Skip to main content

Outsourcing transcription work

I was recently reading an article in The Guardian about outsourcing, and a lifestyle coach who stated that his opinion to try and outsource everything to someone else to do, whether this be a business or at home, and you will reap the rewards yourself in terms of time available and also cost in the long term.

One possibility for law firms is to outsource any transcription work that is not required instantaneously. Ten Percent Legal Recruitment uses www.uk-transcription.co.uk, a transcribing company, they specialise in analogue and digital transcription work. The way the service works is quite simple. You purchase an Olympus DSS recorder (I use the DS2300), dictate your letters, blog, articles or statements, plug your handheld recorder into your computer with a USB lead, and download your recordings. You then go into your file manager and click send to email. The recordings are sent to www.uk-transcription.co.uk, who return them to you as soon as they are complete, which is usually within 24 hours for anything of a reasonable length. If you would like to try this service, simply email pearl@uk-transcription.co.uk with a recording and see how you get on. I regularly use the service to dictate my blog, I have to say that the speed always impresses me. I know that a lot of law firms are looking into this technology as an option for cutting costs, and if it gives any indication, I estimate that by using the service, I am saving about 40 to 50 percent of the cost of employing a secretary to work out of our offices to do the same work. It also means that you have very enthusiastic workers available at any time, when you use a service like www.uk-transcription.co.uk, because they have a bank of transcribers who are all available to do the work, and you do not need to worry about staff being off sick or unavailable or overloaded. The transcribers themselves are home workers on the whole are very grateful for the work, with their lifestyles.

So the next time you have a piece of work and your secretary is unable to do it for you, give www.uk-transcription.co.uk a thought as it may be worth trying them out and seeing whether they save you money in the short, medium or long term.

Jonathan Fagan is Managing Director of Ten Percent Legal Recruitment (www.ten-percent.co.uk). He is also a management consultant and regularly advises law firms on a whole range of business issues as well as recruitment. He can be contacted at cv@ten-percent.co.uk or on 0845 644 3923.

Comments

stephen said…
it is more economical if companies will outsource some of their functions to lessen their cost and concentrate more on more important functions to increase their sales.

Popular posts from this blog

Overpaid Charity CEOs - top 40 of high paid employees - updated 2022

In 2014, we wrote an article about high pay in the charity sector after the Charity Commission started to require all charities to disclose pay of senior executives earning more than £60,000.    We have updated the list for 2022, with a comparison chart so you can see the difference between 2014 and 2022. We have included the source of the most recent salary levels and the year refers to the accounts year we extracted the salary information from.   2022 Top 40 Chart of High Paying Charities Charity Highest salary Year Consumers’ Association £390k-£400k 2020 MSI Reproductive Choices £240k-£250k 2020 Save the Children International £285k-£300k 2020 Cancer Research UK £240k-£250k 2020 The British Red Cross Society £170k-£180k 2020 Age UK £180k-£190k 202...

Is it possible to work as a Paralegal when you are a Qualified Solicitor

  This question comes up all the time and is quite a common query that we imagine the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) are getting better at answering due to the sheer number of people asking the question. Many years ago the advice seemed a bit varied at times, but we have recently had a candidate who wanted to work in a locum role in the short term and waiting to go back on the Roll and get a practising certificate after some time spent outside the profession. She has been given fairly concise advice on whether she could work as a paralegal whilst waiting to be readmitted which we are repeating here. This article is written as a discussion point and is not intended to be advice in any shape or form. For full advice on your particular set of circumstances please speak to the SRA (or whoever else you like, but please do not depend on the information in this article!). The SRA have a simple online test to determine if you need a practising certificate and th...

What questions are asked in an Investors in People Assessment?

Recently Ten Percent Legal Recruitment was assessed for the investor in people accreditation. We worked very hard on this and spent some time as a company ensuring that all our procedures and policies were in place and that our staff were aware of the various requirements of the Investor in People process. We wondered how the assessment would go and also what the questions were likely to be during the interviews. The assessor was very friendly and explained from the outset what she was wanting to do and we were already aware that we would have thirty minute interviews with the directors and managers and twenty minute interviews with the staff. We also had the Investors in People programme so we were able to look and see what the actual questions would be based on, but there was nowhere to indicate what questions would be asked in the investor in people assessments. So if this helps anyone else, here are the questions we were asked in our investors in people accreditation: The assessor ...