What benefits can hiring contractors offer your business?

Implementing complex informatics projects requires specialist skills, and sourcing expert talent can be challenging. How can hiring a contractor be the best solution for business success?

Contractors represent a significant proportion of the UK workforce with approximately 15 percent of workers – or 4.39 million people – in self-employment at the start of 2023.[i] With the gig economy and fixed term contracts often preferred by many for the flexibility they offer compared to full-time employment, finding the pick of the contractor pool is not for the fainthearted. Here, our head of recruitment Zach Harris, considers why hiring a contractor may be the right solution for your business.

When should I look at hiring a contractor?

If you’re thinking of hiring a contractor or team of contractors, ask yourself three key questions:

  1. Will the project be completed in the short term or within a defined timeframe?
  2. Does the project need a specialist skill set, which we don’t currently have in-house?
  3. Does the work need minimal supervision?

If the answer to at least two is yes, then engaging with contract workers through a specialist recruitment service is likely to offer a good solution. Let’s consider why:

Hiring a contractor can save money

In terms of cost-effectiveness for short-term workload increases or new projects, hiring a contractor offers a major advantage over recruiting a permanent employee. In contrast to recruiting a permanent member of the team, who must by law be given a range of benefits including paid annual leave and pension contributions, contractors only require payment for the hours they work, which can offer a significant benefit in terms of cash flow, particularly at project start up. Hiring a contractor means all of their working time – and cost – is dedicated to your project.

Contractors bring inherent flexibility and time benefits

Workforce agility is a major advantage of hiring a contractor as project workloads can fluctuate and organisational needs can change. Hiring an outside supplier gives a business the flexibility to respond rapidly to change, increasing or decreasing headcount as needed, with no commitment to often lengthy notice periods.

Businesses are increasingly prioritising the need for workforce flexibility, a model that dominated during the pandemic and is showing no sign of slowing in the informatics and IT sectors. Because the new hybrid nature of employment has accelerated this shift to an on-demand workforce, investing in a recruitment partner for sourcing specialist contractor hires in informatics will save time and resources.

Specialised expertise in their field

A contractor is productive from day one, delivering efficiencies and often bringing years of experience to the role. The in-depth corporate training and induction typical of permanent hiring programmes is not needed for temporary recruits. Bringing in external people to support on informatics projects gives you immediate access to technical skills that may otherwise be difficult to find.

Opportunity to trial new roles

Finding a talent pool of individuals to help meet your business targets requires resources and planning that may be difficult to factor into your work schedule. Temporary staff can effectively act as a ‘trial run’ to assess the need for permanent roles in the project. This can also determine whether the contractor would be well suited to the permanent role within the organisation if they should choose to make the switch. This lower-risk ‘try before you buy’ hiring strategy has gained popularity amongst business owners, particularly for more technical and senior positions before committing to a permanent contract.

Giving a fresh perspective

A contractor’s previous exposure to a wide range of projects and environments means that they can bring new perspective, rapidly adapting to different workplaces and a variety of projects. Contractors can also offer an objective opinion in the decision-making process that is separate to the business itself, meaning they can make valuable contributions with no internal bias or prejudice.

Why work with a specialist recruiter?

At 32 Stripes, we bring years of expertise, an external perspective and a network of highly qualified candidates to the fast growing informatics sector. For more information on the services we provide for your recruitment challenges, contact Zach Harris.

References


[1] Number of self-employed workers in the UK 1992-2023, Statista, 19 April 2023.  Accessed 2 May 2023. https://www.statista.com/statistics/318234/united-kingdom-self-employed/#:~:text=As%20of%20February%202023%2C%20there,at%20the%20start%20of%202020

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