Last week, we invited over to our new office HQ a select number of clients to eat breakfast while discussing the Contracting world from their perspective — believe me, it was a wonderful talk in which we solidified our understanding as to why companies are increasingly looking to Contractors to supplement their core workforce and the difficulty associated with it.
One of the biggest outcomes of the session is regarding why companies look for Contractors in the first place:
- Bringing specialized knowledge into the core teams
For this reason, Contractors are usually considered for more innovative and challenging projects. They are perceived as being more knowledgeable, confident and adaptable than other professionals. Contractors also allow for a more flexible way to fill a knowledge gap or to bring in a supplementary skill.
- Speed: time-to-hire
Hiring Contractors is faster and cheaper to do since most of the time there’s no need to go through the same recruitment process used for core team members. It is also usually much faster for contractors to be 100% performing in much less time.
- Unable or Unauthorized to hire
Especially true for big corporate and public companies, contractors are a great option when there is some sort of restrictions — either by internal or external regulation — that prevents them to recruit permanent employees.
- Workforce Flexibility
Contractors are also in great demand for companies looking to supplement their teams with highly qualified professionals who are easy to onboard, offboard and who are keen to work in projects with a defined scope and duration. This allows clients to fill in sudden demands for extra manpower — when landing a project, for example — and keep their company balanced.
Nonetheless, as we expected, it isn’t all perfect and there are some difficulties associated with contracting:
- It is still a growing trend in Portugal
Culturally, being a Contractor is still associated with precarious work which might stop some people from pursuing such options — this makes it harder for companies too. Additionally, there are still no standard rates for the market and a lack of legal and fiscal standards for this type of work.
- It is hard to differentiate the good from the bad
When hiring a tech contractor, you need to consider their hard-skills (capabilities to perform the work) and soft-skills (people, social and communication capabilities). Contrarily to what some might think, the biggest challenge for companies is to evaluate the soft skills of a contractor and make sure they are aligned with the client’s team and way of working.
- Middlemen are forever (but that will change soon!)
In a market where it is very hard to find talent, staffing agencies and body shoppers still rule the game. These companies often work together to supply companies with the talent which leads to an endless string of middlemen from the company employing the contractor and the client — most of the time with high margins and very little knowledge of this by the client itself.
- How to manage the Permanent Employees vs Contractors Relationship
When hiring Contractors, there’s a risk of misalignment with the company’s goals and culture. Even though Contractors are perceived as more confident and easier to onboard, because they don’t normally have the same benefits as permanent employees (e.g. training, events, and other benefits), it might be challenging to make them feel the company in the same manner.
With this said, we are up for the challenge. At Landing.work we are helping our clients with most of their problems by matching them with curated contractors, have them negotiate directly with the Contractors and bringing awareness to the market — have you checked our simulator? It couldn’t be easier to know what your liquidity as a contractor is!
What about you and your company? Are you hiring contractors? We would love to hear your inputs — reach out via [email protected].
Lastly, don’t forget — referral a client and win 500€ 😉
Aim for more,
João Ramadas
Operations Lead @ Landing.work
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