Forum Discussion
Subcontractors vs Direct Labor
Would you consider hiring subcontractors instead of hiring direct labor when talent is hard to find in your local market? My business has had a lot of success partnering with other companies to compl...
We avoid using subcontractors. You never know the quality of work you're going to get from a sub contractor and can risk giving your company a bad name over someone else's work. If there's going to be a mistake, I'd rather have to fix mine/my employees work over someone's else's. A sub contractor may also not have the same level of care towards a client that you do resulting in them not wanting to go above and beyond.
I agree about the quality issues, but would also add that we've lost future work to subcontractors who promote their own interest's over my company. But yes, the risk would vary based on the industry and the relationship that you can build with the subcontractor. We've generally been successful having a few competent leaders and then hiring inexpensive laborers to work with them when we need extra capacity.
