Contractors or Salaried – Does it matter within a project
God this topic that has been buzzing around me for about a year now. Last night I had a dream of owning a company such as Google. Wow I wish that was reality. Anyways in this dream I saw one of my Product Managers pull up one of my so called contracting staff in this empire company of mine for chatting in the kitchen. The conversation was “Hey stop talking and do some work, I hope you are not billing us for this chit chatting session of yours”. Even though it sounded as a joke, it was rather rude. Being the CEO I needed to action this in some way as I believe to be successful you need to give credit where it is deserved.In my dream during my Product Managers performance review I asked him how much could be deducted from his pay for chatting off and on with colleagues which was not work related. My Product Manager was upset and felt that I was insulting his work ethics. He felt that he gave his life for my company and by making this statement he fails to see the need to work for My Company.
To this I said well, when you made a comment the other day to Bob for chatting in the kitchen, how do you think Bob would have felt. To this the immediate response was but I was making sure that contractors understand that they get paid for their time on our premises and we need to extract the most of them. If businesses think this way then its high time to change that attitude because no matter who is working on your project people want to be respected for their work and no one is stopping each of us to be contractors or permanents(salaried) it a choice each individual makes.
My response to my Product Manager was the following ” In the future I want all members on a project to be treated equally, how each one gets paid is something personal, be it a contractor or a Salaried(permanent) employee at the end of the day each one needs to give their best because if someone isn’t then they should not be on the team”. When someone is at work whether they do work or not every person gets paid, end of story. If a contractor works more hours, the get paid more good for them. If they don’t come to work they don’t get paid so in the long run it works out to be equal.
When I woke up I decided that I needed to type this dream because I have noticed this same situation in reality and many companies create a gap between team members by differentiating between employees and Salaried (permanents) not realizing that to be professional you need to have skilled people not labels and hourly rates as a differentiating factor. I hope this blog is an eye opener to those managers who count their pennies rather than looking at the big picture of making a project successful.
All the best. If you have come across ways to deal with this kind of situations it would be great to receive feedback.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Geez Zurika – you need to drink more tea and dream about Goa not boring old project managers / contractors (nice blog though) Cheers AS
July 31st, 2008 at 2:22 am
There’s a fundamental difference between FTE’s and contractors – loyalty and responsibility.
Today, too many contractors forget the impact they have on FTE’s when they arrive at work late, or not at all. The disposition of being paid by the hour is used as an execuse that everything evens out at the end. This is simply not the case.
Loyalty and Responsibility to your employer and colleagues is what creates a work ethic, not whether you are a contractor or FTE.
July 31st, 2008 at 4:48 am
Don’t forget to add New Zealand to your website. From what I know of you it is New Zealand which hosts you and gives you opportunities you have never had.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:57 am
My Comments to Loyalty:
Thanks for the comment. Love it
. It’s strange that you brought this topic to work ethics and from what the comment posted I can relate to the psychology of your comment. To answer your question about Loyalty and Responsibility it has to work both ways. An environment that is one sided does not give either a salaried or a contractor to have the comfort of being loyal. Simple example when a salaried staff is on sick leave many times its been joked in the office that this staff member must be busy shopping or on holiday where as when a contractor does not turn up to work its too bad because they do not get paid for that time. No matter if you come to work on time if part of the early day goes in having breakfast and cups of coffee is it worth it? Instead if a developer/ administrator/ someone who is not client facing be it salaried or contractor walks in late and works later or has the same productive output as the person who walked in earlier what difference does it make? Again one on one meetings are held with a staff member in mind to nurture them and allow them to grow but when it comes to moving on guess its sad to see the investment out the door when all training provided has walked off to a new job. Either ways I still believe to be loyal both the employer and the people working have to share the same values. In today’s world sadly individual contributions overtime to an organization or a project could be forgotten. Not all organization practice this though ?.Traditionally it has only been in Sales and Marketing where a staff member’s net worth to an organization is only as good as last months performance (both salaried and contractors). In today’s world this is across the board. Finally all too often when projects go the wrong way the lessons learnt exercise (Post Implementation Review) which follows all boils down to nothing more than a finger pointing exercise to identify a fall guy be it (salaried or contractor). It would be far more productive if the lessons learnt exercises where indeed lessons learnt exercises. Chill and don’t go all defensive cause the post focuses on a team effort. At the end of the day some of us humans pay tax and some live on benefits and the argument on tax / benefit is never ending, hence we should respect that each of us have skills and not label our skills to salaried / contractors.
I hope you did not post comments during working hours lol!!!. Thanks though for posting your comments. Look forward to receiving your views on other blogs in the future. Cheers
July 31st, 2008 at 8:59 am
My Comments to Kiwi:
Thanks dude for the comment about not forgetting to add New Zealand to my website. From what you know of me as you put it “ it is New Zealand which hosts you and gives you opportunities you have never had”. – My response to that is Planet Earth hosts me and gives me opportunities. Zuricka was Zuricka before stepping into New Zealand and Zuricka will be Zuricka even if I reach Timbaktu” Taken your feedback on board though and will blog about New Zealand too !!! Cheers