Cost reduction in modern business management is an important and complex process. Modern techniques involve savings where, it would seem, this is not possible by definition. One of these areas is to save on staff, which is adopted from a third-party company for a certain time, but is not staffed. This practice is called outstaffing - “external staff”, “out of staff” and involves working in a company of people registered in another, which is an outstaffer provider.
Outstaffing activity is close to the work of a recruitment agency. But if the latter is only looking for people who are ready to work, and then brings potential employees to a potential employer, then the outstaffer acts somewhat differently and more cunningly.
There are three areas that can be addressed in this area. This is staff outsourcing, staff leasing and outstaffing itself. At first glance, there is no difference between these types of activities, but each of them has its subtleties. To some extent, we can say that they differ dramatically, having just a common idea - to provide staff. Depending on this, in the process of registration of a business entity, codes (OKPD 2) 78.20 may be indicated. 78.20 Services provided by temporary employment agencies, (OKPD 2) 78.30 Other human resources services for providing personnel or (OKPD 2) 78.10 Services provided employment agencies.
Outsourcing of personnel is a usual service for adopting the business processes of another company, only those tasks that are directly related to providing personnel on the ground outside the company are accepted. A good example is the sphere of trade, when sales personnel work on paper for an outsourcer, but do the work of many companies in one outlet. For example, a sales representative can enter into transactions with many stores, while representing the interests of many firms that do not compete with each other. Here, savings are achieved due to the fact that one person performs the same type of work, but in large volumes. If each of the firms had hired a sales representative, then, having unreasonably high wages, he would have performed a very small amount of work. The same applies to merchandisers, forwarding drivers and supervisors - all of them can work simultaneously for several companies, for each of them doing the same type of work.
The situation is somewhat different with staff leasing. This term cannot be called correct at all (and the matter is not even in the ethical component) - a person under the law can not be objects of rental relations. But staff leasing is the practice when a company takes employees from a provider for seasonal, temporary or unforeseen work. At the same time, employees, as a rule, either live off accidentally intersecting “orders”, or work in their main company in their position, and work for third-party companies when the main employer can afford a temporary absence of the employee. There are, however, those companies that provide personnel leasing as their main activity, simply having a staff of specialists who, if necessary, work for many companies. A distinguishing feature of leasing from outsourcing and outstaffing is time-limited or periodically occurring, but not a permanent staffing contract.
Finally, outstaffing itself is the maintenance of the staff of the staff and the maintenance of the relevant legal, accounting, personnel and other issues, while the employees themselves are actually employed on an ongoing basis in the borrowing company. This practice is often used if it is unprofitable for the latter to keep the documents of these employees for any reason. This is primarily due to the possibility of working on a simplified taxation system, since when maintaining a staff of more than 100 people, it becomes impossible to apply this system (for trade and the service sector, the restrictions are even more stringent).
The company borrowing personnel continues to work without canceling the simplified tax system, transferring part of its employees to the staff of a third-party organization. She, in turn, also assumes all the burden associated with the maintenance of personnel services, and the costs of maintaining employees. The consumer company also gets rid of liability in case of any questions from the labor inspectorate or the migration service. It turns out outstaffing is a legitimate way to get rid of many “uncomfortable” issues for the company.
Of course, the sane entrepreneur when registering an outstaffer company does not report the true activities that he will engage in taxation. Typically, such companies are registered as recruitment agencies. The concept of outstaffing is not found in Russian legislation, but its essence falls within the definition of the provision of contingent labor. Since 2016, contingent labor in the Russian Federation will be banned, which greatly complicates the process of doing business for outstaffers. If even now you have to disguise yourself as a recruitment agency, then in the future there will probably be more checks and difficulties in applying, but such services are still in great demand, and the support of a competent lawyer will allow you to legally engage in such activities - the main thing is to correctly teach people from regulatory bodies. Therefore, at the very beginning you need to have a very competent lawyer who knows the law and all its “white spots” very well.
But nevertheless, in order to avoid problems, outstaffers will have to revise their working principles and retrain into a company with a slightly different business scheme in a year. The easiest way is to become an ordinary outsourcer who is ready to carry out the business processes of companies of different directions by the hands of their own specialists.
One way or another, businessmen have at their disposal a whole year during which it is possible to fully study all the features of such activities, starting January 1, 2016, starting to do something similar, but still legal. The prospects in this direction are serious enough to begin to consider outstaffing as a kind of occupation, even under the conditions of impending restrictions.
So, in order to open your own company, which provides personnel to other companies, you need to search for premises after registration. It may be small, but in order to maintain the image of the company, it is best located in the business district of the city. Future partners will still be accustomed to contact the organization, which is located in the center, and not somewhere on the outskirts. Being a kind of recruiting agency, you can rent a room from 30 m2, paying for it from 30 thousand rubles a month. This space will become a workplace for staff who conducts all the work of the organization. Office equipment will also not require significant investments, you will need furniture and simple office equipment. Together with a possible repair, it will all cost no more than 100 thousand rubles. When this important issue is resolved, you can begin to search for the right people.
In this type of activity, it is optimal if the entrepreneur himself is an experienced specialist in the field of bookkeeping, tax consulting, jurisprudence or personnel management. Even better, if all these responsibilities can be distributed among partners who together open such a business, because it is much safer to have a reliable team than to recruit people from the street. But still, the most important and determining factor in hiring all these positions is a high level of professionalism.
