Outsourcing Workforce Management is when you utilise the expertise of a partner company to take responsibility for work permits, visas, in country taxation, social security and payroll, as well as mobilisation and demobilisation support for your most important assets – your people.
This solution is ideal if you want to consolidate your recruitment requirements along with the ongoing management of your existing staff, 3rd party contractors and temporary employees, saving yourself time, energy and money along the way.
This guide covers everything you need to know about outsourcing workforce management, including why it is so important, the advantages and how to choose the right partner.
If you would like to download a PDF version of this guide, simply click the link below.
Download Outsourcing Workforce Management Guide PDF
Why is Workforce Management Important?
It goes without saying that your most important resource is the people representing your business. Without engaged employees who can focus on delivering their work, your projects don’t get finished and you don’t get paid.
With that in mind it’s essential to make all parts of the employment process as flawless as possible. Everything from visas to mobilisation, to payroll, taxes and demobilisation need to be handled in a seamless way so that your employees can focus on their jobs and not on all the logistics and admin that needs to be done behind the scenes.
An experienced partner will have a wide network of solutions that will allow you to have confidence that they can mobilise your people to where you need them and when.
Sure, you could utilise your internal HR team to do this but that then just takes away from other parts of their role. Outsourcing this process to an expert makes this process happen smoothly and allows everyone in your company to focus on what they are good at.
Advantages of Outsourcing your Workforce Management
In today’s increasingly fluid marketplace where demands are constantly changing a lot of businesses choose to outsource their workforce management. You may be thinking, “why should I pay more money to someone else to do something we can do ourselves”. Well, here is the answer to that question and as you will see, you are getting a whole lot of additional services and expertise for your money.
This is particularly relevant to businesses that have a need for large numbers of temporary or rotational workers that do not need to be hired as full-time employees.
Compliance
This one is a biggie if you are setting up in a new location. It’s imperative that you get this right, if you get it wrong things have a habit of coming back to bite you. A workforce management company will know about any quirks in local legislation to ensure that all of your contractors are employed and paid compliantly.
Work Permits & Visas
If contractors don’t have the correct work permits or visas before arriving, you face a number of issues. They may not get into the country for a start. If they do get in and are found to have the incorrect documentation you may be fined, and they could be deported. In certain industries you may need your workers to have the correct permits in order to obtain site passes. Working with a workforce management partner you will benefit from their knowledge of this process and they will be able to advise on the best permit/visa for your situation (e.g. long-term residence permits or short-term mission visas).
Local Taxation
How you are paying your employees is also very important to get right. Depending on the location, tax liabilities are always different and can be constantly changing. If you are paying your employees on daily or hourly rates, how are you working out their taxes which will most likely be based on annual earnings. A workforce management partner will take all of this headache away from you to ensure all tax liability is taken care of.
Employment Liability
As I have already mentioned in this post, business needs are always changing and there may be situations where you need to terminate people at short notice. By employing people as contractors through a workforce management partner you have no employment liability, making the process as easy as possible. You can also engage people quickly without needing to have all of your social security, tax and visa quota account set up in advance.
Mobilisation Support
In this day and age, there is a high chance your workforce will be based all over the world. Arranging all of the logistics of getting people into a country can be a monumental task. A workforce management partner can handle all of this for you and will often be able to leverage their relationships with travel providers to minimise costs.
Extended Credit Terms
How does improved cash flow sound to you? Good right? Well, by working with a workforce management company you can benefit from extended credit terms and put responsibility on them to make sure your contractors are getting paid on time, every time. You then only have one invoice to process and can spend more time chasing your clients for payment of your invoices!
Time Sheet Technology
When you have a high number of temporary or rotational workers you need to keep track of how many days or hours they have worked. Manual time sheets are a thing of the past, workforce management partners will have access to the latest online technology to make this process as simple as possible.
Reduced Administrative Burden
One major advantage of partnering with a workforce management company is that it saves you a lot of work and hassle. They would take responsibility for getting visas and getting your employees into a country and then the ongoing payroll and management of your workers.
Choosing the Right Workforce Management Partner
So, you have decided that all the above benefits are too good to pass up on and outsourcing your workforce management is the route you want to go down. Now you just need to choose which company to use. Speak to companies that can provide this service and give them the details of your requirement. You need to be confident that they know what they are talking about and you need to know that they will deliver what they say they can.
Here is a checklist of questions to ask yourself and them, which should help you find the correct partner for you.
- Can the company support me in the areas I need support in right now?
- Are they able to answer all my questions in detail to give me the confidence that they know what they are doing?
- Can they provide examples of delivering the same service for other clients?
- What are the costs associated to employing workers in that location?
- Do they know the process and the timeline for getting workers into the required location?
- What involvement do they need from me?
- What are any potential issues I may face and how would the company mitigate them?
- Can they only support me in one location or will they be able to help me with any future requirements?
If you get the right answers from all of the above it sounds like you have found yourself a keeper. Give them as much information as possible about what you need and they will then start to work out precise timelines for you and get the transfer process started.
Find out more about Outsourcing Workforce Management
As well as your people, one of the most valuable commodities in business today is time. By working with a competent workforce management partner, you will save yourself so much of this. By letting the company focus on what they are good at (visas, mobilisation, payroll, taxation and all other employment compliance), you can focus on what you are good at – delivering an excellent service to your clients.
Leap29 have global experience in helping companies manage international workforces, so if there is a particular country you have questions about please get in contact with us and we are happy to provide advice and guidance.