Trade-me has recently reported that there are still a lot of highly paid opportunities for IT contractors. But will using contractors in your business help foster productivity?
Improving productivity takes effort and thought. In fact you need a strategy and then you need to be able to execute that strategy.
IT contractors are, by the very nature of their job, incentivised to make their contracts roll-over. They are not incentivised to produce a result or to develop a better and more useful outcome.
They may be skilled at what they do, and can fill a short term gap, but their regular use is not good business practice.
Every time an IT contractor is used, a manager becomes that little bit lazier and that business a little bit less productive.
So why not get rid of your contractors, get some consultants in to solve your problem within a fixed timeframe?
Outsource your work to people who can do it better and at a more effective cost.
If believe this will enable you to become a proper manager and develop your productivity. What do you think?
Contractors are not uncentivised to roll over their contracts, in fact their entire credibity is based upon their ability to get the job done within the achievable expectations of their CLIENT. It may surprise the author but good contractors have customer satisfaction at the top of their priorities.
If solution improvement is a requirement, call it out. More often than not the mandate of the contractor is to execute a scope defined by a consultant.
A lazy manager is nothing else but a lazy manager, and there are many of these embedded in the permanent workforce.
Why not get rid of contractors? Businesses need to have a holistic view of their resource needs to deliver on the goals and objectives. A mix if full time, part time pernament and contract resource pools is common, it is the management of the mix that is key. As tragic as it is how would corporates make the last quarter head count tweaks without having contractors to terminate temporarily?
Outsourcing is a legitimate part of the mix, but the contracts associated with outsourcing carry rigidity and unefficiency too. Contractors are the more efficient way of outsourcing one off work packages.
The fact is that poor and lazy managers are the wasteful layer of organisatons. Keep them focussed, efficient and effective, and you they will drive the right resource mix for the business.
Hi Mal
You have made a really good argument, particularly about managing the mix of resources. Contractors are a great way of managing an immediate, short-term need, especially if that need requires skilled and knowledgeable staff.
The problem is not that contractors do not want to satisfy a client’s needs, it is that there is a tendency for them to continually meet those needs without discussing more durable, cost efficient solutions.