Temporary Staffing: Remedy to Growing Staffing Challenges in the LPO Industry

LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) industry is growing exponentially and India continues to be the hottest destination for Law Firms, Corporations, and other businesses from US, UK, and other European countries. There are a lot of positives in India's favor for these countries to offshore/outsource their legal work to India. However, India also continues to suffer from several challenges which are working against this phenomenal growth. According to a recent survey, a majority of professionals believe that LPO is a synonym of its predecessor BPO and requires execution of elementary activities which are devoid of any knowledge and skills.

Despite reasonable visibility of the LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) industry, graduates and professionals continue to be ignorant about the industry and kind of opportunities it has to offer. Clearly, this means there is a lot of skilled talent that is inactive or unavailable for the LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) industry. Therefore, the LPO Companies in India require not only educating these young pupils and professionals about the industry and its career opportunities, but also requires them to identify new channels to encourage them take up profession in the LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) industry.

In light of such a scenario, temporary (temp) staffing can work as a viable option for the companies to meet the demands of growing business by accessing this inactive pool. Also, temp staffing can work as a tool for highlighting the potentials of the LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) industry. This includes type of learning opportunities, career paths, knowledge and skills required, and kind of earning opportunity available in the industry. On the other hand, there are several benefits for the LPO Companies to be gained through temp hiring. Some of them include:

Accessing skills that are rarely in demand and/or are not present in the Company- Through temp hiring, LPO Companies can access skills which are not frequently used or not present in the Company.

Hiring for Urgent Support- In case of a pilot project or urgent need of staff due to expansion of an existing project, LPO Companies can hire staff on a short term basis to support the needs of their projects.

Hiring Temp staff due to Limited Supply of Skilled Labor- As expected there could shortage of talented pool in the LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) sector, thus requiring the LPO Companies to take up innovative measures to meet the needs of their offshore clients. Temp staffing can help companies to overcome such challenges.

Gaining Cost Advantages- In time of recession, it is important for the LPO Companies to gain as much cost advantages as they can to provide better ROI (Return on Investments) to their clients. Typically, professionals hired through temping cost less to the Companies as compared to full time professionals. Hence, this leads to a better ROI.

Clearly, there are a lot of core advantages that can be gained by the LPO Companies through temp hiring. Temping can also work as a tactical tool, much need to persuade young as well as skilled professionals to join the LPO (Legal Process Outsourcing) industry, leading to changing the outlook of the industry.

The author - Dhiraj Phukan - is the Research Analyst at KPO Consultatns. To learn more about Legal Process Outsourcing, Legal Outsourcing, LPO and more - visit www.kpoconsultants.com