Black and white image of a child dressed as a builder holding building plans. Cover image for the contract worker blog.

Written by:
Ollie Izzo

How to leverage contract workers to fill the tech skill gaps

Discover how to nurture relationships with contract workers and utilise their skills to close the tech skills gap.

When your current workforce doesn’t have the tech skills required to fulfil your company’s needs, you can find yourself at a crossroads between training existing staff or hiring new ones.

However, selecting and training new employees or upskilling your existing staff requires considerable time, money and effort. Without the time or resources to invest, you might need to try another solution.

In this blog, we’ll discuss the benefits of hiring contract workers and how to utilise their potential to see whether it’s a worthwhile move for your company.

Let’s explore.

What is a contract worker?

contract worker – or contract employee – is an independent professional not bound to an employer. Instead, as the name suggests, contract workers are usually contracted to work for a client over an agreed period. In essence, they’re like temporary employees.

Unlike permanent employees, contract workers’ contracts tend to be short-term, and they can work for multiple employers simultaneously.

If you’re new to all of this, we’ve got a handy guide for employers hiring their first contractor.

The benefits of hiring a contract worker

Organisations are realising the potential of temporary employees, with more and more contract workers harnessed to augment permanent task forces and fill the ever-increasing tech skills gap.

Because of their different work approach, there are many benefits for companies who choose to hire contract workers.

These advantages include:

Flexibility

One of the biggest USPs of a contract worker is their ability to be flexible with their timescales. This advantage means companies can usually hire a contract worker when they need the extra manpower before letting them go as soon as they’re no longer needed. Pretty efficient, right?

This solution can be a great benefit to companies that are hiring workers to bridge a skills gap in their company. Whilst you are gathering the resources to hire more skilled permanent employees or are in the process of upskilling your current employees, hiring contract workers can ensure that those required skills get covered in the meantime.

Specialisms

Contract workers are often very highly skilled in specific disciplines. Therefore, you can choose workers proficient in the skills in demand in your organisation.

Their focused skillset means they don’t need any further training when you hire them. So, as an employer, you can spend more time investing in a long-term plan for your permanent employees.

Perfect if you need a one-off niche task sorting quickly!

Less to set up

Although we’re sure you want the best for every employee you hire, there is value in hiring a contract worker due to the lack of things you need to set up for them.

For example, contract workers don’t receive holiday pay, sick leave, or pension contributions. As the majority of contractors are self-employed, they are responsible for sorting out their tax payments too! In this way, contract workers demand lots less from you than permanent employees.

How to maximise the potential of contract workers

Now that we know how beneficial contract workers could be for your organisation, it’s time to consider how you can manage them effectively to fill your company’s skills gap.

Here are a few things to consider when hiring contract employees:

Prioritise their experience

As with any employee, the more you give, the more you’ll get back from them. You can start by making sure that their experience with your company is as positive as possible from start to finish.

If you want to get the best out of your contract workers, start by developing a pleasant candidate experience for them. Bear in mind that contract employees will likely already be contracted by multiple other clients. Attracting them to your company requires standing out from your competitors.

Integrate them into your permanent team

Although their contract is different from your permanent workforce, contract workers will work alongside your employees and should feel like they’re part of a team.

To get the most out of your varied workforce, try to ensure that there’s no segregation between your different employee groups and that temporary workers receive the same treatment as permanent workers.

Organisations can achieve this by involving contract workers in workplace celebrations, including them in team group chats, and inviting them to all relevant meetings.

Communicate clearly and openly

If you decide to hire a contract worker, you’re likely acquiring them for a specific purpose. To guarantee they’re ready to tackle these intentions, ensure you’re clear about their role from the outset.

More often than not, contract workers will be working on multiple projects with numerous clients simultaneously. Because of this, you must maintain a clear flow of conversation so that your work remains a priority.

How to start hiring contract workers

One of the best things about hiring tech contract workers is that it is quick and simple (when you know how!).

At Revoco, we specialise in talent acquisition specific to the tech industry across product and delivery, software and engineering, data and analytics and IT.

So, if you’ve decided that hiring a contractor is the best next step for your company, all you need to know is featured in our handy guide!

If you need more information on attracting the best tech talent, reach out to our team today.