As rewarding as it can be to outsource team members, getting them set up in your agency can be quite tricky. For starters, even though their contract is for a limited time, you can not qualify and treat them as temps. On the other hand, their role in your agency is not permanent either.
When dealing with outsourced team members, it’s a whole different ball game from dealing with your regular employees.
Should you take a different approach to set them up to make the most of their stay?
The answer is yes. Outsourced team members have a special and unique place in your agency. For this reason, deliberate steps must be taken to set them up for success.
What Matters Most To Your Outsourced Team Members?
There is a correlation between the things your outsourced team considers important and how well they succeed during their stay.
So what matters to your outsourced team?
Your first guess? Money, maybe.
Well, you are not wrong to note that cash is important to them. However, there is more to being and feeling motivated other than money.
Like all your other employees, your outsourced team wants to feel like they are contributing valuable skills and are a vital part of the bigger picture. They may also be in it to expand their skills, or explore new territories in their careers. In all, it is important to them to feel appreciated and respected.
7 Tips To Set Up Your Outsourced Team For Success
Now that you know the things that matter to your outsourced team, you can take the necessary steps to help them maximize their potential. Each of these tips is designed to both meet them halfway through their needs and also guarantee their utmost productivity for your agency.
1. Integrate them into your local team
Picture this: A new outsourced team member has just joined your agency. Already, you may have a local team with a bond that has been built through their years of working together. It is normal for your outsourced team to feel foreign to the whole experience. Part of being productive in an agency involves teamwork. Integrating your outsourced team into your local team replaces the feeling of being left out with a sense of belonging. This is the first step to making them feel like a vital part of the bigger picture.
2. Onboard! Onboard! Onboard!
Unless you are comfortable with your outsourced team employing general industry practices in their work with your agency, you might want to onboard them properly. Teach them everything they need to know about the specifics of your agency. This will clear up any hiccups that might arise along the way.
3. Get to know them on a personal level
This is not a breach of your rule to not mix business with pleasure. People are people. Beneath their attention to detail, carefully crafted emails, and everything work-related is a person with feelings. Knowing your outsourced team on a personal level means getting to know about their interests, career aspirations, family, and every other thing that makes them human. This has a way of opening them up to become comfortable with their work environment.
4. Don’t put them in a box
There may be a part of you that wants to milk your outsourced team for their money’s worth. After all, they cost you a lot to secure. This can be both good and bad at the same time depending on how you go about it. It can be good if you do it in a way that creates in the staff a sense of accountability. It becomes bad when you start attempting to cage them and put them in your box. One of the perks they enjoy as an outsourced team is a freedom to explore and take on more than one client at a time (except it’s an exclusive contract agreement). Bearing this in mind, you will do well to create a work schedule that allows for flexibility. A happy staff will always be a productive one.
5. Set expectations and reasonable deadlines
It is important to be clear on your expectations when dealing with your outsourced team. When expectations are set, it is easier to come up with metrics for judging performance. This has an effect on how productive they will be as they work with your agency. Also, part of allowing room for flexibility involves setting reasonable deadlines. You don’t want to be that agency that dishes out a mountain load of work to be done in the smallest amount of time. If you do this, in the long run, their productivity will suffer.
6. Keep the communication flowing
Productivity is affected when the communication is stale between you and your outsourced team. So keep it flowing. Communication includes everything from assigning tasks, giving feedback, and even constructive criticism. Productivity can be increased with effective communication.
7. Pay them commensurately
Yes, you read that right. Money should never be the only motivation for being productive. But you sure can’t leave it out of the mix. Low productivity can be induced by low and incommensurate compensation. Your outsourced team should not be paid less than what you pay your regular employees that do the same job. This is one step in the right direction of making them feel appreciated and respected.
Take things one step at a time
There are so many benefits your agency can enjoy by hiring an outsourced team; provided you bear in mind that “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Making the best out of any team takes time, patience, and consistency. Just be sure to put the right things in place that will help them in their productivity. And before you know it, you will start boasting of how well you have grown, and the ease with which your agency runs.
