The pros and cons of outstaffing

What objections are made by customers complaining about IT suppliers?

1. Inadequate ratio of the price suggested by the supplier to the provision of specialists;
2. Lack of or shallow verification of the "soft" skills of the candidates, e.g., communication, teamwork;
3. Perfunctory amount of qualitative information in descriptions of candidates presented to the client;
4. If the team consists of specialists from different suppliers, inappropriate "tricks" on the part of these suppliers happen, e.g. urging their specialists to speak about their employers and their potential candidates only in superlatives, while disparaging people from other companies, which disrupts the atmosphere and work environment;
5. Inflating salaries to make a candidate want to go through a particular supplier to a client (a situation where candidates for one position are sought by several suppliers and they contact the same specialists).

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In what situations is it worth working with partners providing IT competencies?

1. When you need a booster in the project, e.g. additional IT competencies to speed up the work and complete the project;
2. When you need an outside perspective, so-called "fresh blood" - specialists from outside are able to positively influence the quality of work by sharing their experiences from other organizations/projects;
3. When you need a service and you do not want to interfere with the company's staff, e.g. you need additional competencies for a specific period of time and when the project is over, you do not have to lay off the employee;
4. When you want to save money – in this model you pay only for the work that has actually been done and for the hours worked;
5. When you want to be able to painlessly remove a specialist when his or her involvement in the project is no longer needed and when his or her competencies have filled the "gap";
6. When speed is crucial – as a rule, a specialist provided by a partner is available much faster than candidates from the market;
7. When your company can only hire on the basis of an employment contract, and the IT world likes B2B. This is a form of cooperation that a business partner can offer and which definitely increases the field of potential candidates.

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When is it not worth cooperating with IT competence providers?

When we treat cooperation as a back-up option in case internal recruitment is not up to the task. This may be the case when the supplier makes every effort to provide candidates ASAP (e.g. from their own competence centre or through the process of sourcing these specialists from the market), and the client delays or processes candidates procured through the activities of the internal HR department.

Cooperation models - choosing the one most effective and suited to your business.

Two main services can be distinguished:

• outstaffing
• permanent recruitment

Is either model more advantageous? More cost-effective? Not necessarily - it all depends on the needs and capabilities of the individual client. We will try to present sample situations and match them with the best cooperation model. We assume that every company has a different internal situation and it is the individual details that can weigh on the choice of the best way to cooperate.

Outstaffing is most effective for companies where:

• there is no possibility of B2B cooperation;
• projects/budgets last for a maximum of one year and the company has no guarantee that such a project will be extended and budgeted for, and therefore that the employee will be retained on a long-term basis;
• there is a need to speed up work on a project that is at risk of not meeting a deadline.

Permanent Recruitment, on the other hand, will work best in one of the following cases:

• the company offers all possible forms of cooperation (employment contract, B2B, contract of mandate, specific task contract) and very efficient recruitment and administrative processes;
• the company recruits for key positions, such as leadership and managerial positions (the company does not want to fill key roles with hired specialists).

There is a common point in both services, i.e. the diversification of an in-house recruitment team.

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Tips - good practice, advantages, how to divide the workload.

• Once we are sure that a particular partner is the one we want to trust and entrust tasks to, it makes sense to focus on developing healthy rules for this cooperation. How do we do that?
• Enable the supplier to have meetings with managers in order to best understand the expectations and needs of a given manager and team;
• Divide the work into different areas/specializations. It is not worth offering every available profile to all partners at the same time; this way, though wanting to speed up the process, we are actually making it more difficult for each party. Candidates hearing the same offer can inflate their expectations (using the "who gives more?" method);
• Rotate projects between suppliers when we do not see the expected results and the submitted work report raises doubts;
• Periodically review the supplier's work and ensure two-way feedback;

If the cooperation is not going as planned, it is best to be honest about it and try to eliminate the mistakes. However, if the cooperation continues to fail, then it is time to end it - nothing should be done by force.

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People with right skills and a passion for technology

Develocraft is your source for talented IT professionals and skills: from analysts to project managers to developers and consultants. Acquiring people with the right skills quickly is one thing, but something else also counts: a passion for technology.

This is a common characteristic of all our candidates, which is why the specialists we work with have contributed to the success of dozens of projects for clients around the world - and the numbers are still growing!

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