According to a report conducted in 2021 by HAYS Poland, more than half of all surveyed companies decided to temporarily hire specialists or other enterprises. As many as 54% of respondents predicted that demand for temporarily employed specialists would increase in the coming years.
These data show that companies increasingly seldom decide to hire people on the basis of employment contracts, and increasingly often decide to make use of the body leasing model, which is cheaper and more flexible than a traditional employment contract.
What is body leasing?
Body leasing consists in the impermanent involvement of a specialist in the execution of a project. Usually, their involvement in the project lasts from less than a week up to several months. This approach is mainly applied by companies that intend to cooperate with a specialist with specific skill set, for example, a Scrum Master or front-end React web developer.
The traditional recruitment of an experienced IT specialist can be a time-consuming process that costs an arm and a leg. According to a study by the Society for Human Resource Management, the average cost of recruiting a developer exceeds USD 4,000, and it takes approximately 42 days to find the right candidate. However, even that person might not be up to a company’s high expectations, which in turn may become a source of additional costs and require even more time to find a substitute.
If the project has a narrow time frame, it most often makes for the company little or no sense from a financial point of view to hire a full-time employee, as the risk arises that they will become redundant when the project is completed. By means of body leasing, companies can avoid a complicated, costly, and lengthy recruitment process. They can hire specialists when they truly need them.
What are the advantages of body leasing?
Body leasing is mostly used by software houses and companies with extensive IT departments. In companies of that kind, projects vary to a large degree, therefore they often choose to make use of outsourcing possibilities. In a company where the body leasing model is applied, each specialist can choose the client they wish to cooperate with and what project they want to focus on.
Some companies employ specialists on a B2B basis and their budgets are allocated to project management and completion, not to full-time jobs. In cases like these, there may be a so-called “hiring freeze” in place – a ban on hiring more people to project teams. An optimal solution to this challenge is the use of body leasing consisting in the involvement of a specialist with a specific set of skills to complete the project. Having implemented such a strategy, instead of spending resources on creating new positions, the company can allocate money for successful and timely project execution.
Any and all recruitment processes involve not only high costs and time spent on finding the right candidate, but also a number of risks. Assuming the cooperation fails, for any reason, the company can terminate the employee’s contract to render services without any incurring nor any additional costs.
Who is body leasing intended for?
Body leasing is an alternative to either the traditional model of employing people or outsourcing. It is addressed to companies that already have a team of IT specialists, but need to hire another expert in the field with a highly specific skillset.
This model can be applied not only by large corporations, but also small and medium enterprises that require the services of experienced specialists without the risk related to the hiring of a full-time employee.
The traditional form of employment is a contract between the employer and an employee. It requires documentation, employee benefits and insurance, and generates expenses that can be burdening expenditure for the company. Body leasing allows companies to avoid the costs of permanent employment, and consequently, the company can save money and spend it on other purposes. As part of the body leasing model, specialists can be hired both on a short- and long-term basis. Regardless of the duration of the agreement, companies have absolute certainty that they will be able to make use of the full potential of their new team members. And when the project is completed and wrapped up, cooperation can easily terminated in a stress-free manner or… the proven specialist can be hired for a new project.