The externalization, or outsourcing of workers or departments in our organizations is a means and an important tool to increase flexibility and adaptation of our organizational structure to certain changes in order to experiment the effectiveness that a decision may have, really and objectively testing the result obtained.
However, abusing this system can make us fall, not only in causing a negative effect among our employees and collaborators, but in running the risk of losing the personality of our company. And what is truly dangerous is that if the contracting of external services works as it should, the temptation to abuse this type of services beyond what is advisable can be important.
In today’s business world we are moving in an environment governed by obtaining the best possible result in the shortest period of time, and the managers in charge of making decisions are capable of making real juggling in order to satisfy the mandate that has been given to us, among other things, because part of our emoluments are usually linked to the achievement of these objectives. However, this may lead us to not pay adequate attention to issues of vital importance, such as the work environment, how our stakeholders perceive us, the corporate social responsibility (which in itself deserves a separate article), etc., which, although in the short term it can be satisfactory, it will inevitably affect the sustainability of the company over time.
Corporate Sustainability and Externalization
Corporate Sustainability can be defined in a few words as the search for a balance that allows obtaining the desired results in the present, and that this obtainment can be maintained in the medium and long-term future. For this reason, it is important to use the tools that we have at our disposal for what they are designed, and not to make creative innovation decisions in their use, since the result, in the end, will be different than desired. In the same way that each nut requires a suitable tool to optimize the benefits for which it has been designed, with the outsourcing of our business structure, the same happens.
Do we think that we can implement a new process, management activity, etc., and we need to test the real result that it can bring? Lest go ahead! It is time to hire external management personnel and objectively assess what we are going to achieve with it, but once we have the necessary feedback and consider that we are going to incorporate this process into our activity permanently, we must design the optimal structure with the same character of permanence, and perhaps leave a certain percentage of externalization in order to have that point of necessary flexibility, but no more.
Efficiency and effectiveness in decision making
The efficiency and effectiveness must be obtained within the honesty in the decision making. If the search for the optimal short-term result leads us to the exercise of certain management engineering that leads to the use of figures such as the false self-employed, we can be sure that this result will not be maintained in the long-term. While it is true that the legislative and tax policy is often not helpful in the search for the best ratio of profitability, it is our responsibility as managers to put our grain of sand to try to change the current atmosphere and to heal our professional environment for the future that we want to build. We must not forget that our results depend on the people who collaborate in their achievement, for which they must be appreciated, recognized and cared for, and, what is more important, that they feel it.
Arturo Gálvez.
http://ajgalvez.com/
