What Is Contractor Management?

Contractor management is the policies and procedures a company has in place to manage contract employees or sub-contractors that are working for the company. Typically, contractor management involves safety procedures, payment policies, work quality measurements and document management.

Companies and organizations that have contractors working on the premises or on the organization’s behalf want to ensure that the contractors are working safely and securely. In order to ensure this, contractor management may involve the organization providing each contractor with a copy of the safety rules and procedures they need to abide by while working for the organization. This is especially true when the contractor is in a building or construction trade, but also applies to an administrative or other type of worker.

Contractors may be required to go through more of a formal training process, but this is not a necessity. In some organizations, contractor management simply requires the contractor to sign a consent form or agreement. The agreement states that the contractor has been made aware of the safety rules, have received a copy of the regulations and agree to abide by them.

Since contractors are not employees of the organization, company or business, payments also tend to fall under contractor management issues. The policy in some companies may require the contractor to submit an invoice of the work completed for a set time period. Other companies have contractors complete a time card that is similar to what an employee would complete. The difference is that contractors typically are responsible for paying their own taxes and insurance, and do not receive fringe benefits that employees do, such as health insurance.

Similar to how an employee would have guidelines to follow to provide a high quality of work, contractor management also requires that contractors meet a set of standards. When the company works out an agreement with the contractor, the written contract agreement would spell out these details. It may include information such as the person the contractor is responsible for reporting to so that the company employee can inspect the work quality of the contractor.

Document management for contractors may include obtaining and recording documents on the contractor. This may include a copy of a license or government-issued identification card and something that proves the contractor is eligible to work in the U.S. for certain contractors. Contractor management would also include collecting and maintaining certificates of insurance, bonding proof and licensing information citing that the contractor possesses all of these items during the time they are completing the work.