Most businesses have some sort of onboarding process for new employees. This is especially important because it helps employees acclimate to their roles, understand company values, and generally feel part of the team. By and large, an investment into a positive onboarding experience is known to create workforces that are committed to the company’s ongoing success.
When it comes to contract employees, there isn’t always a comparable amount of structure. This can come from a number of reasons, not limited to the following:
Despite the unique challenges involved in onboarding contract employees, organizations stand to benefit greatly from a standardized and thoughtful process. The following are three compelling reasons why companies should insist on an optimal onboarding process for contract employees as part of their contract workforce management strategy.
Optimizing the onboarding process gets contract workers up to speed and executing against contract goals as quickly as possible. Additionally, employees do their best work when they feel valued and supported.
Unanswered questions often lead to slower starts and reduced rates of success. Organizations that want to get the most value out of their contract workforce will want to know that the learning curve has been somewhat flattened to get contract employees off and running sooner.
Reputation in business is everything. This is especially true since the rise in prevalence of employer review platforms, such as Glassdoor and Indeed, have added a consumerist twist to the process of finding and evaluating future opportunities.
While the onboarding of contract employees is not technically the responsibility of the client organization, the lack of a structured process can lead to frustration that contributes to the contractor’s overall employment experience. This is a significant factor that employers can’t afford to ignore, as the industry’s best talent evaluates future opportunities and contracts.
The regulatory requirements around hiring contract employees can get complicated. With a number of unwanted outcomes at stake, such as fines or legal disputes, initial and ongoing monitoring of compliance is within the employer’s best interests. Insisting on a standardized and thoughtful onboarding processes for contract employees is a great way to ensure no details are missed, and it provides a useful form of demonstrated intent around worker classification in the event of an audit from regulatory bodies.
Worker classification is an important area of compliance that can create problems if mishandled. Click here to check out our one-pager of 4 Things about Worker Classification You May Not Have Known.
Employers should take care not to gloss over the importance of a well-structured onboarding process for contract hires. Having a regimented process in place will help to smooth out the experience for incoming hires, and ensure the company will be prepared as it scales up its workforce over time.
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To learn more or to schedule a discover call, visit HireArt.com
