Business can be a tricky thing, even when you’re only operating within your own language. When you bring in another tongue, things can rapidly become hugely complicated. At this point you will need some form of translation or other. Deciding whether this should be carried out in-house or through a translation agency is the next step.
The decision will depend largely on how you much translation is needed within your company. Do you always need documents translated in the same language? Is this an ongoing, fulltime role, or would you only need something translated on occasion?
An in-house translator is an individual who is employed on a full time basis by a specific company with a substantial amount of translation which needs to be done. They might be working from distance, or they could be working in the office itself.
1. Finding your own translators is difficult
Finding someone capable of carrying out translation is much harder than you might think. You won’t need someone who can just speak two languages. You will need someone who has trained and qualified in the field of translation. An English speaker is not necessarily a copywriter, and a bilingual individual is not necessarily a translator. Special skills like this require hard work and formal training to master.
When you go through a translation agency, they will qualify everyone working for them and you are given a guarantee that the work will be done to a high standard. This means that the translation agency will keep working for you until the work is completed to your satisfaction, and will not leave you with a substandard document.
2. Holidays are covered
When you hire an in-house translator they receive all the perks of being an employee. This includes statutory holiday allowance. If you need work completed during the week of holiday, or a task doesn’t get finished before they go away, there isn’t a lot which can be done.
With an agency, translators still receive holiday but there is a far greater number of people to share the workload and cover this absence. At your end you’re likely to not even notice this transition.
3. Cash flow is more manageable
When you use a translation agency you will pay a set fee for every project, agreed before the work starts. This means you know exactly what it will cost you, and also how long it should take to complete. When this is being done in-house you can end up with projects taking longer than they should do, and you don’t know exactly how much each task is costing you. Employing someone full time costs more than the salary alone. Employers need to make contributions to the translator’s taxes, as well as pay for holiday and pension schemes. On top of this you will also need to spend time vetting each candidate, and if you use a recruiter you will need to pay for this as well.