As more organizations rely on an independent contractor workforce, having an onboarding process with the proper guardrails in place can help enable you to verify contractor licenses quickly and effectively.
Why worry about verifying independent contractor licenses?
When hiring independent contractors, there are a number of associated compliance obligations that must be met. Verifying contractor licenses is a key first step in beginning to meet these obligations and ensure that trusted workers have the right skill sets and the required documentation. It also means that when independent contractors are deployed to a client site, you can be confident that both your business and client are, are working with a contractor who will be able tackle the project in an efficient manner.
The documentation required to meet compliance obligations needs to be collected during the onboarding process and can fall into many categories. However, there are two key categories your business should be focused on. The first category is documentation that verifies the contractor’s skills. For example, certifications, licenses, industry specific credentials, and so on.
The second category includes standard contractor documentation, such as background checks, workers’ insurance, workers’ compensation, non-disclosure agreements, and supplier contracts.
What should you focus on when verifying licenses and credentials?
As you verify your independent contractor licenses, be mindful that along with gathering the relevant documentation, you also need to ensure all documentation is up-to-date (including those that require regulatory review) and in line with needs for the job. This can include ensuring an understanding of the latest associated technology in the field, worker insurances/protections, and many more.
Be mindful of the frequent changes to state and federal labor guidelines and regulations and seek legal advice where necessary. Likewise, be sure to stay on top of the rapidly evolving technologies that enable your independent contractors’ jobs.
Keeping these things in mind will enable you to stay focused on being compliant across the board – from the worker, to the job, to payment, and so on.
One of the most effective way to do this is by using the right technology such as freelance management system to help automate these processes and ensure all documentation is gathered and organized with ease. It will also allow you to organize contractors into quick-to-action talent pools.
How can you take action?
Trying to verify contractor licenses while onboarding workers can be an extremely time-consuming task when done manually, via spreadsheets and emails for example. Automating this process using a contractor workforce solution like WorkMarket means workflows to automatically collect the verification documents you need, as well as the platform automatically verifying tax IDs and bank information of your workers.
Here’s how a contractor workforce solution can help streamline onboarding and contractor license verification:
- Automatically collect your requirements through a customizable recruiting page. You can then send contractors a link for them to self-onboard and upload the required documentation, allowing you to collect all the documentation you need from the onset of worker engagement. In addition, you can monitor which workers haven’t completed the onboarding process and send automated reminders asking for the outstanding verifications.
- Create an accessible audit trail by using a freelance management system to onboard your workers and verify contractor licenses. This enables you to have a centralized system that houses all your independent contractors’ documentation, allowing for easy extraction of such documents. It also allows you to create reports detailing worker qualifications or worker insurance details. These reports offer a simple and easy way to help ensure business requirements are met within your contractor workforce without having to follow a paper trail or manually input disparate documentation into your system. It also provides for automated guardrails to help ensure nothing is missed during the onboarding process.
- Identify the right worker for the right job at the right time with pre-vetted talent pools, also called labor clouds. WorkMarket’s labor clouds allow you to easily verify contractor licenses by building pools of pre-vetted workers that meet your specific requirements, such as geographical location, certifications, passing background checks, and so on. These filters allow you to digitally organize workers in one place according to specific criteria and help you identify and deploy workers faster to meet client demands.
Interested in learning more about how WorkMarket can help you verify contractor licenses with ease and streamline your onboarding processes? Let’s connect!
