How you can boost productivity when managing an outsourced team

As many successful entrepreneurs will tell you, you shouldn’t try and do everything yourself, but instead, concentrate on the things you are good at and hire other people to do the rest. While outsourcing is probably the best way to go about things, the temptation to try and do some things yourself to keep costs down can be very strong.

However, by effectively managing those outsourced staff, you can cut down the amount of time you need them and improve their effectiveness at making your brand more successful. This approach will save on costs, increase revenue and positively affect your bottom line.

Problems communicating using email

Due to the nature of freelancers, this can be easier said than done. It is often the case that the best person for the job (or at least the most cost-effective) can be in a different time zone from both you and the other members of the team you have put together. Sending an email to check on progress can have a 36 hour turnaround time, which is only possible if no clarification is needed.

These delays can add days to your schedule and hold up other freelancers waiting on work, which in turn will increase expenses or risk team members leaving your project to pursue other commitments.

One way of working around such bottlenecks is to use project management software to oversee the project and spot any problems more effectively. However, you can only achieve this level of efficiency if the software is used correctly, not just as a glorified to-do list.

Project management software

If you use the software correctly, allocating tasks according to the deadlines you agreed, and then you can make these visible for all to see. By doing this, you can create a spirit of interdependence that can only help your project.

Working this way can also avoid the confusion caused by the fact that some of the tasks you have allocated across your team have to run concurrently, while others will depend on somebody completing the previous task.

Trying to manage all of this by email communication is a recipe for disaster. Your freelancers will have no idea about what they need to do and what else needs to happen first. However, as the best project management applications use Gantt Chart Software, they can easily visualize what you require them to do.

Check on progress and reallocate tasks

This overview can also highlight where you made better choices in picking your freelancers and where you might need to reassign some tasks. Working this way is a better solution than finding late in a project that one of your team hasn’t done what was required and caused the project to overrun.

With so many pieces in this particular puzzle, problems can be more complicated to resolve than if everybody is working for you full time. However, with many projects needing specialist staff for short periods, hiring freelancers is usually the most cost-effective solution. Using project management software to coordinate them through their tasks and across various timezones can turn a challenging project into a successful one.