Employee Friction

You’ve probably heard this one before – especially from some full-time employees. Understandably, they’re often upset that as a consultant, you seem to be getting a sweet deal – you’re working the same job as they are, with often similar skills, yet you’re usually working on cutting edge projects while they’re stuck with support or maintenance duties, and even worse, you’re making more money! How can you counter this perception?

I’d argue that you might take care when working with full-time employees. Remember that you’re there not to displace them, or to point out how shiftless and unskilled they are, or how they’re unmotivated to do a good job. Instead, focus on how you can help them improve their situation – and that starts with their attitude towards consultants.

Some people will argue that it’s in your interest to make sure you stay engaged at a client, by being an essential part of the client’s team. That’s certainly good advice. What I would differ with is the method. I’ve run into consultants who make themselves indispensable by not documenting anything, and essentially holding their client hostage to their continued presence. You want to be valuable, but no irreplaceable.

Strange philosophy? Not really. By making yourself a key part of any process – you’re just ensuring that you’ll be stuck in the middle of that process – forever. I don’t know about you, but I like to do new things, and its not my idea of a good time to be answering the same question, or creating the same report, or whatever, for the 500th time. No thank you, that’s why I’m a consultant – the variety of new challenges! You can only take on those new challenges, when you ensure that you’re current ones have been transitioned over to the client organization, and preferably automated and fully documented.

So how do you stop employees from being resentful? You should ensure that its clear to all parties involved that you’re there to complete a specific goal – whether its a deliverable on a project, the project itself, or a deparmental reorganization. You’re not interested in taking someone’s job – in fact, you will help them to do their jobs more effectively by building processes, tools, documentation, reports, etc that will ensure that the situation is better when you leave, than when you came in.

Delivering value to your clients is the surest way to get great references, which will be the best way to multiply that success into new and better opportunities, whether through word of mouth, or through references when you bid on new work. Excellent product, service, and most of all, conduct, will make sure that you’re well liked by management, and often your peers – those same employees that may resent your presence.

What are some of the comments you’ve heard, or, if you’re still a full-time employee, have thought – about consultants?

Let me know and I’ll be sure to address these issues and more in future articles.

Until next time,

Kamal