4 Reasons to Re-Engage Independent Workers

Save time and money for your organization by re-engaging independent talent. When independent professionals are satisfied with their client relationship, they are more likely to return to that same client for future work. If independent professionals are already a part of your company’s workforce, re-engagement should be top of mind. If your organization is just beginning to work with independent talent, re-engagement should be a part of the conversation when building a centralized engagement program.

After going through the process of finding the right independent professional who matches your company’s needs, it is worthwhile to maintain a good relationship with that person so you can easily engage them for future needs. Independents who are already familiar with the processes and culture of your company will be much easier to bring on board and match with new projects.

Here are four benefits of re-engagement to consider when building your independent contractor engagement program.

1. Proven Expertise

Independent professionals build their careers around their expertise and can be found in virtually every sector of the economy from IT, marketing, and healthcare to education and creative services. When initially engaging an independent contractor, it is of course important to check references and review past work, but until you have actually worked with that person, it can be hard to anticipate the end product they will produce for your company.

When you find an independent who produces quality work and is a true expert in what they do, re-engaging that person can help enterprise managers save a significant amount of time spent searching for and engaging another independent professional with similar expertise.

2. Familiarity with Expectations

There’s always a certain amount of time needed to become accustomed to working with someone new. Figuring out a communication flow, introducing them to other team members or project stakeholders, and setting expectations for how milestones will be delivered are important steps of the process that require time and effort.

Engaging an independent professional who has previously worked with your company helps to provide a level of assurance that this person will already be familiar with how your company functions and understand expectations for work output.

3. Established Trust

Strong working relationships begin and end with trust. But building trust with any new worker takes time, especially with an independent professional who you may only ever work with remotely. However, after answering questions, solving problems, and completing a project together, it becomes much easier to fall into a rhythm of work.

Re-engaging independents who you’ve built a strong, trusting relationship with will help minimize that build-up time of getting to know each other’s work habits and expectations. That means projects can get started faster and be completed with fewer hiccups along the way.

4. Faster Onboarding

Independents value a smooth onboarding process that simple and quick. However, depending on the background and individual needs of the talent you are engaging, the onboarding process can often be lengthier than is ideal. Once independents go through onboarding, it can help save significant time and costs to re-engage that talent rather than seeking out someone new who will have to go through that same process all over again.

Of course, onboarding can’t be completely bypassed. It is important, for example, to always check to make sure independents meet necessary insurance requirements for each engagement. However, once initial documentation is gathered and information for the independent worker is on file, it can help make the process faster and easier for all parties.

Looking for tips on how to re-engage your best independent talent? Our team of experts is here to help with answers.