What is Contractor Management?
Contractor management is the process of effectively supervising relationships with independent contractors, external vendors, or third-party service providers. This entails various administrative tasks, including onboarding, performance monitoring, compliance assurance, and overall contract management. The foremost objective of this undertaking is to ensure that the work contracted is efficiently accomplished, up to par with the organization’s standards, and compliant with the regulations.
Significance
Numerous companies rely on contractors and freelancers today. More than 40% of all companies hired third-party service providers to close the skills gap. However, there are risks when working with individuals or groups that are not fundamentally part of an organization. These usually result from differences in perspectives or approaches in executing tasks, however seemingly inconsequential those may be.
Effective contractor management is vital in unifying behaviors, ideas, and strategies among everyone involved in the project, from top management to subcontractors. It also brings about the following:
- Ensured Quality – By establishing well-defined expectations, third-party vendors and service providers understand what they need to deliver. Utilizing technology such as contractor management platforms also helps companies evaluate performance and collaborate with their partners, ensuring quality that meets or exceeds industry standards.
- Mitigation of Risks – Constant monitoring is the most effective way to handle financial, legal, operational, and reputational risks. It allows businesses to identify potential issues in real-time and act promptly to prevent escalation.
- Adherence to Regulations – Failure to comply with mandates leads to serious consequences like fines, penalties, recalls, shutdowns, and criminal charges. By painstakingly vetting potential contractors, constantly communicating with them, and tracking their activities, organizations ensure responsibility and reliability from their partners.
Achieve operational excellence
Core Competencies
Building rapport and fostering collaboration with contractors ensure operational success. To realize these goals, human resources (HR) teams, procurement managers, or relevant personnel handling outsourced work should have the right skills to facilitate the intricacies of the affiliation.
Some of these key competencies include the following:
Communication Skills
Establishing a strong relationship with contractors can be challenging, but this paves the way to the success of any endeavor. Effective communication fosters mutual trust and respect, leading to better collaboration, problem-solving, and a positive work environment.
Hence, contractors must know the following details:
- Scope of work with clear timelines and well-defined expectations
- Full description of requirements (e.g., specific materials and size of the workforce)
- Payment obligations and insurance information
- Authority to make decisions
Organizational Skills
Since the contractor management process involves developing contracts, maintaining records, setting schedules, resource utilization, and planning workflows, a high level of orderliness is crucial to ascertain efficiency.
Technology can play a significant role in assisting managers with various administrative functions. Comprehensive contractor management software solutions have features that digitize documents, automate workflows, facilitate extensive collaboration, and provide 360-degree visibility into the operations.
Create your own Contractor Management Checklist
Risk Management
All kinds of contractor risks could lead to interrupted or delayed work. The ability to minimize and mitigate these risks is a must-have. Proactive managers will regularly review and update their strategies, prioritize based on evaluations done, and develop contingency plans for every scenario that could emerge.
Here are some tools that will help managers with this undertaking:
- Root Cause Analysis (RCA) digs deep into and solves the origin of the problem, which is a preferred strategy over just treating the symptoms as a band-aid fix.
- The risk register identifies all the potential dangers, evaluates them, and prioritizes them accordingly so the company can better allocate resources.
- The probability and impact matrix is another tool that aids in prioritization.
Performance and Progress Monitoring
As aforementioned, things could still go awry despite careful planning. This is why contractor managers should keep tabs on the project’s progress and the performance of the outsourced employees. Here are some strategies that could help optimize quality assurance (QA) throughout the undertaking:
- Utilize Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for measured evaluations.
- Leverage technology with monitoring tools and robust analytics to streamline the process.
- Facilitate prompt report generation, particularly after observing early warning signs or the occurrence of incidents. Digital templates sent via mobile devices are helpful for this.
- Remind third-party service and product providers about their contracts.
- Conduct post-project evaluation and utilize various methods, such as feedback gathering, one-on-one interviews, and group discussions.
Compliance Assurance
Adhering to internal policies and mandated government regulations is non-negotiable. While contractors are also under the purview of regulatory agencies and industry leaders, the company hiring them is also responsible for keeping them in check.
Aside from clearly communicating contractual obligations and religiously monitoring performance, organizations can support their contractors when they need more skills or knowledge on legal requirements. For this, providing induction training and upskilling is one of the most effective ways to accomplish this.
FAQs about Contractor Management
Enterprises or larger organizations usually have a team dedicated to managing contractors, distinct from the HR department. With small to medium-sized businesses and start-ups, the responsibility falls on the business owner or operations manager.
Several companies hire general contractors and subcontractors when they have projects requiring specialized skills, do not have the resources, or want to minimize certain costs (e.g., hiring, training, and employee benefits). Outsourcing is prevalent in large-scale operations, particularly when their operations span the globe.
This greatly depends on the type of project a company is undertaking and the industry it belongs to. For instance, cyber breaches are a considerable concern for technology and financial companies, particularly when contractors do not have the same level of data security as the businesses that outsourced them.
On the other hand, physical safety of workers and other stakeholders is the top consideration in the construction, manufacturing, and mining sectors.
Leveraging technology is a must-do for effective contractor management. Software solutions offer tools, such as performance trackers that prevent missed deadlines, analytics to minimize cost overruns, and automated reporting to eradicate non-compliance. Investing in these digital applications will be an asset to businesses of any size.
Eunice Arcilla Caburao
