People today are more connected to each other than ever before; smartphones, free WiFi, social media – the digital era is truly here. Take your local coffee shop for instance, as you look around, most people are either engrossed in conversation, gazing at their mobiles, or working on laptops.
Is a meeting taking place? Is someone closing a deal over Skype? It’s highly likely that there are people connecting with their clients and co-workers via the internet; the same people that popularized the concept of outsourcing services.
Outsourcing services have been around for years, though not in the way that it is defined today. It used to involve hiring an individual or a team within the same geographical region to work on a project that a company cannot internally accommodate. But now, technology has introduced outsourcing services to a new global arena.
Through improved online connectivity, advances in technology, and the high availability of usable mobile devices, outsourcing has allowed people to work from anywhere in the world. This also means that for certain roles, a company can hire people from any part of the world. This alone has driven the increasing popularity of all outsourcing services.
The main benefit that companies enjoy with outsourcing services is that they gain access to a wider pool of talent. Chances are, if the employer is looking to hire for a certain specific skill, such as IT developer roles, they may need to look abroad to find what they are looking for.
Business process outsourcing has grown at a phenomenal rate over the last two decades and is showing no signs of dwindling. More and more companies these days are outsourcing services that are in line with information technology, operations management, and marketing. And aside from IT professionals, there is also a relatively high demand for virtual assistance and telemarketing experts today.
During the early days of the BPO industry, a company would partner with a firm based in India or the Philippines, and the employees hired for these projects would be working from office buildings. The redefined concept linked with outsourcing services now comes to include home-based working environments for a wide array of professionals.
The last few years have seen a shift in line with home-based work, especially in areas where face-to-face interactions with supervisors or teammates have been reduced or are no longer required. However, this new business concept has one major drawback: RISK.
When a company decides to consider outsourcing services and hire remote workers, they are exposed to a different kind of working relationship that they must adjust to. As a company with 9 years of experience, we know how to mitigate these risks. An example of how we mitigate risk in the new global workplace environment pertains to the security of information and proprietary knowledge.
At Remote Staff, we have established several safeguards to protect our clients. Aside from requiring all remote staffers to sign legal work contracts and abide by our Code of Conduct, we also utilize tools that measure hours worked, have screenshots to verify the work being done, and encourage the use of various communication channels to ensure real-time collaboration. These applications help us foster a working relationship based on accountability and transparency where trust is maintained.
