Beware the unethical contractor

Contractors must take others along on the journey. Pic Getty.

The rise of the contract workforce has been meteoric in the last decade and continues to gather pace. Jane Kennelly, director of Frog Recruitment, says Australia is experiencing a massive 30 per cent year-on-year increase in the gig economy and New Zealand was likely to follow that trend. Contingent workers are predicted to make up more than 40 per cent of the US workforce by 2020.

To ensure workforce agility, businesses employ freelancers, contractors, temp staff and leased executives for particular projects and periods of time. However, keeping contract workers on task and on time requires robust management and a careful eye out for dodgy operators engaging in dirty tricks, says Kennelly.

"The selection of a contractor is as important as selection of permanent staff. If they're interacting with an agency, the baseline checks and balances are already in place." She says however that it was important people were brought on board well, with the vision and values of the organisation carefully explained.

Kennelly notes that employers of contractors will often jump on a skill set but overlook the soft skills component.

"Cultural fit is important because if employers get it wrong, it can have a negative influence on the business. Contractors need to be great connectors, great listeners, good solution finders, be able to navigate the complex corporate structure and be willing to go the extra mile."

It's also vital that contractors can break down a project bit by bit, strategically working backwards.

"If they've got a good handle on that, they can structure their work flow so they're delivering what they should be," says Kennelly. "It's all about the outcome, and the more efficient, structured and on task they are, the faster the project will be finished. Time is money and extensions can cost a bomb."

She adds that although contractors need to be great influencers, "they need to be ego-free, because it's not about them — they're just a cog in the wheel of the project. They need to take people along on the journey, calmly explaining things, asking the right questions, being confident, respectful and diligent. If they're seeking fanfare and accolades, it can be quite distracting on a project. A good contractor will want to do well regardless of acclaim."

Annie O'Keefe, head talentologist at Frog, recommends "deep diving" into a particular project to assess whether a contractor has everything required.

"Ask about budgets, time frames, people leadership skills. Tell them about the challenges around the project and ask how they approached previous projects and solved them. Get really robust and detailed responses and find out what they learnt from it to see if they've been intuitive enough to pick up improvements and enhancements they can take to the next environment."

O'Keefe suggests asking questions around stakeholder management capability and how the candidate has influenced certain situations to get the best outcome. "Did they use initiative, did they have great ideas, how did they actually convey those ideas? How did they manage change when they were encountering that — because it is about being flexible and being adaptable."

Although many contractors are trustworthy and work diligently, dirty tricks are a bugbear in the world of contracting. The unscrupulous engage in behaviours ranging from the annoying to the criminal. "We've had numerous cases of fossicking out people who fake their credentials and bluff about their skill sets," says Kennelly.

She recently heard of a contractor who was placed in a digital role without any referee or credential checking. The company liked the individual enough to then take them on permanently but later found out they had criminal convictions, including sexual assault. In another case, a couple of contractors were seen drinking beer in the company vehicle, wearing the company T-shirts.

"That's an example of poor induction. They need to be taught the company's vision and purpose, how to conduct themselves and what the company deems unacceptable."

There are stories of IT contractors who deliberately make things go wrong so their work carries on. A bug will "appear" in the system on Friday, which guarantees more work on Monday to fix it.

Another one to watch for is the "chitty-chat" contractor, who goes to all the internal meetings when they don't actually need to be there, and then puts in a time sheet for those meetings.

Kennelly tells of a business whose contractor signed them up to arrangements with a tech platform in the US. "The contractor got the business to buy some equipment without revealing he was the agent in NZ. So, hefty invoices were coming in and he was getting a kick-back. Then he had the gall to invoice the company $10,000 for hours he had "forgotten" to invoice while on the assignment, for hours that he had never worked. It ended in a legal wrangle. "

Avoiding this kind of situation requires a strong process at the beginning and someone else overseeing the work. It needs performance management processes that are very clear, measured and outcome-focused, says Kennelly.

If a business becomes aware that a contractor is behaving unethically, what should they do about it?

Kennelly says it comes down to the contract.

"There's a notice period and there's due process around exiting someone quite quickly." She adds there are situations such as harassment or bullying that require immediate attention, and there may be situations where criminal charges need to be laid. In cases of criminal activity such as fake identity or theft, the Police or Serious Fraud Office will need to be involved.