A Guide to Vetting and Onboarding Your Third-Party Workforce

As a modern-day field service manager, you spend countless hours building upon and strengthening the engine that powers your company: your team. Like an engine, your team of technicians powers the outcome of every interaction with your customers. To keep this engine happy, healthy, and ready to perform, many field service managers rely on a mixed workforce management style. This means hiring a mix of full-time employees and contracted technicians, with each technician bringing specific areas of expertise to the table.

While your full-time employees work for you and only you on a consistent, clearly defined basis, your contracted technicians come and go based on seasonal needs and availability. However, these contractors play a vital role within your diverse team, as they enable you to respond to seasonal customer demands quickly and effectively. 

How can you ensure your contracted technicians, or subcontractors, are excellent, whether they've worked with you daily for the past year or whether this is their first time? Below, you’ll find a helpful guide to strategic workforce management when it comes to vetting and onboarding your third party workforce. 

Phase 1: Attract the Best Subcontractors to Your Organization 

Anyone you hire to join your hybrid team will either have a positive or negative effect on the health and performance of your company’s engine. But before you get to the interviewing and onboarding steps of the hiring process to assess whether a technician’s contributions will be positive or negative, it’s essential to ensure you’re attracting the best subcontractors to your organization. How can you appeal to the top talent within the pool of subcontractors?

Make sure your website is modern, informative, authentic, and updated.

When a subcontractor is deciding whether to apply for a contract position within your company, he or she will definitely check out your website. Potential new subcontractors want to know the following:

• What is your company’s mission?
• Which tools and specialty services do you offer your customers?
• Do you have excellent customer service ratings? 
• Is your scheduling process flexible and intuitive?
• Do you utilize mobile workforce management software to communicate with customers and technicians?
• Which geographical areas does your team service?
• Which field service management software do you use to effectively manage your team and service customers?
• Do you value your subcontractors in the same way that you value your full-time employees?
• What do you offer subcontractors and how can they apply? 

As a field service manager, it’s your job to ensure your company’s website looks and feels professional on desktop and mobile devices. Your website should also clearly communicate answers to the questions prospects are asking. It’s also important that your web forms are quick and easy to complete so potential subcontractors can submit requests for more information or a callback. 

Once you’ve worked to make your online presence the best it can be, make a commitment to update and refresh your web content continually. By doing so, you’re more likely to catch the eyes of talented subcontractors looking to work for modern, dynamic, and authentic field service management companies.

Phase 2: Evaluate Potential Subcontractors

With a pool of potential subcontractors to choose from, it’s time to put on your contractor management services hat and evaluate workers to see if they will strengthen your engine, before you onboard. The way field service managers handle the evaluation and onboarding process will affect a subcontractor’s happiness and performance levels. 

According to HR Dive, “Onboarding has become the starting point for organizational success in learning. When a company invests in the long-term success of new employees by giving them a solid orientation, along with opportunities that enable them to learn faster, the employment experience becomes that much more enjoyable and productive.”

Call subcontractor references and research the companies they’ve worked for as contractors.

Before interviewing a subcontractor to see if he or she is a good fit, do your research. Search for their names online to see what information pops up. Research the companies they’ve previously worked for and ensure they are high quality, reputable organizations that demand excellence. Call their references and ask honest and direct questions about his or her performance. 

Phase 3: Hire and Onboard Your Subcontractors

Once you’ve fully vetted your subcontractors and decide to move forward, begin the onboarding process before a subcontractor’s first assignment. 

Send subcontractors proactive communications via email, text, or phone. Give them access to online portals and any workforce management software you use to help them gain familiarity with how your field service functions on a daily basis. Warm them up before day one to make their first impressions and experiences positive and inviting.

Ensure your expectations are 100 percent clear.

Take the time to have a one-on-one conversation, in person or on the phone, to clearly communicate what you expect out of your new subcontractors. Be sure to ask your subcontractors what their career goals are so they’re not only helping you, but you’re also helping them. By showing genuine interest in your subcontractors’ career paths, you’re more likely to connect with them. By doing so, they’re more likely to perform at their best, whether it’s one job per month or three jobs per week.

When you introduce subcontractors to your organization in an honest, straightforward, and attentive way, not only are they more likely to resolve customer issues; they’re also more likely to share their positive work experiences with their talented subcontractor network.

How Workforce Management Software Helps You Evaluate and Onboard Contractors

Following the steps listed above will help you assess and onboard subcontractors. But to execute this process more effectively, consider harnessing the power of field service software to build, onboard, and manage your hybrid team.

Consider these benefits of using field service management software with contractor management services capabilities:

• Comprehensive credentialing tools include criminal background checks and drug and health screenings
• Built-in onboarding technology uses step-by-step wizards to ensure subcontractors fill out all necessary paperwork before their first assignments
• Service profilers capture all subcontractor information related to experience and expertise; this makes it easy for the field service management software to automatically match the right technician with the right job, in seconds
• Integrate custom training into the online onboarding tool to empower your subcontractors as they’re ramping up
  
  

Modernize Your Approach to Contractor Management Services: Act Now 

Ready to evaluate and onboard your third party workforce more efficiently? Learn more about how ServicePower’s workforce management software can completely transform and improve your process to drive results.