Hiring a telecommuter

I need a plan to manage but not over-manage

[lorax]

I'm planning to hire my first telecommuter. I'm very leery of doing this for obvious reasons. I'm looking for ways to ensure this person does their work ontime, within budget, and communicates with me. Essentially I need tools/ideas for building trust between us and then a way to monitor their activities without over managing them and making their job unbareable. I need ideas.

[logicmaze]

This is how we do it, not saying it's perfect, hell it might be stupid, but it's a start.
We have 4 telecommuters and they all start out on a contract basis, paid per job. The agreement is always based on timelines with a bonus available for beating the timeline(obviuously also having to meet quality issues) and a subtraction of pay if timelines not met.

If you go that way and stick to it you will quickly find out who you can trust and who does/doesn't take the job seriously.
Once that level of trust is there (it often takes a year to 18 months) you will know if you can switch them to a true hourly or salary employee and just let them rock and roll and send them a regular paycheck.

We have telecommuters that I haven't seen or talked to on the phone for over 2 years (all email and IM) it works great. We have also had to eliminate about 7 different duds to get to the relationship we have now!

[lorax]

Thanks for the reply. I assume that if you hire them as contractors that their asking rate is much hire than the rate you pay them after they're hired?

[decaff]

Thanks for the reply. I assume that if you hire them as contractors that their asking rate is much hire than the rate you pay them after they're hired?

Not necessarily...freelancers still have to compete with market rates for actual work being performed...(of course the individual/firm hiring doesn't have the actual overhead related to W2 ... but they do have the overhead of managing and quantifying the value of the freelancer...)

Just so you know...I am a long time freelancer...
I never work by the hour...only by the job/project fixed bid with project changes adjustment clauses...(this is where a possible hourly billable might come in)

I look at all aspects of a given project and then work up a comprehensive bid/proposal ... this tells the potential individual/firm doing the hiring...that I know my stuff..
and willing to go the extra mile to assist them with their project and business goals...

I would never work for anyone W2 remote...1099 all the way...(I want to manage my own taxes...I can actually do better financially this way)...

[lorax]

I've decided not to try the contractor route. Largely because I don't want to have to scope out the work in advance. Many of my clients don't really know for sure what they want. Since I work on an hourly basis this suits me fine but giving the work to a contractor would mean a complete change of how I do business.

What I plan to do is to decide on one candidate and hire them with a performance review at one month and another at 3 months after that.

[level80]

It partly depends on your management skills (or lack of them) as to how it goes as well as whether you will get on with the telecommuter. It only makes sense to outsource out the things that are just holding you back from doing your job. For example you could outsource answering your phone to a telephone answering company, hosting of your website, compiling your annual accounts to an accountant.

I agree with you over the whole "not knowing for sure what they want" - that's partly why they hire you. However outsourcing does free you up (time wise) to concentrate on growing the business. The drudgery (repetitive data entry tasks for example) are best outsourced. It can also provide an influx of new ideas from the telecommuter too.

Your plan sounds like the TV show The Apprentice - lol

[lorax]

>> The Apprentice

LOL - I need to put on a few more pounds and hone my scowl.

[PaulHudson]

I had a right old time with my first contractor, my advice… make sure they know what they are doing. ;-) He seemed to have the necessary skills… fool me once.

I totally agree with the above, pay piece rate, that is to say per job and offer incentives. It is vital that outsource workers are kept onside, feeling like a (remote) part of the team. Personally I can’t see me ever paying hourly, but I haven’t been around long enough to have that trusted relationship.

One thing I would like to know:

I like verbal communication. But how often is too often, no one wants somebody breathing down their neck but the art of business (especially in hour industry) is effective communication. So I was surprised to read that logicmaze hasn’t spoken on the phone to some of his team for years.

Kind regards,

Paul Hudson

[Corey Bryant]

When we were doing this, we had an internal help desk. This way - each project had its own ticket and everything could be followed very easily.

As far as building trust, that just comes with time. We worked together for three years I think. It took us about six months to finally locate someone who would actually do the work.

Start small with whoever you decide on using. This way you can test their abiilty and how long it takes them.

Ask for references and call them (preferably). If you email them, look at the IP headers and make sure that it is not from the individual.

Ask to see some previous work and maybe even contact the owner of that site as well.

Good luck with it!

-Corey

[axgrindr]

We've just hired our first US contractor. The price for the project was lower than most of the India/Romania/Argentina/Vietnam bids that came in.
We'll see how it goes.

So I was surprised to read that logicmaze hasn’t spoken on the phone to some of his team for years.

I've never spoken to our new webmaster in India.

Only occasionally will I have a Skype conversation with an outsourced contractor.

[PaulHudson]

So I was surprised to read that logicmaze hasn’t spoken on the phone to some of his team for years.

Oh, it appears I’m a control freak. I think I will go do some yoga to loosen up. ;-)

[lorax]

>> how often is too often

Oiy! That's the rub! I think what I'm going to tell the candidates is that we will be talking quite frequently for the first few weeks at least. I'm quite candid about my need for trust in their abilities as well in the ability to communicate with me. I'm placing a lot of trust in my instincts as well as my ability to communicate on a personal level. I'm not the corporate type and if I even smell a false front on the candidate my interest in them will drop.

On the upside, I have had a candidate approach me who I've done work for as a client of mine. His job as the webmaster at his current employer isn't offering him enough diversity. I read somewhere that something like 75% of all new-hires come from someone knowing someone. I can see why.

[axgrindr]

I think I will go do some yoga to loosen up

Maybe some chamomile tea?

Our first time using a US based contractor for one of our projects hasn't worked out too well. No response, no emails, no IM, nothing for 6 days.
I quess it's back to India where the contractors seem to care about their clients and at least give the appearance that they are excited about working on a project.