to pre-covid times.
A recent study by McKinsey estimates that up to 20% – 30% of the workforce in developed markets is involved in independent work.
Let us look at some of the key benefits that contract staffing offers.
- Save Time
Since contract workers are hired for their skills and not cultural fit, hiring process is much shorter, saving time. Moreover, staffing companies provide pre-screened candidates that hit the ground running. They do not require onboarding or training.
- Save Money
Contract workers are paid a fixed time based or project-based remuneration. They are not eligible for benefits and insurance that permanent employees get. Moreover, because there is no training or onboarding involved, they save the costs otherwise incurred on upskilling and training the employees. This is also a cost effective proposition because of the quicker hiring process.
- Get New Perspective
Since contract workers have varied experience in their field of expertise, they bring fresh ideas and perspective that you may or may not get from your existing employees. Your business can benefit from their experience and fresh outlook. It helps to have contract workers in more teams than one, so that your business can get an outsider feedback and out of the box ideas.
- Get Highly Niche Skilled Experts
Most contract workers are highly skilled in their areas of work. They have diverse experience, and they invest in updating their skills from time to time. They are also accustomed to performing on niche projects and under high pressure situations. Having worked on multiple projects across industries and companies, their project management, people management and time management skills are good.
Having a highly specialised self-driven individual on your team/project can help you achieve your business goals more effectively.
- Improve Agility
One of the most important benefits of working with contract workers is that it makes your business more agile and helps you respond to market conditions faster, creating a competitive edge. You can scale your team up or down depending on the market demands. In the current competitive market, agility is crucial to the success of any business.
- Try Before You Hire
Working with contract workers provides you the opportunity to assess their work and see if they are a good fit for your company. Many contract workers are absorbed by the company based on how they perform during the contract period. It is a win-win for both the company and the employee.
- Lower Administrative and Legal Hassles
Last but not the least, hiring contract workers reduces the legal and administrative work for the HR department as this aspect is taken care by the staffing company. Moreover, contract employment provides ease of separation. If the performance is not satisfactory, their contract can be terminated.
Also read – Why do you need a staffing company?
Here are a few things to keep in mind while hiring contract workers.
- Plan your hiring needs in advance. Start with analysing which teams need full-time employee and where would you need to hire contract staff.
- Hire a good staffing company that can understand your requirements and work closely with you.
- List down the skills and job specifications very clearly.
- Create a watertight contract and complete the documentation as per legal requirement to avoid any issues later. Ensure clarity on the terms of contract including the duration, timing, expectations, terms for termination, etc.
- Once hiring is complete, create communication & collaboration plan within your teams so that there is no ambiguity about roles and responsibilities.
- Once the project or tenure of contract is completed, ensure you provide the contract employee and the staffing company proper feedback and list down areas of improvement if any.
- Feedback works both ways. Take feedback from them about how their experience was and if any changes need to be made to make the experience better for them or other contract employees in the future.
Contract staffing should be a part of your hiring strategy! Partnering with a good staffing company can help you create a more agile workforce.
Flexi Ventures is one of the fasted growing IT staffing companies in India. Connect with our expert recruiters to help you with your IT staffing needs.
Visit www.flexiventures.in for more information on staffing and recruitment.
