You are hiring contractors but want to enhance your management strategy for better working relationships? Partnering with contractor management is the best solution for you. In this article, the ERA team focuses on what is contractor management and its complete guide for 2024 to help you make perfect control of your business.
What Is Contractor Management?
Contractor management manages outside contractors and ensures they comply with local country standards. Since companies can not train regular employees to manage contractors, they hire contractor management experts. These experts will handle tasks clearly and ensure transparency in contracts.
Contractor management aims to ensure contractors can complete tasks on time and to a high standard. Through it, the company can control its budget and schedule. Contractors who don’t follow the company’s guidelines may cope with fines.
Why Is It Important to Business?
Contractor management allows businesses to focus entirely on managing and developing their businesses because it supports to:
- Make sure contractors follow the company’s policies and procedures.
- Ensure tasks get done on time and budget using well-established processes for contractor management.
- Save time on training because contractors already know what they’re doing.
- Help avoid legal and tax problems of contractors for businesses.
- Can easily add or remove contractors at any time in the USA
Key Features of Contractor Management Software
Contractor management software is a top-notch technology to help businesses manage contractors quickly, effectively, and accurately. Its key features include:
- Make it easy to find talent: A contractor management system helps businesses find skilled workers globally. It suggests matches or connects them with freelancers and contractors.
- Simplify hiring and starting work: The best software makes hiring and getting new contractors started much more accessible. It assists businesses in setting up the process, storing documents, and ensuring everyone follows the rules.
- Keep contractors compliant with laws: When hiring globally, the contractor management software can ensure contractors follow the rules and policies. Some software even offers services to ensure businesses classify workers correctly and pay taxes properly.
- Help with managing projects: It gives businesses an overview of all projects, supports track who’s doing what, and manages deadlines with information securely.
- Handle tasks like tracking time and invoicing: It integrates all these tasks, saving businesses from using multiple tools.
- Facilitate payments in different currencies: It combines with payment portals to make international payments easy.
Tips To Manage Your Contractors Efficiently
Contractor management and businesses should focus on 6 steps to manage contractors efficiently:
1. Know Why You Hired Them
Understanding why you hired someone helps you use their unique skills and strengths to manage effectively.
In this case, contractors bring expertise and experience, ensuring high-quality work that meets industry standards. Their flexibility allows businesses to scale project needs up or down as required. Hence, businesses can focus on their core activities, ultimately saving time, reducing costs, and achieving better results.
2. Find out What They Want
Knowing what contractors want, such as timely payments, clear communication, and respect for their expertise, helps attract and retain top talent. It ensures project efficiency, quality, and innovation by keeping contractors motivated and engaged.
This alignment between business needs and contractor expectations leads to higher productivity, reduced turnover, and a competitive edge in securing skilled professionals for future projects.
3. Set Clear Expectations
You should create a formal contract that includes:
- Project’s scope
- Schedule
- Goals
- Payment terms.
A clear expectation in the contract can help you and your contractors reach a general agreement so that they can follow your business’s rules and procedures.
4. Include Them in Your Team
It would help if you treated your contractor as part of the team, such as
- Invite them to meetings
- Add them to company emails
- Ask about their life outside of work.
Contractors can feel they are part of the company and will work more conscientiously with high responsibilities. Then, you can easily step into a good contractor management plan.
5. Give Them Space
They need to work flexibly as contractors, so it is better not to control them tightly. Sometimes, you should trust them to manage their workload and decide how to do their jobs.
6. Give Feedback
Even though contractors are not full-time employees, giving them feedback is the perfect way to improve them on the job. Start with a simple conversation about what’s going well and what could improve. You can have an overall look at understanding and better managing contractors.
Best Contractor Management Systems in 2024
Now, let’s check out some top tools and systems for managing contractors in 2024:
- Era: Their goal is to connect companies with the right candidates and help manage them. They work closely with businesses to build strong teams and help individuals thrive in their jobs. They organize staff, train, follow the rules, and track progress in real-time.
- Lano: It helps quickly onboard contractors from over 150 countries, ensures compliance with local laws, and streamlines payroll processes.
- Remote: A service for global compliance, offering customizable contracts and automated payments for contractors across countries.
- Deel: Deel is great for hiring both full-time and contract workers globally. It’s known for helping with compliance when hiring full-time employees and managing payments in different currencies.
- Papaya: This platform helps with international payroll. Employers get a clear view of projects and employee data, while workers can easily access their payment details and manage their time off.
- Pilot: Specifically for US-based businesses managing global teams. It simplifies international payments and offers HR functions like managing contracts and offering benefits worldwide.
- ADP WorkMarket: This comprehensive app combines onboarding, project management, payments, and compliance features. It helps organize contractors based on their skills and location for easier management.
Following the ERA expert guide on contractor management, businesses can effectively oversee contractors and ensure they complete projects on time within regulations. Understanding contractor management is the key to growing businesses.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is Contractor Management Important for Business?
Contractor management plays a significant role in business as it helps businesses:
- Maintain the quality of work delivered by contraction.
- Ensure contractor’s compliance with regulations.
- Save time to focus on other business developments.
How Can Technology Assist in Contractor Management?
Technology solutions such as contractor management software can streamline processes by:
- Centralizing contractor data.
- Automating compliance checks.
- Facilitating communication.
- Tracking project progress.
- Generating reports for performance analysis.
Mobile apps and cloud-based platforms also enable businesses to collaborate and access data in real-time.
What Is The Effective Way to Manage Contractors?
Businesses should focus on the 6 ways below to manage contractors effectively
- Know Why You Hired Them.
- Find out What They Want.
- Set Clear Expectations.
- Include Them in Your Team.
- Give Them Space.
- Give Feedback.
Some contractor management services can help you cover these ways to manage your contractors effectively. It is better to seek a prestigious service and partner with them.
See more related articles
What Is Contractor Compliance?
Understanding Contractor Workers’ Compensation
Contractor vs Subcontractor: How To Differentiate?
Consultant vs Contractor: 4 Fundamental Differences
Difference Between Vendor vs Contractor: What Should Employers Know?
