One of the biggest challenges of any ESD strategy is deciding whether to do it in-house or work with a service provider. There are pros and cons to both internal and service provider strategies, but which one is best for measuring your ESD results?
| Insourced | Outsourced | |
| Cost: | · Often cheaper to run an internal team.
· Training can drive costs up. · Initial cost benefits may be traded off. |
· Costs more upfront than internal team.
· No training costs involved. · Overtime already paid for. |
| Efficiency/ Capability: | · Takes a long time to build specialist competency.
· Hiring skilled staff can drive up costs. · Difficult to source skilled staff. · Distraction from day-to-day business activities. |
· Service providers are experienced in the SME field.
· Have already incurred staff costs. · Better equipped to deliver on ESD initiatives. |
| Capacity: | · Blurred line between what’s relevant to core business and delivering on ESD.
· Supervision time. · ESD often de-prioritised. |
· Dedicated resources available.
· Initiatives delivered on time. · Will operate within a budget. |
Whichever choice you make, your ESD programme should be measured like any other business intervention. One of the most important pillars of an ESD strategy is a customised scorecard that measures those KPIs that are aligned to business objectives.
