Finding, Attracting and Keeping Contractors

These days it seems so many employees have wanderlust. Before they've even qualified for retirement benefits at a new job, they're already looking for another. They hop from job to job seeking better pay, better opportunities or a range of intangibles too complex for HR to even try to address. Where once it was a mark of instability to change jobs, now it is almost expected. This leaves many companies in a pickle. Recruiting new employees is expensive, but how else can you fill the yawning chasms left by past employees?

Easy, says Ari Horowitz of Opus360, the software company making applications to enable contract labor. He advises companies to supplement full time employees with contract labor. True, contract labor can be a cost savings for employers. But how does an employer find good contractors? And once they're found, how does the employer hold onto a great virtual team? Ari Horowitz shares his insight.

First: Find Those Workers!

If you were hiring for a full time job, you'd take out an ad in the local paper or maybe post openings to a few job sites. But those methods don't work particularly well with projects that often need to be staffed quickly. In those cases, Horowitz advises employers to network. "Word of mouth works in a very small community," he says. "If you look at some of the technology that's out there today, the Internet provides a much bigger community to be able to look towards." But the big Internet community is made up of smaller communities. Identify the community that you'd like to bring to work for you - painless dentists? Linux programmers? - And then go where they are online. Post jobs to relevant newsgroups and sites; you'll find the word gets around the community you're seeking. It's also important that employers manage information on contractors. A contractor who may not fit today's needs could be perfect for tomorrow. Keep good information on the contractors you talk with on databases.

Next: Attracting the Outsourced Employee

Hiring old school full timers has never been easy, but at least most companies have processes in place. Attracting employees on a project- by-project basis, as many employers have discovered, can be a challenge. Horowitz advises companies to attract independent contractors much like you'd attract customers and investors. Identify good prospects first and then get them excited about your company.

"Build an exciting business proposition and then effectively communicate that," he advises. This involves getting your message out. "There's a lot of marketing in the early days. Then go efficiently through big pools of candidates, get them inside the company, and get them to sit down for a few minutes and hear what you're doing." Polish your company's come-on until it gleams and use it to entice contractors. Don't just throw a list of the skills you need at them - woo them with exciting descriptions of where your company is going. Get them excited enough and they won't be able to resist coming along for the ride.

"That speed of being able to grow a business and continue to create a sort of controlled chaos as you do, that is very exciting for people," says Horowitz.

Finally: Don't Let Them Get Away

Contract workers are notoriously frisky. How do you keep them corralled in your company? Horowitz advises two strategies: make the work exciting and give them incentives to stay. " The challenge from senior management is to continue to provide that platform where people feel that rather than having to go to a new company to try to do something new or something exciting, they can maintain that excitement and change, that learning, by staying with the existing business because it's constantly evolving, constantly changing," he says.

Horowitz also advises incentives - cash works! "One of the first things we need is the ability, from an accounting standpoint, to be able to give these independent contractors, to give free agents, an equity incentive to give them the upside when the company succeeds, " he says. A free agent who makes more when company fortunes rise is one who's going to want to stick around, especially if he or she is challenged and excited by work.

Finding a free agent in the first place is no easy task. And keeping him or her at your company is even harder. But savvy companies know that the ability to call upon a standing army of contractors is an invaluable asset. It just takes some care and feeding to have your own reserve at the ready.