How to give feedback to contract workers

Communicating effectively with your independent contractors is one of the most important aspects of managing a contingent workforce. So how can you give more effective feedback to your contractors in a way that helps your business? Below are a few things to think about when giving feedback–positive or negative–to improve your bottom line and increase efficiency.

Benefits of Giving Feedback

Open communication with your contractors is the key to creating good relationships, saving time, and improving work outcomes in the future. If a contractor feels understood and recognized by their client, they are more likely to do better work for you in the future. Plus, open conversations can improve the quality of the work a contractor produces by giving them more clarity about what’s expected of them. As you connect with technicians, make sure you create a two-way street so they can offer feedback too. Maybe there are ways your team can improve communication in your work orders. Or maybe there are other things those technicians notice while they’re in the field that can help your business improve.

Giving Positive Feedback

Positive feedback can be a great way to let your contractor know you appreciate their work. Appreciation is just as important as criticism because it lets them know what they should keep doing in the future. The key here is to get specific on exactly what you liked about their work. Tell them what you liked about their responsiveness, their process, or their results. This will save you time in the future and it will make the contractor more likely to want to work with you again because they know your expectations and that they can meet them. Feel free to also add some positive critique here as well. Let them know you love what they did and what they can do next time to make it even better.

Giving Negative Feedback

Giving criticism can be difficult, but when done the right way it can be helpful for both you and the contractor.

There are several guidelines to follow when offering negative feedback to make it easy to understand and make it effective for everyone involved. For instance, always start with a compliment and offer a solution for improvement. Negative feedback can be a great tool for you to build a relationship that grows over time and help you gain more insight into your process for the future. Make sure you take time to listen to what they say in response to your critique as well. Was there something on your end that could have been more clear? Take this time to work as a team to uncover the root of the problem and think about how to make it better.

Make the Most of Your Feedback

Communication between your company and your contractors is important. It improves the quality of the work and it improves the contractor’s understanding of your process. That said, make sure you keep your communications in one place, and in a place where it is all documented.  In this case, keep communication in the Field Nation platform so you, your team, and the contractor can refer back to it later. In the unlikely event that you may need to involve the Field Nation Support team to resolve a dispute, our staff will be able to view in-app communications. Keeping messages in the Field Nation platform also lowers the chance of emotionally charged conversations that might happen over the phone.