You wouldn’t deny the fact that you need an efficient team to shape an idea into a great product. The right kind of individuals can help you take your business to new heights. With that said, outstaffing and outsourcing are two hiring models that are often mixed up but are not the same.

In case you’re wondering whether to consider outsourcing or the outstaffing model, don’t worry. We are here to discuss this through and through in this article, which might help you clear your doubts and decide on one. So, let’s dig in….

What do we mean by outstaffing?

When thinking of options for recruiting employees for your business,  the one question that might come to your mind is ‘what is outstaffing?’. You can simply refer to its literal meaning to understand it better.

With outstaffing, you get the freedom to source talent from outside your business. In this, you may hire someone that works remotely but in cooperation with your current in-house development team. Such remote developers can be recruited on a contractual basis. To break it down, the outstaffing meaning is even further, ‘hiring staff from outside’ is one of the most common modes of recruitment for employers.

The perks of outstaffing talent are-

– Payroll handling is easier.

– If you feel you don’t need a lot of professionals, you can smoothly remove them from your team. Similarly, you can hire more people if your team is lacking talent.

– You have all control in your hands.

– It is a budget-friendly model.

The disadvantages of this model:

– Outstaffing development team brings more responsibility on your shoulders as you must keep an eye on everything.

– Cooperation between the management and the remote team might be a challenge.

– Language barriers may arise.

Understanding the outstaffing model

Now, let’s understand how this model works in the normal course of business. In this, various third-party companies can out staff talent for you. They seek the most worthy individuals according to the kind your business needs, and they look after their remuneration, taxes, licenses, and other requirements.

As a result, you are only responsible for paying for the number of hours worked. So, the role of a third-party vendor is of utmost importance as it will decide the kind of candidates you get.

We can summarize the entire model of outstaffing with a few pointers that are listed below-

– The first step in the process is that you need to specify what kind of staff you need for your development team. You can inform the vendor about any skills, qualifications, or other criteria you are looking forward to finding in the prospective candidates.

– The vendor will then find candidates that match your specifications and provide you with a pool of people to choose from.

– You will initiate your hiring process by knit-picking the best applications and interviewing them.

– Once recruited, the developers will take over tasks and responsibilities and work closely with your in-house team.

What is outsourcing?

Outsource vs. outstaff is a question every employer faces, and that’s why we’re discussing this. To answer the difference, let’s dig into what outsourcing is! This model focuses on the completion of entire projects or ventures. The idea here is to hire a team that will purely work for a particular project. You can, therefore, outsource the project to any efficient third-party team. The contractor has to make available all the resources. For the record, all the leading companies outsource software development to third parties nowadays.

The advantages of outsourcing are:

– It is cheaper than hiring in-house developers.

– The team is responsible for the entire project.

– There is increased efficiency.

– Finding credible expert advice. For example, getting the best assistance for customs compliance for international expansion  through outsourcing.

The disadvantages of outsourcing are:

– You don’t have complete control.

– Barriers may arise in language and time zones.

Which one to choose?

In the constant league of outstaffing vs outsourcing, each one has its own set of pros and cons. With that said, you can decide between them based on certain criteria. For instance, outstaffing can work if you already have a good development team, but it lacks resources. Outstaffing will give you more human resources and ideas to meet deadlines.

On the other hand, outsourcing is especially for projects that require skills that even your in-house team doesn’t have. So you can outsource a team to take advantage of great work standards. It is also very budget-friendly. Ask yourself these few questions to make the most informed choice about your business.

The Bottomline

As we can see, both of these models have their perks and disadvantages. While the outstaffing model poses cooperation challenges, outsourcing has cultural barriers. So, the wise thing to do is first understand what you need and then choose a suitable recruitment model accordingly.