The previous two years have forced companies and employees to see the possibilities beyond the office and the nine-to-five. The way we work is now dramatically different and there’s no going back. The Great Resignation era is rooted in employees discovering and seeking flexibility and control over their hours.
This means a greater pool of specialists and experienced workers companies can access through open talent, the broad term for outsourcing project-based or repetitive tasks to local or offshore freelancers or teams.
Small businesses love outsourcing and its cost-effectiveness for growth, while some medium to large enterprises still experiences resistance to bringing in flexible, open talent.
What stops companies from outsourcing
Bureaucracy
This rigidity protects the customers and clients and the company’s standards of excellence. It also confines and slows down processes, however. In the course of our work over the years, we’ve seen bureaucracy halt progress by days or even weeks, while our contact–usually a manager or the main person for the task/s–waits for approval or feedback from the higher-ups.
That’s for work done when we’ve been hired. But we’ve also seen interviews and onboarding delayed by internal processes or even halted when someone in the hierarchy gets cold feet and would rather not outsource after all.
On the other hand, some companies we worked with are quite inspiring in how fluid and flexible they operate. When companies get rid of the pitfalls of bureaucracy, things get done.
How to remove bureaucracy friction when outsourcing:
- Know your priorities and goals. This is when companies are receptive to solutions that don’t necessarily follow their existing processes. They know what they want to get done and they focus on the results, not the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs). When priorities are clear-cut, the paperwork and processes are just not that important.
- Empower and reward action. This gets rid of that limbo when managers wait for approval from the execs. Often, the managers we work with are authorized to make decisions.
We could write an entire, separate article on this topic. But these two are the most effective and biggest factors that can speed up companies’ trajectory to completed projects while taking advantage of the talent pool available through outsourcing.
IP and security concerns
Unlike bureaucracy, this is simpler. We work with non-disclosure agreements and other legal agreements that protect our client’s intellectual property. We also have internal systems in place to guard against unauthorized access to our work for clients.
Along with this, we’ve worked with companies who decontextualize the tasks and materials sent to us. An internal employee, and a client manager, collaborate with us so we know enough to accomplish our work and they take care of bridging the gaps and building on our submissions to integrate them into their needs, without us knowing more than we need to.
It can be challenging, but there are ways to get things done, and this streamlined process can even be safer for protecting IP and averting security risks than traditional hiring practices where the hires are given too much information that can be leaked inadvertently.
Lack of company-specific knowledge
As proven by the workarounds for IP and security concerns above–and the same workarounds apply here– outsourcing is possible and still efficient without needing company-specific context.
When we onboard clients, we ask questions like who is your target audience, what are your goals for this project or task, and your key search terms. We also ask for your website, but we have worked without it. We take insights from your answers to our other questions, like your competitors and what you want or don’t want to see.
In our experience, this was enough, and sometimes even more beneficial. When you outsource, you get a truly objective point of view and gain new insights and solutions which you and your internal team may be too close to the project to conceptualize.
Other considerations:
- Examine if your tasks can be broken down to remove the need for company-specific knowledge.
- Your freelancer can be trusted with learning more about your company. The more you show them their purpose and contribution, the more invested they become in your success.
The benefits of the flexible, open talent
Once they get past the above hurdles, enterprises big and small gain so much from outsourcing.
Scaling up and down: Case in point, our clients hire and rehire our specialists. Contracts start and end as projects finish, but they know they can depend on us when they need us.
We’ve seen project teams grow to more than ten members and then go down to three people until work piles up again and we accommodate that demand.
Cost-effective compared to traditional temporary staffing, which may not be sensible for small tasks and their timelines.
Access to more diverse, more honed skill sets: You don’t have to find these internally or retrain an existing employee, losing money on training and what could have been productive hours instead of their existing expertise.
We’ve seen industry-leading companies hold contests to find top-notch talent. You can’t always hold contests but you still access an impressive talent pool when you outsource, for example, to digital agencies like ours. You get trained specialists who can deliver what you want in less time than how it takes with traditional hires.
Return on investment is high: Outsource project-based, one-off, or repetitive tasks and you gain time, you gain solutions, you gain streamlined processes, and organization, get things done and you propel yourself to your goals and growth.
The shift to outsourcing is here and it’s easy
Decision makers and managers are more and more comfortable outsourcing.
No more time-sink interviews and shortlists
More and more companies hire freelancers without the need to meet them personally. Interfacing via video is even uncommon for us. Many of our clients proceed without interviews after a short trial to assess what we can deliver.
There’s so much work out there on platforms like Upwork, and the challenge is getting seen by your target freelancers. This is why our clients go to us: There’s an urgency in getting their projects started without the wait they might experience in platforms.
Communication and collaboration tools
We use tools, our clients use tools, and it’s a happy cycle of these tools helping us stay organized and our clients also breaking things down and getting organized so we can use these tools in the best way possible.
Sometimes we set up clients with tools like Slack and Trello. They adapt at a speed that’s amazing to see. These tools redefine the way we work together while on different continents.
Suits from Google Drive and Adobe also make collaboration easier with live feedback. Zoom has completely evolved to be the star of remote working. There’s no going back to traditional, slower ways of getting things done.
Word to the wise
As more and more businesses cultivate a flexible workplace culture and catch up to the benefits and conveniences of outsourcing, the competition gets fierce for the best talents.
We usually run out of freelancers for certain high-demand jobs. You want to find and partner with the best digital agencies fast.
Remove the hesitation and start…
Here are just 14 ways we assist our clients. For a full list here are over 200 tasks you can outsource to the Philippines.
#1 Outsource Back Office Operations
#2 Outsource Copywriting
#3 Outsource Customer Service
#4 Outsource Digital Marketing
#5 Outsource Ecommerce
#6 Outsource Email Marketing
#7 Outsource Facebook & Google Ads
#8 Outsource Graphic Design
#9 Outsource Live Chat
#10 Outsource SEO
#11 Outsource Social Media Management
#12 Outsource Video Editing
#13 Outsource Virtual Assistant
#14 Outsource Web Development