The IT Hiring Manager’s Guide to IT Staffing — Part 1

Posted by: Matt Rivera

For IT hiring managers, getting the right IT talent is a job unto itself. But how do you manage a busy department and still find the highly skilled IT staff you need?

Our latest eBook, “The IT Hiring Manager’s Brief Guide to IT Staffing,” can help IT (and even non-IT) managers understand and optimize their use of non-employee, skilled IT professionals. In a series of upcoming blog posts, I’ll give you an overview of some of the key information from that eBook, but there’s much more that you can only get when you download the complete eBook.

There are various types of non-employee engagements (also known as avoiding headcount). They are structured differently, and there are some precautions to take when using certain types of non-employee groups. Below is a quick summary of the main types of staffing options and some details about how they’re used.

Temporary staffing: This is by far the most common. These are skilled professionals provided by and working through a staffing company (temporary agency, consultant, vendor, etc.). In most cases the professionals are working on an hourly basis, and the staffing company bills your company for any hours worked by the contract worker (also known as a temp or contractor). The staffing company pays the contract worker and takes care of all payroll taxes, any benefits, and all employment requirements.

Independent contractors: Another common engagement for IT staffing is the use of independent contractors. An independent contractor is an individual or a very small business that contracts directly with your company to perform a certain task or scope of work. The name “independent” denotes that the individual is not part of a staffing company or other staffing provider. He or she is an independent entity that is able to make his or her own decisions about contract terms, work performance, and profitability.

Statement of Work: An additional way IT work can be done is through a Statement of Work (SOW). The SOW sets out a scope of work to be completed by a third party. It can cover a broad range of hourly and fixed-fee engagements. In some cases, the SOW covers a single person performing a task or series of ongoing tasks with an associate hourly or fixed fee, along with some indication of acceptable performance, such as a Service Level Agreement (SLA). SOW can also apply to a team of individuals that is performing tasks under an SLA or metrics that measure acceptable performance. A project manager is either on- or off-site and supervises the work product and interaction.

In general, the first model — temporary staffing — is the most straightforward and typically is already established in other areas of the organization, such as clerical, finance, or corporate. Risk can exist in any of them if the contract worker seems to be treated, managed, or given the same benefits as a permanent employee.

If this seems pretty simple to you, good! That means you already have a handle on the basics. In the rest of this four-part series, we’ll discuss independent contractors, getting the best person, and working through company-wide managed staffing programs.

If you can’t wait, download the entire eBook. There’s more information on the above categories and everything you need to know to help get the talent you need for your IT projects. The eBook also contains some frequently asked questions from IT hiring managers.