FAQ - Offshoring your business, Outsourcing Jobs

1. Do I have any tax, insurance or employment law obligations/liabilities as a result of hiring an Employee with Staff India?

No. Legally your Employee is employed by Staff India. Subsequently you have no tax, insurance or employment law obligations/liabilities. You are paying for a service, which includes: an Employee, office space, office equipment, management services, technical support...etc.

2. How quickly can I terminate the contract?

You simply need to give 30 days written notice to terminate the contract.

3. Can my Employee work the same office hours as me?

Yes. All employees abroad are synchronised to work when you are working.

4. Is Staff India a UK company?

Yes, Staff India is a UK company, founded by our Team in UK.

Therefore, at Staff India not only do we understands but subsequently places great emphasis on quality service, professionalism and excellent employees.

5. How many hours does my Employee work?

Your Employee works 8 hours per day. This does not include any time taken for breaks or for meals.

Typically A full time employee will work for you Mon-Fri 9am – 5pm UK Time (unless your Consultant has agreed a different time with you), this ensures your employee is accessible to you at all time, and you can work real-time with them. As the ‘effective employer’ you are obliged to permit regular breaks for tea and lunch, this also ensure you are getting consistent performance, as you know, breaks are important during work. This will be your responsibility to ensure you treat and maintain your outsourced employee with the same etiquette and standard.

6. What is included in the price? Are there any hidden charges?

The fee quoted to you is the full and complete cost. The fee charged covers everything from, the Employee’s salary, office space, office equipment, internet connection, telephone, management services, technical support etc.

7. How do I know my Employee is working and able to do the job?

Staff India Logistics Mangers are monitoring your Employee working at all times. Our Consultants will also show you methods and techniques we advise you deploy to get the most out of your employee and obtain good performance. It will feel like they are working in the same office! Furthermore you will be able to judge your Employee’s effort and performance from the results he/she produces.

8. Are there any “getting started” or start up fee?

No fees are charged until you have decided to hire an employee or employees. We will offer our ongoing Consultation for free, support you to get you started, do the all due diligence prior etc.

9. What are your procedures to protect my sensitive and confidential data/information?

Staff India and your Employee you hire will sign any legally binding non-disclosure agreement you have for the handling of any sensitive data/information. Our agreement also cover this for you.

10. Do I pay for holidays and days taken off work due to sickness by the Virtual Employee?

Your Virtual Employee is effectively your employee, therefore, as with your own employees in your office you are expectd to treat them and honour any holiday/time off requirements as normal. Your Consultant will email you an Holiday Schedule for the year so you know which holidays are permittable.

In the event that you may instruct your employee to take time off for reasons relevant to your business i.e. down-time, you will still be billed.

11. Can you provide highly skilled and technical Employees?

As a general rule any office based employee you would find in the USA or Europe will also be available in our offices abroad. The indian sub continent is renowned for its technical talent, with companies such as IBM, Dell and HSBC employing thousands of employee’s in India. Furthermore all our staff are hand picked and trained by us to deliver a quality service to employers equivalent to that in the UK.

12. What happens if I am not satisfied with the Employee I hire?

We will provide employees who can deliver for your job specification. If however the employee does not deliver to the expected standard you may choose to 'make redundant' your current employee and hire a replacement employee.

13. I require an Employee who does not have a strong accent, is this possible?

Yes. We can provide Employee’s who have a significantly neutral accent in comparison. However as you can appreciate it will never be a native english accent.

14. Can I offer incentives to my Employee?

Yes. Any incentives you offer will be passed through our standard accounting process in reaching your Employee. However all such incentive schemes should only be discussed with our Consultants who will brief your employee. This ensures all our staff remain neutral to greed and ensures we maintain an equilibrium amongst all our employees.

15. How long does it take to get started?

The complete process of Consulting with you, understanding your needs, doing all the paperwork and allocating an employee to work for you takes 2 weeks. We usually aim to have virtual staff ready for our client within 2 weeks of receiving the signed terms of business. There have been instances where we have managed to allocated within a few days, but this largely depends on which employees we have sitting on the bench waiting to be allocated.

16. Is there any start up fee for when my Employee is first going to start?

No. You only need to make your payment month in advance to Staff India.

17. Is there a chance my Employee will leave?

It is highly unlikely the Employee you hire will leave. Working for foreign companies is a great opportunity for Indians and they are highly motivated at the prospect of doing so. Additionally, we offer competitive salaries and a professional working environment. Working for an Indian company is the only alternative for Indians. As the working conditions with Indian companies are below international standards, the positions we offer are consequently very appealing to the employees.

18. What type of IT will be in place?

In terms of software requirements you are more than welcome to provide any software you wish your employee to work with.
To work for your from our offices, your employee will be fully equipped:
- Their own desk
- Their own Dell laptop 
- Printer and scanner 
- Commonly used software 
- Peripherals such as webcam, headset etc 
- Broadband internet connection
- Power generators for uninterrupted electricity supply avoiding cut-outs
- Air conditioning at all times 

19. Is there a possibility to conduct some form of interview and see some CV's?

We do not provide CVs or candidates for interview and selection by our clients. But rather, taken from the clients requirements obtained during the consultation process, we assign the best fit candidate to the client. If anyhow the candidate is unable to perform to your expectations (very rare) we can change the candidate for you. We are usually very accurate with this. All candidates are our own employees who work for us on internal projects whilst unassigned to a client.
Not all employment markets are the same, due to the cultural differences, language complexity and various other reasons, most employers are not suited to selecting a candidate properly from our offshore offices.
You can rest assured we hire capable individuals as they go through a rigorous 3 stage interview process held personally by our founder who is an ex-Accenture Consultant. We believe in hiring the best available candidates in the job market we operate in, for our own organisation and for our clients.

