How to Outsource Responsibly to Avoid Overloading Your Employees

When most people hear the word “outsourcing,” they get a little uncomfortable. After all, outsourcing is typically done by companies that, in trying to save a few bucks, eliminate jobs within the company in favor of a third party. However, when done correctly, outsourcing can be a great source of growth and innovation for a company. To see if this route is right for your company, here are a few tips on how to outsource responsibly to avoid overloading your employees.

Eliminate Monotonous Tasks

At some point or another, most jobs involve at least some monotonous, repetitive tasks. The question to ask yourself is if these tasks could be done more easily by an outside company that would then free-up your employees to do more important tasks. If you can introduce efficiency by allowing another company to get the mundane work done more quickly, then it may make sense to outsource these tasks.

Consider Time Needed to Learn

Another time when it may make sense to outsource is when the time needed to learn how to do a certain task outweighs the benefits you’ll receive from having that task completed. For example, say you need some internal network upgrades to help boost productivity. You could, of course, recruit someone from within your company to complete these upgrades. However, they would likely have to spend a fair amount of time learning how to do this task. Instead, you can utilize managed IT services to quickly and correctly complete the upgrades to protect the time of your internal employees.

Think Through Business Core

A big factor in deciding when to outsource is thinking through why your business exists. Figuring out what the core of your business is can help you sift out all the peripheral tasks that simply waste your employees’ time. It is these tasks that either need to be eliminated entirely or outsourced if, indeed, they are necessary for business operations to continue.

Consider Job Descriptions

Along the lines of considering the main purpose of your business as a whole is considering the purpose of each employee. When you hired your employees, it’s likely that you gave each of them a job description to help limit the scope of their duties.

Now, to be sure, an employee’s responsibilities can change over time. However, if you realize that multiple employees’ responsibilities have drifted significantly from their original job description, then it’s worth investigating to see if their job descriptions need to change or if you need to outsource some of their unnecessary work.

At any company, it’s important to have a few individuals who can think through big picture concepts to help direct your company’s future. However, what if every one of your employees could be involved in this big-picture thinking? If you outsource certain responsibilities correctly, this will give your employees margins in their day in which they have time to think about these big picture ideas. This will allow for more creativity within your company, which has a high potential to lead to greater growth.