When weighing up the price of outsourcing, it’s easy to miss the hidden costs of existing staff or of ones you’re thinking of hiring.
The surest way to get those sums wrong is to focus on the hourly pay rate. Whilst the whole cost is included in a quote from an outside company, hourly pay for employed staff is just the beginning of the maths.
For starters, the hourly rate doesn’t take into account holiday pay, sick pay and any pension schemes that have to be contributed to. Then there is the cost of covering those staff when they are sick or on holiday. If the employee is working in a crucial area you’ll probably have to be over-staffed just so you aren’t left in the lurch.
The costs of hiring, and rehiring, training and retraining – not to mention managing – also need to be added on. Finally, they’ll need a suitable workstation, desk, chair and office space.
If you’re attempting to cover a 24/7 time-space, the problems get worse. People who want to work through the night expect higher pay. But that often isn’t enough to keep them for more than a few months, when they’re not taking sickies.
To find out how outsourcing metadata, image handling and sales promotion tasks can help you keep your real costs under control, click here.