If your business needs additional resource to carry out specific or specialist tasks, you may wish to hire a contractor or subcontractor. You may already have your own highly skilled employees who know how to run the mechanics of the shop floor, but if you are integrating an entirely new system within your factory, you may need support from an external engineering firm.
At Control Freaks, we work with a variety of clients to provide a full range of solutions and services, especially to the food industry and can advise on areas such as control and automation technologies. Because we work with such a diverse range of clients, we have an extensive knowledge base of the systems currently available, along with legacy systems.
Advantages of using a contractor
One of the big advantages of bringing in a contractor is that they already have the experience and industry know-how to hit the ground running. There’s no probationary period of training and possible re-conditioning if an individual has to transfer their skills from one industry to another as there would be if you were hiring for an in-house role. It is also easier to carry out short term forecasting if a contractor is being hired for a specific project or timescale as well as being able to extend or shorten the term depending on how the project is going. The same can be said for seasonal work or when you know that certain periods of the year will be busier than others and your manpower needs to increase to meet the demands of the business. So, in summary; temporary but experienced equals productivity and time saving.
Save the pennies and the pounds could look after themselves
It can be more time and cost effective to use a contractor than to hire and with a contractor you will not have the extras to pay for, such as income tax, national insurance or additional benefits that your company may offer with a permanent role. If any licenses or certificates are needed for an individual to carry out particular tasks, then a contractor will usually have these, meaning you don’t have to pay out any more of your hard-earned cash.
Their reputation is everything
External contractors would be nothing without their reputation. As such, it’s in their best interest to do a good job, and to do it as quickly as possible, which is not necessarily the same with internal resource.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that without a contractor, you could be at a greater disadvantage of having a void of downtime which will affect production and in turn your profit and loss.
Future proofing the industry
Engineering specialists are in short supply, so finding the right member of staff could take longer than you expect. Hiring a contractor in the meantime will ensure you’re covered no matter what happens.
What is important to note is that organisations such as STEM are helping drive our education system and our Government to invest heavily in our engineers, scientists and mathematicians of the future. This should give confidence to the companies who are recruiting, that the skills needed for our systems; now and in the future will be supported by the right staff.
At Control Freaks we are always looking for strong levels of talent and at the moment we need to expand our engineering team. We are on the hunt for an experienced electrical engineer/panel builder, so if you are keen to learn more about this role, click on the link below.