How to choose an outstaffing agency and not be disappointed?

This form of interaction with personnel is simple and convenient. The customer company contracts qualified employees who do not need to be staffed since they are legally listed in an outstaffing organization. As a result, costs are reduced by reducing the burden on the accounting department and the personnel department, and the search for specialists for different types of tasks is simplified.

The most difficult task that remains in this matter is to find a reliable and qualified agency that can really provide good quality and fair work and deliver the solutions you really need.

Distinguishing a good contractor from outright scammers is not always easy.

Therefore, we have created an instruction, following which you can choose the right agency and quickly figure out who is doing their job poorly.

The first and the most important point to pay attention to is the rate of an outstaffing company. If it is lower than at the market – beware. It is very likely that you will run into a company that will not fulfill its obligations: it will not select personnel, and will not ensure the quality and speed of development.

To avoid problems, you should carefully approach the choice of a partner. The whole process can be divided into three stages.

In the first stage, you need to make a list of outstaffing companies, from which you will decide the one to cooperate with.

Collecting recommendations from friends and reviews on the Internet is a significant step when selecting an organization.

Find out:

• Can any of your friends/colleagues recommend this or that company?
• Who are your colleagues and/or competitors already working with?
• Can you find reviews of the organization of interest on the Internet? 
• How do they position themselves in the market?

Experience is one of the important criteria for an agency’s reliability.

Find out:

• How many years has the company been on the market?
• How many clients does the organization have?
• What were the longest business relationships with clients? The more regular clients the agency has, the more chances that the company is reliable.

Also, an essential point is that when choosing a foreign agency for a project, you must make sure that the team knows English well, and you can build your communication without any problems.

High places in the ratings and industry awards give an additional point in favor of a particular company, testifying to the level of the agency’s competence.

Find out:

• Has the agency ranked anywhere in the industry rankings?
• Does the company have prizes/awards?
• Does it provide any kind of contribution to the industry?
• Does it participate in different summits and professional meetings?

After collecting information and forming a preliminary list of contractor agencies, you can proceed to the next stage.

At this stage, the main task is to contact the selected agencies. Communication will allow you to clarify all the details of future cooperation, and understand how the processes in the agency are debugged. After that, you can draw conclusions about whether you are ready to continue and conclude an agreement.

One of the important details that need to be found in the communication process is whether the agency can provide employees with the right skills.

Find out:

• How many employees are there in the company? How many of them are the specialists you need?
• How many suitable employees work in the office and how many remotely?
• How long does it take to find employees with the right skills?
• Will the team work exclusively for your project, or will specialists be attracted to other tasks? The ideal option is when employees are 100% immersed in the projects of the client company.
• Can you interview several employees that might suit you the best?
• What conditions does the agency offer if it becomes necessary to attract new people or remove unsuitable employees?

Strong and effective management of an outstaffing company is a guarantee of successful and beneficial cooperation. Pay close attention to this, because managers provide the functionality inside any company. 

In order to make the process of work and cooperation as smooth as possible, a good thing is to ask to take a project manager of an outstaffing company. That will bring the highest effectiveness because their PM knows perfectly how to work with their staff.

Find out:

• What project management tools do the team work with?
• Will you be able to use the project management tools and methods that are accepted in your company?
• What communication channels are used to communicate with service customers?
• How and with whom to contact in case of emergencies?

The efficiency and productivity of employees are highly dependent on the work environment, so it is important to make sure that the outstaffing agency provides employees with everything they need to work.

Find out:

• What equipment do employees use? If you are looking for developers, inquire which development environment is used?
• What time does the working day start and end? Can specialists start work earlier or later if you need to reconcile the schedule?
• How is work done on holidays?
• How is the work structured if one of the specialists goes on vacation or sick leave during the project? Can the customer approve the leave of employees on outstaff?

When working with an outstaffing company, there is always a small risk that your data or trade secrets will be disclosed. Therefore, when choosing a contractor, it is important to clarify the details regarding safety.

Find out:

• Is the company ready to sign an NDA? Will it apply to employees who are involved in the work on the project?
• How does the agency deal with issues related to intellectual property rights?
• What security measures does the company take so that only the employees would have access to the information on a project?
• Is there a disaster recovery plan? When was it checked? Did they use it before?

Another essential point that needs to be clarified when selecting an outstaffing company is how rates are calculated and payment is made.

Find out:

• How much does an hour of work cost? Costs that are too low can be a red flag.
• How many hours can you hire a specialist?
• Does the rate change over time? What does it depend on?
• What are the payment terms?

In this article, we tried to describe all the main stages that cannot be ignored when choosing the outstaffing company for your project. Believe me, it’s better to first spend more time on market research and get a good result, rather than hurry up and then have problems and horrible quality.

You can also verify us at all stages. And if you have confidence in us, we will be happy to help you in the selection of employees.