Running a successful business requires juggling a lot of different tasks. It can be difficult to stay on top of it all without investing in a helping hand. But just how should you invest in help? You could hire employees to work for you in-house, you could outsource somebody to carry out tasks, or you could potentially delegate tasks to AI. This post takes a look at the three different options and when to choose each one.
When to hire
Hiring employees can be necessary in many instances. There are certain roles that you cannot outsource or automate such as shop assistants to stack shelves, chefs to work in your restaurant or managers to help look after your team.
Of course, you need to be able to afford to hire people to carry out these roles. Hiring in-house staff is the most expensive option because you need to consider wages, benefits, recruitment costs, equipment and training. To justify the cost of hiring employees, there needs to be enough work to delegate to your employees and enough income coming in.
There are tasks that can be outsourced, but that some companies prefer to hire people for, simply because it allows greater monitoring and control over how tasks are carried out. When working with sensitive information, hiring in-house employees could help reduce the risk of this information being leaked. You may also be able to advertise more flexible duty requirements – such as hiring someone to do accounting, manage emails and help answer the phone.
Employees can also act as brand ambassadors in some instances. For example, delivery drivers could be asked to wear branded uniforms and drive vehicles displaying your logo. You cannot expect this when outsourcing drivers from another company.
When to outsource
Outsourcing can cost less money than hiring in-house employees. You don’t have to spend money training people or acquire tools. Instead, you can pay third-party experts who already have the expertise and tools.
Outsourcing is ideal when taking care of niche tasks – particularly temporary tasks or part-time tasks that aren’t worth hiring an in-house employee for. A good example could be outsourcing an event organiser to help organise a one-off business event, or outsourcing a phone answering service to answer the occasional phone calls that your business receives.
Common general tasks to outsource include accounting, marketing, IT support and legal support. However, there could also be industry-specific tasks that you can benefit from outsourcing. For example, some law firms find it beneficial to outsource litigation services.
When to automate
As AI and robotics become more advanced, an increasing number of roles are becoming possible to automate using machinery or software. This has led to more companies relying on automation instead of hiring or outsourcing tasks.
The cost and quality of automation can vary depending on the nature of the task. When writing basic web copy, there are free AI tools you can use that generate professional results – a worthwhile use of automation. Creating video content using AI or using a robot to wait tables in a restaurant meanwhile is likely to be expensive and the results may not be as good as if you were to hire a human – therefore it may be better to not automate these tasks.
Overall, before you consider automating a task, take your time to compare costs and read reviews to see if the quality you receive is worthwhile.
