Consultants have a benefit in that once they have done their thing they are gone. Having everything done by consultants makes no sense because most staff need to be around full time to do the continuous work.
I have no doubt that consultants are overused, but this specific example seems to be a perfect use case for a consultant.
And once they have gone, so has their expertise, knowledge etc. If there is repeat work or follow-up and the original consultant is unavailable, there is a significant amount of repeat work and quite often rework. It’s never as simple as suggested, in my experience.
I think in general you are right. But for this particular $32k contract that can’t last longer than a month or two, it wouldn’t take a new person longer than a month or two to catch up or start from scratch. Even if you had to redo the work from scratch every year it’s still significantly cheaper than hiring a permanent staff member.
I guess what I’m saying is that consultants and contractors are so overused and so regularly a poor choice that it surprises me that they are picking on one of the few situations it makes sense. I can’t believe there isn’t a better example to complain about.
Consultants have a benefit in that once they have done their thing they are gone. Having everything done by consultants makes no sense because most staff need to be around full time to do the continuous work.
I have no doubt that consultants are overused, but this specific example seems to be a perfect use case for a consultant.
And once they have gone, so has their expertise, knowledge etc. If there is repeat work or follow-up and the original consultant is unavailable, there is a significant amount of repeat work and quite often rework. It’s never as simple as suggested, in my experience.
I think in general you are right. But for this particular $32k contract that can’t last longer than a month or two, it wouldn’t take a new person longer than a month or two to catch up or start from scratch. Even if you had to redo the work from scratch every year it’s still significantly cheaper than hiring a permanent staff member.
I guess what I’m saying is that consultants and contractors are so overused and so regularly a poor choice that it surprises me that they are picking on one of the few situations it makes sense. I can’t believe there isn’t a better example to complain about.