The last decade has seen a considerable rise in outsourcing certain jobs due to the availability of highly skilled staff in other countries. This has led to many online services that provide tools for managing contract workers remotely.
Managing workers remotely offers unique challenges and requires strong project management skills. You’ll be dealing with people from various countries, so learning about their cultures will help bridge the gap and make relationships with contractors much stronger. To manage remote workers, you’ll also need to use online project management websites.
There are a number of different sites available that connect contract workers with employers. Two popular choices are Elance and oDesk. These sites take a percentage of the money that passes from the hiring company to the contractor and in exchange, provide a platform that makes it easy to manage the contract. Common areas of expertise that are generally outsourced include web programming, designing, consultation and writing.
The Process:
Both the oDesk and Elance platforms allow companies to post their requirements and set the terms of the contract. Contracts can either be set up on an hourly basis or on a per project basis. Once you create a new opening, contractors can submit their bids. As the hiring company, you are then given the option to hire based on the quotes submitted. The contractor profiles come replete with resumes, work samples, feedback from previous assignments, and scores of any tests that they’ve taken to that test their competency with different skill sets.
Aspects that Need to be Addressed:
When you decide to use the services of a contractor in a remote location, there are various things you can do to ensure you get optimum results. For starters, you should be crystal clear when communicating project requirements. This includes deciding on deadlines with mutual consent, and setting guidelines in terms of how and when you would like to communicate (phone, IM, email, etc). Also, try and stick to using language that is easy to understand.
Another important area to consider is how you’d like to be billed. While billing on a per project basis is fairly straightforward, with the hourly billing system, time lines for project completion should be clearly mapped out. This will help avoid billing disputes. It’s never fun to find out that a project you assumed would require two hours to complete, ends up being billed for twelve. These systems have controls in place to guard against over billing. They include an option to set limits on the amount of hours a contractor can bill for without your approval.
The potential for time differences between you and your contract workers is also a reality when outsourcing. Does your work require that you be in a similar time zone? It’s also possible that holidays differ. So, while working on Christmas might not be a problem with your contractor, the same might not be the case when it comes to their local holidays.
If you have a project you want to outsource, try either oDesk or Elance and start getting familiar with their system. It’s free to join and you only pay should you decide to hire someone. Once you sign up with them, they’ll offer to host a free webinar for you that explains how you can get the most from their system.
