Businesses across industries frequently connect and work with contractors under multiple circumstances. The need to work with a contractor may arise from the requirement for expertise in a certain area of work, budgeting constraints, global expansion, etc. However, amidst all this collaboration, Contractor Management often becomes the weak link in the process.
Contractor management includes everything from onboarding, communication, payments, tracking, and classification to offboarding. Each of these aspects plays a very important role in the smooth functioning of a business’s contractor management strategy. Any hiccups here definitely reflect the quality of work, or worse, could lead to legal troubles.
Effective contractor management starts much before the candidate is onboarded. Let’s look at how a business can ensure that its contractors are managed well.
Steps to Ensure Effective Contractor Management
Managing a team of contractors may seem daunting at first, especially if the workforce consists of some overseas contractors. However, the entire operation can be smoothened out if the points mentioned below are kept in mind.
Onboarding
We all know why onboarding is one of the most important parts of an employee’s journey in an organization. It works the same way for contractors too. Everything from the employment contract to the IT onboarding should be just as smooth for contractors too. A flawless contractor onboarding sets a positive tone for their journey in the organization and reflects in their performance as well.
Communication and task management
Communication is the most important factor when it comes to any kind of management that involves people. Clear communication goes a long way, especially in the contractor management process, since a lot of contractors work remotely. Now what does communication include? It includes clearly defined roles and responsibilities and what is expected of every contractor. Remote contractors are often not a part of the day-to-day operations of a business; therefore, effective communication is essential when it comes to contractor management.
Training and development
In general, contractors are expected to be well-versed in their areas of work and don’t need a lot of hand-holding. However, every business and every industry has different requirements. Each project has different targets, and it is essential that every individual working on the project must understand the entire landscape. Therefore, to a certain extent, training and development are required in specific cases of contractor management.
Employee classification
Employee classification refers to the on-paper segregation between part-time workers and full-time workers. This is important because the taxes and deductions differ for each kind, and any instance of misclassification can land the employer a legal notice on their desk. Every business must ensure that the right forms are used to classify each worker, depending on the country and state.
General management
Apart from these specific points, generally, contractor management includes time tracking, payments, currency management (for foreign workers), taxes, etc. These aspects of contractor management are often considered to be routine; however, they can very easily turn out to be the biggest pain points for employers.
Contractor Management – The top challenges
Contractor management is very different from employee management. There are fewer interactions, there’s more anonymity, and HR functions vary as well. Here are the most common challenges employers face while managing contractors.
Compliance
Independent contractors are scattered all over the world, and it is very probable that a business frequently transacts with an international worker. In such cases, staying compliant with every country’s or even every state’s labor code becomes challenging for many employers. Everything, including employment contracts, payment cycles, and taxes, varies across countries, and keeping up with the latest norms is a huge task.
Tracking
Tracking is one of those parts of contractor management that requires razor-sharp precision. This is because most contractors are paid on the basis of the work they put in, and tracking their hours accurately becomes very challenging for employers. Moreover, contractors are not on the regular payroll; therefore, inaccurate tracking inevitably results in inaccurate payments.
Payments
Timely and accurate payments are the key to maintaining good professional relationships with contractors. However, employers still struggle with this aspect of contractor management. According to a survey conducted by Bonsai, 75% of contractors/freelancers received their paychecks fourteen days after the invoice was sent. The main reason behind this is that keeping track of multiple invoices, multiple currencies, and multiple modes of payment gets difficult for in-house teams.
Benefits management
Benefits are a large grey area in the contractor management process. Some countries mandate benefits for contractors, while some don’t. Moreover, these norms may change each year. This makes tracking the mandation for benefits across countries a hurdle for many in-house HR teams.
The above-mentioned challenges are significant, but it is not impossible to navigate around them. One of the best ways of working with these challenges is by using contractor management softwares. These softwares can help you automate crucial tasks like payroll, benefits management, onboarding, and tracking.
Here’s how Multiplier’s Contractor Management platform can contribute
Multiplier is an international EOR for independent contractors. Our platform helps with end-to-end contractor management and ensures that no mistakes are made from contract generation to offboarding. Here’s what Multiplier brings to the table:
Contract generation and onboarding
Multiplier can help you generate 100% compliant employment contracts in over 150 countries within a few minutes. Apart from this, Multiplier also enables its clients to generate multilingual contracts that are mandatory in some countries. Once the independent contractor agreement is signed by both parties, the onboarding process just takes a few simple clicks. All in all, a client can have a contractor fully onboarded in a few minutes through our platform.
Benefits
Multiplier has built one of the few contractor management tools in the market that enables its clients to provide benefits like insurance to their contractors. We have 3 different plans to choose from depending on the budget and the local labor laws.
Payroll
Payroll is 100% automated through Multiplier’s contractor payroll software. Clients can customize the frequency (hourly, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly) with each contractor, and rest assured that they will be paid accurately, and on time. Our system ensures that every penny paid complies with each country’s tax and social deductions. As a client, all you need to do is pay Multiplier the total amount in one single currency, and we will disperse it to your contractors in the currencies they prefer to be paid in.
Tracking
Multiplier’s user-friendly dashboard presents key details of each contractor, like hours worked, leaves taken, and payment status. This helps maintain transparency and also helps our clients keep track of the status of each contractor individually.
Does Multiplier’s way of navigating through the challenges of contractor management intrigue you? Book a demo now and experience the platform!
