{"id":17628,"date":"2021-09-01T12:08:54","date_gmt":"2021-09-01T02:08:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/?p=17628"},"modified":"2022-10-09T17:31:49","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T07:31:49","slug":"using-subcontractors-tips-for-protecting-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/running-a-pest-control-business\/using-subcontractors-tips-for-protecting-your-business\/","title":{"rendered":"USING SUBCONTRACTORS: TIPS FOR PROTECTING YOUR BUSINESS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Do you understand the legal implications of using subcontractors?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<div class=\"hr-thick\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>At last official count, Australia had more than one million independent contractors.<sup>1<\/sup> Many pest management businesses use this to their advantage, using a subcontractor to help them take advantage of increased demand for their business.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rapidsolutions.com.au\">Rapid Solutions<\/a> knows this can be a savvy way to keep customers happy and increase your revenue, as long as you understand how to protect your business against subcontractor-related insurance claims.<\/p>\n<p>Remember the subcontractor isn\u2019t an employee, they are used to running their own show. They may not have the same professional approach or quality assurance systems as you. So, before allocating the work, ensure you\u2019re on the same page when it comes to the most important aspects: customer communications; pre-job paperwork; on-the-job activity and reporting; after-the-job paperwork; and business insurance, yours and theirs.<\/p>\n<p>Consider the implications of not doing so \u2013 an unhappy customer might share negative feedback online, or to other potential customers or, even worse, you might leave yourself wide open to a claim being made against you. The subcontractor is representing your business so if something goes wrong you could be held financially liable.<\/p>\n<p>Subcontractors usually aren\u2019t covered by your insurance; they need their own, just as they need their own licence and qualifications for the services they perform. You need to explore this with them carefully before they work for you, to ensure they\u2019re adequately qualified and covered for each activity.<\/p>\n<p>Rule of thumb: your subcontractor needs the same level of professional indemnity insurance and general liability insurance as you, or more. This is crucially important if your customer puts forward a claim against the subcontractor\u2019s work. Otherwise, you can be brought into the claim.<\/p>\n<p>Also advise your insurer that you\u2019ll use subcontractors (before you do) and check your policy conditions to see whether you\u2019re covered if a claim occurs.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, check their reporting on every job before passing reports on to your customer, checking for consistency and completeness. That\u2019s your duty of care as the business owner and as the person who\u2019s been entrusted to do the job properly.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"thin\"><\/div>\n<p><sup>1 <\/sup>Source: Australian Bureau of Statistics (2016). Characteristics of Employment, Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Do you understand the legal implications of using subcontractors?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":17631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Do you understand the legal implications of using subcontractors?","_seopress_robots_index":"","_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[356],"tags":[],"company":[132],"pest":[],"pesticide":[],"product-service":[180],"class_list":["post-17628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-running-a-pest-control-business","company-rapid-solutions","product-service-insurance","wpbf-post"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17628"},{"taxonomy":"company","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/company?post=17628"},{"taxonomy":"pest","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pest?post=17628"},{"taxonomy":"pesticide","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pesticide?post=17628"},{"taxonomy":"product-service","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/professionalpestmanager.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product-service?post=17628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}