Independent Contractors – Team work and Performance Management
Many organizations are open to various ways of acquiring resources for their projects; using existing employees, hiring new employees, hiring contract resources or perhaps outsource part or the entire project. Right resources are not always available to the PM within the organization and will often look to hire from outside. Moore (2007, p.6) informed that globalization, advances in communication and technology, and many baby boomers entering retirement age are some of the reasons why organizations do prefer to use independent contract resources especially for specific projects or certain organizational challenges. A PM acquires team members for a project; builds and develops
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❖ Excluded from accessing vital project information: Despite the fact that project managers want hired contractors to work with other team members seamlessly, they do not want them to have certain information because ideally “they are not part of the team” Barley & Kunda (2004). This notion or action could exclude independent resources from getting along well with the project team since they are aware they are deliberately shut off or starved of necessary information to work with. ❖ Focussed on their personal ambitions and may not be interested in team work: Hired independent contractors see themselves as very valuable people due to the skills they possess and many of them have personal ambitions on just delivering on what they were asked to do solely, not working as team to achieve success together. Often times, they work alone to achieve results so they will remain relevant to the project superior to others. Such actions hinder team building and diminish interdependence that is vital in a cohesive and high performing team. There is less control of their activities and how they want it done (Dunlap & Girvin 2009, p.14) ❖ Envy from employees who think they earn less: Often times, hired contractors earn far more than organization employees for same work they do on a project. Although some company employees may not be ignorant of the reason why they earn more, they feel bad and disheartened that they do
The SWOT analysis aided in determining what strengths and weakness each Independent Contractor must observe closely in order to remain on a successful path. As well as which opportunities and threats may present themselves in the future.
An independent contractor is defined as someone who is contracted to perform a job. The person whom is performing the job will perform by their own means and on their own time, as long as it falls within the time
The independent contractors are not employees, hiring independent contractors, employers will not be able to control their actual work details, and
An independent contractor acts on behalf of another to perform a task but is not under the direct control of another person. An independent contractor is those who work on work basis, work irregular hours and not supervised by the employer.
An independent contractor is ”people who truly have their own businesses and are their own bosses”, while an employee is paid by the company and entitled to other benefits (i.e. medical/dental, pension, vacation, sick days, life insurance, etc.)
In contrast, a worker who is an independent contractor and not an employee does not receive many of these benefits. An independent contractor is basically self-employed; he or she must pay their own maintenance costs, payroll taxes, and health insurance costs. In exchange for fewer benefits, the independent contractor has much more control over his or her work.
Working for the City of New York we are encouraged to never discuss our salaries with co-workers. Many are hired at the rate they are presented at the time of initial employment, but once they begin working and other employees of the same level discuss salaries some start to compare themselves to others and think they deserve what their co-workers are making or more. Workplace salary jealousies are defiantly rooted in relativity thinking. Ariely states that relativity is the tendency to estimate the value of things according to how they compare with other items.
Once a clear set of instructions can be created for a job which allows quality to be easily and rigorously monitored, lower cost labor can be taught how to perform that job function. These lower cost options may include computer automation, robots, or low cost labor in foreign countries. This makes many forms of procedural based jobs good candidates for outsourcing. Specialization has allowed “personal outsourcing” in which a whole department is not outsourced, but just the specific tasks that could be classified as tedious or time-consuming and may provide a better benefit if the person who is meant to work on the task focuses on other higher-valued activities, while the outsourced contractor takes responsibility over the lower-value given task. This paves way for levels in efficiency and effectiveness because though it might be more cost efficient to keep just the one employee, but it might not be effective if the employee cannot meet posted deadlines due to the time needed to complete
The portion of the presentation presented by Zoe Madams refers to some obstacles encountered during the inclusion of independent contractors. She mentions that such contractors were reluctant to “buy into the program” and among other things, they were unwilling to utilize the parent company’s adopted software, which was a requirement (Madams & Alexander, 2013). From the video it seems like the issues with contractors came after the projects were kicked off and started, which makes me think that a better job could have been done by providing clear guidance and setting specific requirements during the bidding process. Soliciting bids from only those contractors willing to adapt to the new methods and techniques specific for the projects comprised within the Olympic program could have minimize the problems encountered during execution and maybe even the need for such a high presence of managers in ground to oversee their work as a control mechanism.
It is important for employers to identify an individual as an employee or an independent contractor. An employee performs services for an employer and the employer sets the standards as to how the service will be performed. An independent contractor provides a service outside the skillset of an employer, such as, an accountant, a lawyer, or a plumber (Reilly, 2015). Independent contractors enter into a contract to perform a service for an employer. Consultants brought into an organization are also independent contractors. The current organization I work for utilize the expertise of consultants to evaluate its practices of providing healthcare services. Employers that classify individuals as an independent contractor when they are in fact employees face liability issues. There are benefits of this type of practice. An employer does not have to pay taxes out of his/her own funds for an independent contractor. Independent contractors cannot file employment suits against the employer. However, there are some consequences for this practice. Independent contractors are self-employed and do not
As one of the largest global information technology (IT) company in the United States, Hewlett-Packard (HP) produces numerous of hardware and develops many software. Not only concentrated in hardware and software manufacturing and developments, external IT consulting is one of the highlighted services which is provided HP’s Services division. In order to increase competitive advantages, Ron Kempf, the direct of project management competency and certification at HP, brings together the firm’s various stakeholders to conduct a needs assessment to determine what type of training would be needed. 2,500 client-focused project managers and support staff around the world are the candidates in the needs assessment. Based on cost-benefits analysis, ESI International is chosen to conduct the needs assessment with the designation of “project management professional” (Lepak & Gowan, 2010).
Hiring independent contractors would lead to losing some control over your workers since employers cannot control how they perform their task because you can’t closely monitor their work, unlike employees. You can guide them to how you want a particular job to be done, but usually they will run their business their way. Since they enjoy autonomy to decide how to do the job at their best for which they have been hired. (Forbes, 2006) Independent contractors are hired as a short-term worker, which means that they might not be working with the same company for another project the next time. Since, they usually operate on a first come, first serve basis, which can become inconvenient and disruptive for employers if they want to work with the same contractor for all of their projects. In addition, different contractors may perform their job in a different manner, which can lead to various results from each contractor. Therefore, hiring employees would be a better option for such employers. Another disadvantage is that because they are freelancers and work with various employers, they would only focus on promoting their brands but not the employers. Furthermore, when an employee is injured at the workplace, employers use the worker’s compensation insurance program to compensate for the injuries so that employees do not sue them for the damages. However,
An independent contractor can be any individual or any business that performs services for another person or company under an agreement but is not subject to that person or business in the manner, means, or right to control their performance of those services. The company that hires an independent
Perceptions of inequality it the workplace have been around since the industrial revolution. People are always going to feel like others are being treated more fairly than they are. In the Ted Talks video, David Burkus (2016) discusses how employers can benefit from a transparency approach to how much their employees make. The perception is that if employees know what others make they will be more motivated to work harder. The benefit to keeping the salaries of the employees a secret is that employers feel they can save money in the long run. This is especially true when employees in the same department have a drastic salary difference (Burkus, 2016).
Contractor has the needed skills to perform the services in a capable and professional manner and without guidance or direction from the Customer.