The 6 Reasons you should be using Contractors (and 3 reasons you shouldn’t)

Outsourced Contractors are members of your team that aren’t on your payroll.

For example, imagine a client asking for a 3D walk through animation. It would be insanity to go out and employ a specialist for this one job, when you could contract a 3D Modelling company to create the work required for this project.

Today, we look at 7 reasons to use contractors, and 3 very good reasons not to.

1. Payment on Results – as alluded to above, you only need to pay for resources when you actually need them, and contractors are perfect for this. There’s no need to pay sick pay, PAYE, NIC or any other costs associated with more permanent members of your team.
2. Access to a Higher level of skills – Unless you enjoy an impressive budget for talent, then it’s likely that you cannot afford to employ the industry ninjas. However, like the A Team, if you have a problem and no-one else can help, maybe you can hire a highly skilled contractor.
3. Specialist Skills – There are some skills that are so specialist that it is foolish to keep them in-house. Using external contractors allows you to access these skills as and when you need them
4. Remote workers – as the world gets increasingly smaller, borders are eroded. This means that not only can you access contractors with other skills, but you’re no longer restricted to looking for help nearby. It doesn’t actually mater where in the world they are based.
5. Speed of Recruitment – If you need resource quickly, then the recruitment process can take quite some time. However, it can take a fraction of the time to find a skilled contractor on something like Elance.
6. Ease of Termination – Its common-place to write a clause in a contractor’s contract allowing early termination, without penalty & without citing a reason. Try getting your employees to agree to that!

These are all very good reasons to use contractors, however, there are a few situations in which it’s a bad idea.

1. Your Contractor is new – Unless you are using the same contractors over a period of time, then each time you use a new contractor, you’re taking a risk that they won’t deliver. Never rely on a new contractor’s promises, until they have proved themselves.
2. You have a tight deadline – Like the above, it is vitally important to ensure that contractors are aware of deadlines and deliver against them. You have much less leverage over a contractor if they miss a deadline, so always allow a good bit of leeway between the contractor’s deadline and the one with your client.
3. They can go direct to the client – Again, if this is a new contractor, then there is always a risk that they will contact the client directly and cut you out. Of course, they’d lose your business if they did this, but if this is replaced with a much more lucrative relationship with your client, would they risk this?

Clearly, there are many advantages to using contractors, but it’s important for you to be aware of the disadvantages too.

Just be careful that you’re not putting your trust in someone who has a lot less to lose than you.