Can a Flexible Labor Force Handle Important Business Processes?

As your business grows it will become more and more necessary to delegate some of your important business processes. It can be difficult to get to the place where you are willing to let others take care of some of these important tasks. But, you will stunt the growth of your business if you are unwilling to delegate.

Once you make peace with the need for delegation the next step is finding qualified help for your important business processes. The first place to look is at your current employees. Does anyone have room in their schedule to take on additional tasks? If you exhaust this resource and need additional help then the next place to look is at a flexible labor force.

What is a flexible labor force?

In general terms, a flexible labor force consists of people who do work for you on an as-needed basis but are not in-house employees. One example of a flexible labor force is outsourcing. You can delegate tasks to an outsourcing firm as needed and increase or decrease the amount of help you receive as your needs change. Two other examples of flexible labor forces include freelancers and temporary labor. You can use freelancers to fill in gaps in your labor force as needed. When you hire a freelancer you negotiate directly with them on price and job responsibilities. The most typical way to use freelancers is on a project basis. In order to get temporary labor you will generally have to work with a staffing agency. You let the staffing agency know what type of help you need, for how long, and what you want to pay and they do the work of finding someone for you.

Can a flexible labor for handle important business processes?

The idea of being able to find additional labor support quickly is appealing to many business owners. Quick access to a pool of labor can help you keep up with the needs of your business during times of rapid growth. But, the seemingly temporary nature of flexible labor forces makes it difficult for some business owners to feel comfortable handing over important business processes. You do not want to put important responsibilities in the hands of people who may be unreliable or in a season of transition.

You can find freelancers who are proficient in just about any business process. Technology has made it extremely simple to find and hire freelancers for a variety of roles. However, using freelancers is the most risky of the three flexible labor forces mentioned here. This is because they are completely independent and not a part of a structured organization. The flexibility that makes freelancers easy to find also means that they can leave or stop taking on new projects without notice.

There is a little more stability when you choose to work with a staffing agency. The agency takes care of finding potential labor support for you and then you choose from the options they present. You can give them a set of parameters to insure that the options they present have the training and experience necessary to handle the business processes you need done. If something changes for the person you choose you can always go back to the staffing agency for a replacement. This prevents you from being completely without help, although you will have to spend extra time training the replacement. Using a staffing agency can also help you feel a little more comfortable assigning some of your important business processes to temporary labor.

Outsourcing is the most stable of the three flexible labor forces. The team approach of outsourcing means that there is always someone available when new needs arise. It also means that more than one person is trained on your account which minimizes the danger of important processes going undone. Working with an outsourcing company can provide you with the flexible labor you need at a much lower cost than hiring in-house help. If you need to assign important business processes to a flexible labor for then outsourcing is the top option.

Infinit-O is the trusted customer-centric and sustainable leader in Business Process Optimization to Small and Medium businesses in the Financial Services, Healthcare and Technology sectors by delivering continuous improvement through technology, data and people.