20. What happens about sick days and holidays?
Just like have a standard employee in your office sick leave is one of those issues employers have to put up with. You can decide how many days sick leave you want to allow, it is totally your discretion. We would suggest making this clear with your new employee so they know where they stand. However, you will find, our employees hardly take sick leave, so you shouldn’t have any difficulties with this.
If an employee is taking excessive sick leave, suggesting they may be abusing the system and taking pay whilst being sick, we are sure to notice this as they are monitored on a daily basis.

With regards to holidays, as the employees are in another country, there is a slight overlap in terms of UK public holidays and their local country national holidays.
Your Consultant will email a holiday schedule for your perusal. Again just as having standard employees, your are obliged to allow mandatory holidays off for your outsourced employee.

21. Will you be sending a contract or other document(s) to sign?
Absolutely. There are only 2 bits of small paperwork that your Consultant needs to do with you. We have made the setup process as easy and hassle free for our clients as possible, where we do all the form filling and you only do the signing.

22. So how does outsourcing jobs with us actually work?
With all our clients, we provide the manpower for them to get their work done. 
You manage your employees as and how you wish, after all you are paying their salary (providing the task sets are within their skill set).
You communicate with them via email and skype, provide remote training where need be, have conference meetings etc as required. A Consultant will be your point of contact for any ongoing help you may require for example working out ways to improve performance from your employee, monitoring etc.

23. What is your policy for breaks?
As the ‘effective employer’ you are obliged to permit regular breaks for tea and lunch, this also ensure you are getting consistent performance, as you know, breaks are important during work.

24. Will the employee will be able to comunicate with myself and current staff?
Yes. They are fully equipped to work with you. You will communicate with your employee largely via skype IM and email. You are also able to do voice calls over skype. However we encourage the use of email predominantly as this ensures a record of communication is maintained, in the unlikely event that something should go wrong.

25. Will my employee only be undertaking my work and no other?
Absolutely. Your employee is solely assigned to you, working under your management. We do not allow sharing of employees between clients on a part time basis.

26. Will my employee at all times be in your office and not working from a remote location?
Absolutely. Our employees work from our offshore offices, we provide all the infrastructure, and equip your employee fully to work for you.

27. If the employee is performing well, at what stage is a pay rise justifiable and how does it work?

For every 6 months that you employ an employee, your billing will increase by 5% per employee. This gives him a goal to look forward to and helps retention. Generally an employee's salary increases 10% yearly. This also ensures we maintain employee salaries in line with the employment market to remain competitive as an employer.

28. Are there other supervisors available to monitor my employee?

All employees are supervised by an assigned Manager and or your Consultant. You will be given direct access to them at all times, and any problems you may have can be directly forwarded to their attention.

29. How can I be sure that I'm hiring a capable and suitable person for the job?

All employees hired by Staff India go through a rigorous screening process, in which we conduct very thorough personal background and employment history checks. We do not hire employees with a history of tardiness, unreliability, or non-attendance. We do in house tests to make sure that we are doing every possible to have the right employee.

Your Consultant will aim to understand your requirements in details and allocate a suitable employee.

30. How can I check what my employee has done for the day?

You can ask your employee to email you a daily status report in any form you want. These may include text files of daily report sheets, visual updates (sometimes known as "before and after" images), Web 2.0 docs or other updates that you may require.

31. What are the procedures in the event that my employee resigns, and will it cost me anything?

Every employee must give 30 days written notice if they decide to resign, this should be enough time to replace a new employee and do the proper training and turnover. The average turnover can be done in less than 15 days, and it will not cost you extra.

32. Will my team have its own dedicated manager?

We recommend we employee a Team Leader for every 4-5 employees you hire. This will make your management process easier as well as have a single point of contact for delegating tasks, ensuring objectives and targets are met etc.

33. What happens if my hired employee ends up becoming a problem?

Although we have systems to prevent this as much as possible, in the event this where to occur, our Local Managers will address any concerns with the employee and ensure to resume your normal course of business.

34. What payment methods/options are available?

We only accept BACS or CHAPS transfer to our UK bank account. For clients outside the UK we can also accept Paypal payments.

35. If my employee needs to make telephone calls will you provide this facility?

We will do everything to support you setting up your virtual employees.

The setup for this will depend on whether you want to make just outbound calls, or receive inbound calls as well.
Skype has a very cost effective solution that we propose our clients use.
In summary this is how Skype solution works:

1. You purchase a local Seychelles number. (Or even better, a local number of the country from where most of your clients are, that way your call costs will be cheaper)
2. If you have a current office number, redirect to this new number which your Virtual Assistants will have
3. You control the skype account and top up call credit when required. That why you manage the expenses.

You can learn more about skype solution here: http://www.skype.com/intl/en-gb/prices/pay-monthly/uk-unlimited-calling-plans/?intcmp=ch1-subs-ukpromo

36. Can I have employees who speak other European languages?

European languages speakers, other than English are not widely available in our current employment market. However we will endeavour to meet this requirement should a client need.

37. Please advise about other cost and any hidden costs.
The salary payments are your final payments, no hidden costs, not extras, no tax, no insurance contribution, nothing.
All staff salary payments need to be paid monthly on the 1st of every month. This allows us enough time to ensure salaries are received by the outsourced staff abroad by the end of the month.
Salaries need to be paid 1 month in advance to our UK bank account via BACS or Standing Order. We do not take credit or debit cards. If you are starting on a date other than the 1st of the month, your first month will be billed at full rate, and your second month will be billed at pro-rota rate to minus the days you missed on the first month.

We provide all the infrastructure and facilities for your employee to work, you need not worry about anything. You can read more about this here: www.staff-india.com/how-to-outsource-jobs.html

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