Although the decision can vary widely by each employer, hiring temporary or contract workers has become a common practice in the IT industry. Employers often seek to engage consultants on a temporary basis in place of hiring full-time employees because their demand for specialized skills and expertise can change depending on each company project.
Many times, the hourly compensation rate for a temporary worker or consultant can exceed that of a full-time employee; however the employer does not have to provide fringe benefits and can easily let the temporary worker go once the project is completed. This gives employers a low-risk solution to adding new staff members to their business, especially in a down economy when most companies are hesitant to invest heavily in new talent.
Despite the added benefit and flexibility of hiring contract workers, there are still employers who prefer to hire permanent employees. This is especially true for companies with ongoing IT projects that are better off hiring full-time employees to avoid re-training staff on a regular basis.
There are many reasons to hire in-house IT workers including:
- Team dynamic. Some companies prefer a more traditional team effort in the workplace, which is why they would rather hire full-time employees. Contracted teams, tend to act more as an individual rather than having a vested interest in the success of the company.
- Operational stability. Contracted teams work well in a project-oriented environment; however, there is substantial workload in most organizations under the heading of operations: maintenance, improvements, monitoring, and analysis, which require workers to support the organization operationally. Oftentimes contracted individuals focus only on the project at hand are not as concerned with tasks that are more applicable to the long-term interest in the organization
While there are benefits to hiring both contract and full-time IT workers, it really depends on the individual organization to determine which type of worker would be the best fit for their company. It is likely that the trend to hire temporary workers will experience an increase over the next few months until the economy starts to stabilize and employers become more confident in hiring permanent IT employees for thier business.
