In-house or outsource? Here's how to decide
The good news is that your business has grown to the point you need help to meet the demand of your customers or clients.
The bad news? Now you have to go through the process of determining whether you should recruit more staff for your in-house team or hire an outside firm or freelancer to take you to the next level.
Like so many decisions you’ve made along the way, this one doesn’t neatly fall into a business plan template … because it just all depends.
Although a magic ball approach to answering the in-house/outsource question isn’t in your future, hopefully the following list of considerations will help you tackle this issue from a few different angles.
Logistics
A practical place to start is to think about where you’ll put a new person if you decide to add to your staff. If the only available space seems to be a broom closet, you’re going to have to find more office space, and a move opens up another set of endless decisions and costs.
Legal issues
Federal regulations can change depending on how many full-time people you have on staff. Regulations can also affect the way your staff is structured, how their time is recorded and even how you write job descriptions.
Communication
With all the technology available today, you can keep in touch with a freelancer half a world away. Great long-distance business relationships are taking place everyday … everywhere. But nothing is the same as face-to-face interaction. Hiring an in-house person might be the best way to go depending upon your company culture.
Reliability
An almost universal truth in business is that you pay closer attention to your largest, most profitable clients … even if it’s subconsciously. It’s an even bigger truth with freelancers. When juggling between jobs, an outside person will typically spend more time with their larger client’s project. Plus, other than to give additional work, you can’t provide incentives or mentor a freelancer along a career path like you can an in-house employee.
Nature of the Job
Typically, a C-suite hiring decision isn’t going to go to an outside source, although there are times when a short-term, high level hire can get you through a rough patch. More likely positions that require repetition like data processing and other administrative work are easier to hand off to an outside source. However sometimes the opposite is true. Freelancers also do well in jobs that require special skills or talents, like writers, photographers or IT experts.
No matter which direction you decide to take, congratulations are in order! Decisions about outsourcing or hiring in-house are only made by thriving, growing businesses like yours.