It is expected that the coming months will bring changes in the labor market and the economy, primarily in the employment structure. This means that outsourcing will become one of the basic tools for acquiring new colleagues. Cost optimization, which enables outsourcing, will also be significant. By outsourcing tasks to external employees, you will complete tasks that are necessary but are not the company’s main goal faster and cheaper.
Until recently, outsourcing mainly concerned large companies, but with the changing market situation, outsourcing also has a chance to enter the small and medium-sized enterprises sector. It will allow companies from this sector to carry out the necessary investments and changes without large outlays and opening new jobs.
Outsourcing in practice: where to look for contractors
If you associate the search for employees only with job offers and HR companies, then it’s time to use other tools. Co-workers with the right competencies you want to acquire may simply … not be interested in a permanent employment contract.
To find contractors in industries such as programming, graphics, copywriting and other multimedia realted work, it’s best to focus on :
- local and international portals for freelancers
- industry portals that support a portfolio of freelancers
For most freelancers, it is standard to have your own homepage or portfolio on portals such as Dribble, Behance and Github.
An underestimated way is also … browsing competition pages. If you know that a company with a profile similar to yours has an excellent website or attractive photos, look carefully at the footer of the site – there is a good chance that you will find information about the author in it.
Finally, don’t hesitate to ask for recommendations from your contractors, partners or associates. Thanks to this, you will learn about what the portfolio rarely speaks about: how a given freelancer works, what contact you can count on, how it is with timeliness and corrections.
How to choose the best contractor in outsourcing?
First of all, start by specifying what type of work you want to outsource:
- single order or set of orders
- large or smaller order
The freelancer with whom you want to start outsourcing work must know how much time to reserve for you, what pace of work you expect and how to set up your schedule.
Next, determine which competencies you need the most. Do you allow a freelancer to learn while performing the assignment, or do you prefer someone who already has experience in a given specialization?
Contrary to appearances, the choice of competences does not apply only to “technical” orders, such as programming. Indeed, the language, technology or framework in which the encoder specializes are quite significant, but the same can be said about other industries.
Event photographers do not always work in product sessions, graphic designers do not have to be masters of photo processing, and copywriters generally move within their niches in terms of both preferred topics and type of texts. To avoid confusion and not to waste time, determine exactly what you need at the moment.
In general, it is more difficult to find a specialist who will be equally good in everything – atypical sets of competences also have a correspondingly higher price. You also don’t always need someone at the same time who, for example, is also a great copywriter and will put you a company blog on WordPress.
Outsourcing is flexibility: you can divide your work into smaller ones and use the services of several specialists depending on your needs.
Portfolio, references, recommendations
The next step after you collect job offers or create a small base of potential candidates is to check their portfolio and references. Start with a portfolio and look for:
- projects similar to those you want to commission
- information about what did the project change (increase in sales, website traffic, visibility in search results, etc.)
If you are looking for a contractor for a graphic design, be sure to pay attention to the aesthetics in which he/she works or whether he/she has achievements of a similar type to those you want to order.
It is also worth reading references and opinions of previous customers. Note whether they are supported, e.g. by the company’s website address.
Outsourcing settlements
Until recently, the legal status was a limitation for companies that were looking for outsourcing partners. You can settle outsourcing in several ways:
- as a work contract with a natural person
- as a mandate contract with a natural person
- as a cooperation with the company on the basis of an invoice
- as a purchase of a service / product based on a VAT invoice
It is worth remembering that owning a company is neither a freelancer nor an indicator of the quality of services, nor the length of the internship. Business activity is not equally beneficial for all freelancers, and there is no obligation to set it up. Thanks to this B2B might be as popular among your contractors as contracted work.
On the other hand, if you run a business and are a VAT payer, invoice-based billing will always be cheaper and more convenient for you. This does not mean, however, that you need to limit yourself only to offers made by companies.
Thanks to the Useme.com portal, the contractor you choose will legally issue you an invoice, even if he/she doesn’t own a business. The portal removes the responsibility associated with the freelancer contract and assumes all obligations related to the associate’s settlement.
Securing payment and deadline for work
The last thing to keep in mind when you outsource work is security of cooperation.
Freelancers sometimes use advance payments or makings, but they are a type of guarantee more for the contractor than for both parties.
Although the freelance contract strictly regulates the deadline for delivery of completed work, it can be kept differently, and for the client even a delay of several days, e.g. in modernizing an online store, can mean losses.
Regardless of whether you decide to cooperate with a company or an individual, you can use the security provided by secure payment transactions in Useme. It consists in the fact that you pay the contractor’s salary to the Useme account, and the service transfers the contractor’s money only when it finishes work on time and in accordance with the order. If the contractor does not meet the deadline, you will receive a refund of the entire amount paid. You will settle all the work using a VAT invoice issued by Useme.
The secure payment transaction also means that Useme automatically assumes all liability of the payer regarding documents and settlements.
How to choose a contractor in outsourcing for companies?
Outsourcing is gaining popularity among small and medium companies that do not want or cannot afford to hire a full-time employee.
When does outsourcing work best?
Ordering work from an outside person or company makes sense when a team needs people with new competencies, e.g. to perform individual tasks. The second situation is about relieving existing employees so they can better focus on what is the main goal of your company.
When looking for an outsourcing partner, focus primarily on his portfolio and references. It is worth paying attention to previous projects and whether he has work on similar projects. Also, it’s important to know the rules on how to effectively manage freelancers.
Thanks to professional portals for freelancers such as Useme.com, you also don’t have to limit yourself to working only with companies. An individual can also issue you an invoice, both before starting work under a secure payment transaction and after completing the order.
