Why do all the tech giants rely on “shadow forces” of temporary employees?

There are probably a multitude of reasons.

But let me suggest one reason I learned when I was an exec in a F500 tech company:

  • Headcount was mostly fixed for a year. But,
  • Budgets were more elastic and flexible.

Top tech companies might employee 10,000–30,000 or more employees. That sounds like a lot, and it is.

But then it all gets broken down into divisions and groups.

Our group had a fixed headcount of about 800 to manage about $800m in revenue. That was about it. Getting even a single additional headcount was incredibly difficult. Expenses were set annually to manage to an overall plan, and it was very hard to change them. Especially allocated headcount.

But … we had a lot of budget. For marketing. For promotion. For sales activities. Etc.

That budget can go a lot of places. Oftentimes, it can go into contractors and temporary hires. Even if your “headcount” is fixed, capped and frozen.

View original question on quora

Related Posts

Pin It on Pinterest

Share This