Are contractors better value than permies?

[VectraMan]

There are lots of places where most people are either noobs or they've been there 10-15 years, or more. In these places it's as though the rest of the industry doesn't exist, and some fresh blood now and then which varies experience across different companies can be useful.

That's certainly true. I got stuck in a bit of a rut working in one job for 9 years with mostly the same people, and when I got out and started contracting I learned a hell of a lot just from experiencing different things, even if it was how not to do it.

Code Project sent me something yesterday ( just another scala quant - just another scala quant ) talking about the experiences of a Twitter employee who was encouraged by his boss to apply for other jobs and go to interviews, not because they wanted to get rid of him, but just because they understood that it's better for their staff to be in touch with what's going on in the industry (and realise how lucky they are). That's not something that would occur to many.

[unixman]

...the experiences of a Twitter employee who was encouraged by his boss to apply for other jobs and go to interviews, not because they wanted to get rid of him, but...

Lol.

They wanted to get rid of him.

[rl4engc]

Short term I'd say it makes more financial sense for a company to hire a contractor; get them in quickly, get the job done, don't renew. Or if they are very good, try to make them a perm. Likely contractor will resist so the company either has to cut them loose or keep them on 'longer term' a.k.a. possible less value for money.

Looking at the wider view though a company can only offer a true "capability" if it has a core team of valued, permament employees. I've worked for a company whos managers didn't really see things this way, and saw the technical permanent staff as a burden, that'd it make more financial sense to just recruit contractor staff with the right skills as and when required.

The result was obviously the company lost most of it's knowledgable tech staff, but had lots of contractors coming and going, which irked the permies and their (for that company) misplaced sense of 'loyalty'.

[eek]

No they are certainly not (always) better value, we can all list 3-4 contractors on this board that we would cross the road rather than work with.

Sorry couldn't resist the joke at my own expense...

[original PM]

Senior mgmt won't listen to permits as they are not paid enough.

So the spend £$€¥ on someone else to tell em what the permies say.

O

[psychocandy]

At my current gig they have brought in several contractors recently, on pretty decent rates. Do these reasons make a contractor better value than a perm?
Contractors:
1) Have more varied experience at different ways of doing things at different types of companies and across industries
2) Are more highly motivated as money is less an issue for them and they can concentrate on the job at hand
3) Are more highly motivated as they have little time to get up to speed and to prove themselves capable of delivery
4) Have more attention to detail and focus on quality as they want to build relationships with Clients and don't want to burn and bridges
5) Quickly pick up new skills as they have become adept at responding to different market conditions

All in all, would the above (and perhaps you can suggest more) mean it often makes more sense to hire external expertise to deliver a project?

6) Don't pull sickies all the time. Current client is public sector and there's an idea that you have so many weeks a year allocated as sick so they mostly take it.

7) Turn up when they're supposed to. Same as above - its like a country club for permies who've been there years and do what they want.