Reply to: Are contractors better value than permies?

[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.

[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

[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...

[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'.

[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.

[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.

[Dallas]

Neither is better than the other, they are solutions to different situations. My example was not intended to say one or the other is better. Companies keep an extortionatly high ratio of both depending on the amount of the fine and media coverage. Generally, the more fines and roll-outs a company is doing, the higher proportion of contractors it will tend to have.

FIFY

[unixman]

Neither is better than the other, they are solutions to different situations. My example was not intended to say one or the other is better. Companies keep a suitable ratio of both depending on the situation. Generally, the more new projects and roll-outs a company is doing, the higher proportion of contractors it will tend to have.

[Dallas]

ie permies faff, ask my current PM she is ace at it

[PurpleGorilla]

I genuinely think contractors are more solution focused, and work on the critical path to get things done.

Permies look at the wider angle of how it might further their career, or become generic or across other projects to realise further value and synergies yada yada.

[SimonMac]

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.

However what contractors are, are better risks than permies, easier to get rid off and no long term costs for wages, we may think we get paid more than the average permie, but in most cases we cost less over the shorter period

[SpontaneousOrder]

I don't know what employers tend to think, but...

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.

Otherwise you end up with clientCos who "do Continuous Integration" because they have a jenkins build, but only integrate features every quarterly release cycle. Then need a contractor on 100K + a year to point out the very subtle point that unless you integrate your code continuously, you aren't doing continuous integration

And then to ask the followup question of: "If you thought that was contiunuous integration, then to what end did you think you were doing it for ?"

[VectraMan]

If you have a big 1 year project you can hire 5 permies on the thick end of 50k a year. When the project ends they will remain on your books and are all due an annual pay rise. You can't just dismiss them, due to UK employment law. You can't replace them with cheaper staff, due to UK employment law. Alternatively, hire 5 contractors then just dismiss them after 12 months. Renew at 6 months so you can chop any who are not satisfactory, or just to save costs. Flexibility.

Assuming it's a one off project, and assuming it's nothing particularly specialist.

Most of the places I've worked are looking to build expertise within the organisation, and that's expertise with their products so generic skills like SQL/ C#/whatever that you might get from the contractor of the month aren't going to cut it. So they look to hire permies and keep them long term, because that's the main value in the business. Contractors are only really useful to help out with some of the donkey work.

[unixman]

I wouldn't disagree with any of that.

[northernladuk]

Did you ask your accountant ?

If you have a big 1 year project you can hire 5 permies on the thick end of 50k a year. When the project ends they will remain on your books and are all due an annual pay rise. You can't just dismiss them, due to UK employment law. You can't replace them with cheaper staff, due to UK employment law. Alternatively, hire 5 contractors then just dismiss them after 12 months. Renew at 6 months so you can chop any who are not satisfactory, or just to save costs. Flexibility.

Yeah but if a client manages their portfolios priperly there should always be plenty of room for a core set of permies. The contract staff should be there too cover the upswing and downswings in demand, not to be the total solution. Replacing your entire project staff every project is just an awful way to run your business. Something completely lost on most contractors.

Contractors trying to dictate how a client runs their enduring business is generally a pretty bad idea.