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Key takeaways
Ask whether a new starter could do this task within two weeks, with a page of instructions and someone to ask. If a capable new employee could, an outsourced team can usually learn it too. If the task needs years of knowledge about your customers, products or politics, it fails the test and is a poor outsourcing candidate as it stands.
- Imagine a capable new starter with a page and a contact.
- Could they do it within 2 weeks? A good candidate.
- Needs years of context? Not yet.
- The test shows which knowledge must be written down first.
Want to run the new starter test on your shortlist? Message us on WhatsApp.
Chat on WhatsApp →Why is the new starter test useful?
Because it removes the distance that makes outsourcing feel risky. Owners often say an outsider 'would not understand' a task. Asking whether a new employee could learn it shifts the question from location to knowledge. If a newcomer could learn it, the barrier is documentation, not geography.
How do you run the test?
Answer these questions honestly for each task on your shortlist.
- Could a capable newcomer do it from a page of instructions?
- How many questions would they ask in the first week?
- Which knowledge would they lack: customers, products, systems or history?
- Could that knowledge be written down?
- How long until they did it without checking?
What if the task fails the test?
Look at what the newcomer would lack. Missing system knowledge is easy to fix with recordings. Missing product knowledge can be written into a reference sheet. Missing judgement about customers or relationships is harder, and usually means the task should be split, with the judgement part kept by someone experienced.
What does this look like in practice?
A pattern we see: an owner says quote preparation needs ten years of experience. The new starter test shows the experience is only needed for pricing judgement. Gathering measurements, building the document and checking the product codes could be learnt in a week, so the preparation moves and the pricing stays.
New starter test checklist
- Picture a capable newcomer with one page and a contact.
- List the knowledge they would lack.
- Write down what can be written down.
- Split off the judgement that cannot.
- Re-test the remaining task.
Next step
Run the test on your top three candidate tasks and write down what a newcomer would lack for each. That list is your preparation plan.
Message us on WhatsApp for the new starter questions, or book a 30-minute consultation.
Chat on WhatsApp →Sources and further reading
- Employing staff for the first time · GOV.UK
- Human factors: managing human failures · Health and Safety Executive
Frequently asked questions
What is the new starter test for outsourcing?
It asks whether a capable new employee could do a task within two weeks, given a page of instructions and someone to ask. If they could, the task is learnable enough to outsource. If it needs years of context about customers or products, it needs documenting or splitting first.
How long should it take an outsourced team to learn a task?
For a well-documented recurring task, a few days to two weeks to work independently, with questions falling sharply after the first week. If questions are still frequent after a month, the task probably contains judgement that was not written down or should not have moved.
What knowledge is hardest to hand over?
Judgement about customers, relationships and trade-offs, such as when to bend a rule for a long-standing client. System and product knowledge is much easier to document. Keep the hard-to-transfer judgement inside and hand over the documented work around it.
Written by
Global Bridge Labs (GBL) is a UK–Sri Lanka partner for social media, websites and BPO. Everything here comes from client delivery, not theory.
