Oops: Contractors more efficient than employees
September 4, 2008 by Fred HosierPosted in: Latest News & Views, unusual programs
What would you do if you found temporary workers were more efficient than your full-time employees?
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) is faced with that dilemma.
A new study shows contractors hired to investigate federal-sector discrimination cases for EEOC are doing the job 35% faster and for less than half the cost of federal workers, according to the Federal Times.
Contractors took on 7,400 of the 11,200 EEO investigations in 2007. Just five years ago the number outsourced was only 4,500.
In that same five-year period, the time it takes to conduct investigations has steadily declined. For the first time, average time to complete an investigation dipped below 180 days in 2007.
So outsourcing isn’t just for private industry — even the federal government is doing it more and more.
Tags: contractors, outsourcing, temporary workers
September 4th, 2008 at 9:45 am
I’d be curious to know what the compensation structure is for each - employee and contractor. If employees are paid as salaried exempt or even hourly at a set rate, and the contractors are paid by the investigation (ie compensated when they bring a case to resolution), that might explain the difference in efficiency and speed.