Tax consultant. I must know everything related to taxation, regardless of what form of entrepreneurship it is used for - from peasant farming to non-applicable de facto companies with additional responsibility. It will be he who will solve all issues related to the taxation of both outstaffer firms and partner firms, for which he will become a consultant. It will help not only to conduct legitimate activities, but also to select the optimal taxation schemes - to reduce costs.
Accountant. Work with many companies, with people of various professions and large volumes of reporting - all this must be done efficiently, any mistake can be very expensive. Here it is even more likely not about one chief accountant, but about a whole team of accountants and specialists. It is best to find an outsourcer who will carry out accounting reporting, but this should be a trusted partner.
Lawyer. A life buoy for the whole organization, because you have to work with people of different contingents, and here it is especially important to know the letter of the law is not just good, but perfect. All disputes and claims on the part of regulatory authorities should be resolved in their favor, and finding a mistake or violation can be very simple. Outstaffing cannot do without the support of a competent expert in the field of law.
Human Resources Manager. People must also be selected very carefully, because the human resources planned for leasing must not only meet the requirements of the customer, but also be loyal to both companies, between which an outstaffing agreement is concluded. For a person, working in one company and enrolling in another state is more a minus than a plus compared to regular employment (security and guarantee of security of benefits and rights are reduced).
At its core, it will be the entire staff working directly for the outstaffer company. In the future, they will probably need helpers, but at first you can cope on your own. There will not be much work in the first months, although it is not known how lucky with customers are - sometimes the need for such a service can be very large. A certain percentage of companies do not even think about such an opportunity, and to offer it to them means to get a client who will be happy to solve many of their problems by transferring their solution to the wrong hands.
This type of activity involves the active involvement of the founders, who act as directors, and as employees, and as sales managers of their own services. First you need to evaluate potential customers, check all the companies and start negotiations with all promising organizations. Individual entrepreneurs are unlikely to become partners, positive answers will come mainly from developing and growing companies, although we cannot exclude those who just need to cut their costs just in view of the high losses in the personnel sphere. With competent work, there should be no shortage of consumers, because outstaffing is a cost savings that no entrepreneur will refuse.
In the process of work, it will become clear which positions are better not to offer through outstaffing (because of it the staff turnover and general dissatisfaction of employees may increase), and which, on the contrary, are very suitable for this. Difficulties can arise, for example, with white-collar workers, because office workers are best given the job precisely when they are registered with the direct employer.
But in the case of immigrants, it turns out that the customer company is also happy - there is no need to solve legal issues with the migration service; and the employee - for him the main thing is work, regardless of the labor legislation of a foreign country; and the outstaffer himself is money for him. It is impossible to work with only one company, because the tax authorities are likely to be interested in this and can recognize the outstaffer and the customer as affiliated companies, and therefore, incriminate the fictitious nature of the transaction to both legal entities. The situation is completely different if cooperation is established with many companies - here the outstaffer is already a legitimate organization that helps others in resolving personnel issues.
Outstaffing company work scheme is extremely simple. It is addressed (or outstaffer finds) by the company - the future borrower of personnel. There are two options here: either the customer is looking for personnel, or wants to transfer their employees to the provider. This does not greatly affect further work, the outstaffer hires employees, draws up employment contracts that specify all the conditions defined by the customer, and transfers the personal files of each employee to the customer.
People go to work for the direct employer, and the outstaffer assumes the responsibilities of personnel administration, payroll and bonuses, communication with trade unions, preparation of tax and accounting reports and everything else. The provider performs all this work, and at the end of the month it reports to the customer and an account where, in addition to social contributions, the amounts for direct services are also recorded.
Payment is made in most cases, depending on the salary of each individual employee or the general wage fund. The percentage is set within five percent, but it may be less, the determining factor is the complexity of administration. So with guests from other countries there are much more bureaucratic difficulties, and the rate on them is greater, but in the case of common posts in non-hazardous industries it will not be so big.
In addition to solving important legal issues and ensuring the legality of their activities, one must not forget about their reputation in front of partners. It will be difficult for a newcomer to gain trust; for the first time, it will be those companies for which the personnel issue has become a serious problem that will be addressed to the outstaffer. In the future, having received a good name, you can expect that other organizations will begin to seriously think about contacting the provider.
It is not difficult to provide for yourself at the very beginning, it is unlikely that it will take more than 200 thousand rubles to open it, and if you take into account the reserve funds for the first time, then in the most unfavorable situation it will not take more than half a million. Otherwise, you should not engage in such activities.
If the company is managed and all the main positions are occupied by partners, then the salary for its employees can go away only if there is its own accounting department or hired assistants. If you do the work on your own, you can share all the profits between the founders.
Profitability is growing with each employee handed over to the customer, generally having less than 100 people is absolutely not advisable, and serious profit can be expected if several hundred people are transferred to organizations (not one, of course, but different).
Large outstaffing companies have in their staff more than a thousand employees who work in customer organizations. So, if we take the average salary of an employee of 20 thousand rubles, then with a hundred people the income for an outstaffer (with a calculation of 3% of each salary) will be 60 thousand rubles. With five hundred people, this figure will reach three hundred thousand rubles. At the same time, even with a progressive increase in staff, the costs are not significantly increased, and the increased reporting volumes are easily transferred to one or two additional people. But in this business, it will not be possible to use the simplified taxation system, and you will have to give 20% of your income according to the corporate income tax rate.
Matthias Laudanum
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08/18/2019