How to Save Business Expenses by Keeping Key Positions In-House and Outsourcing

We’re more than halfway through 2023, and we still haven’t run into the feared recession everyone was prophesying six months ago. But the economy remains shaky, all the same. That said, wise business leaders are keeping an eye out for cost-efficient strategies, such as outsourcing, to help minimize costs for the foreseeable future. One area that soaks up a ton of resources is payroll.

Before you start outsourcing everything in sight, though, it’s important to consider what positions your business should keep in-house and what responsibilities you should pass off to third parties. Here is a three-step approach to help you manage your talent expenses and keep costs down while still maintaining the environment to let your enterprise thrive.

1. Align your talent management framework with your KPIs

As detailed by Indeed, a talent management framework is “a model that integrates organizational processes that attract, motivate and keep top talent for an organization.”

In other words, this is a system that you use to source top talent for your enterprise. This includes attracting and hiring quality workers. But it goes far beyond basic recruitment. A good talent management framework also includes engaging with, motivating, and ultimately retaining your best employees over time.

While a framework is important for talent acquisition, it’s also a key factor to have in place when considering hiring costs.

Talent management frameworks make it easier to align with KPIs

A framework gives you a clearer picture of what you’re trying to accomplish with your recruitment. Along with helping you find the right people for your company, this also makes it easier to align your recruitment process with your company’s KPIs (key performance indicators).

If you want to be efficient as you seek out talent, the last thing you want to do is hire people simply because they’re successful or have a certain trait or skill. You want each hire to address a specific need within your company. Your KPIs give you end goals and benchmarks to guide this process.

Using KPIs to identify key in-house positions within your organization

You can use your KPIs in concert with your talent management framework to identify key positions that are best to have in-house. Consider, for instance, a small company in the tech sector that is seeking to ride out the current economic climate. (Tech has been particularly hard hit this year.)

Financial KPIs at this point tend to focus on increasing revenue through new customer sales and preserving the cash runway. Taking these factors into account gives recruitment a clearer visual of what they are trying to accomplish.

It also makes it possible to identify key positions that are crucial to keep in-house. One of these, for instance, would be a CFO (chief financial officer) to oversee cash flow and maintain a stable fiscal environment. A CSO (chief sales officer) can oversee new customer acquisition.

At the same time, realizing that cash flow is a priority might make something like marketing easier to outsource. A fractional CMO could provide key third-party insights and help guide the company for a fraction of a six-figure salary. By having a clear framework aligned with KPIs, you can ensure that each hire and each outsourcing move lines up with your business’s current needs.

2. Differentiate between tasks and professions

Aligning your talent management framework and KPIs is a critical first step. It helps you begin to identify which areas of your business are important enough to keep in-house and which things you can pass off to an outside professional. However, if your goal is to save expenses, you can dig deeper than just the hiring process. You also want to take the time to differentiate tasks from professions within your organization.

This is a subtle but essential clarification. A profession is an occupation that requires training, certifications, and other qualifications.

In contrast, a task is a specific, defined action that an employee performs as part of your business activity. Creating a marketing strategy, hiring an employee, and taking out the trash are all tasks. Someone has to do them to keep your business running smoothly.

Identifying non-core tasks within your company

It’s important to differentiate between professions and tasks within the context of hiring and outsourcing for your business. Take the time to consider not just the question of whether you should keep each position in-house or not. Dig deeper and look at the specific tasks that each in-house position is responsible for executing.

Contiem, a full-service content solutions partner, points out that “adding certain tasks to your team’s to-do list can be too much of a distraction from their main responsibilities.” When you approach your employees’ workloads with this perspective, it can be surprising to see how many non-core tasks exist within a company.

Often a mountain of work bogs down…