Why One Company Prefers to Employ vs. Contract Field Professionals

Why One Company Prefers to Employ vs. Contract Field Professionals Why One Company Prefers to Employ vs. Contract Field Professionals In today’s day and age, it seems that contractors are Silicon Valley’s workaround for high fixed operating costs, but that shouldn’t be the only factor to consider in determining the tax status of a company’s key asset, it’s people. At ezhome today we have a field staff of 150 combined gardeners, irrigation specialists, handymen, and electricians. Within a few years, that number will grow into the thousands and tens of thousands by 2025. These people are professionals and we treat them as such: they’re ezhome employees with insurance , overtime pay, health benefits, 401k plans, career advancement opportunities, and paid time off. Building a low margin business with high fixed costs isn’t easy, but nobody said innovation was easy. We chose this more difficult path because we believe that the home services industry needs to be revolutionized and our use of technology and a fully-employed workforce will allow us to fundamentally change the space. There are hundreds of thousands of home service professionals in the U.S., many of whom are negatively affected by the seasonality of their profession, low-tech communication channels, and a lack of business tools to do their jobs as effectively as possible. We are providing long-term career opportunities to these hard working professionals. We guarantee a full-time schedule with full-time pay, benefits, and career advancement opportunities on a year-round basis. This frees up our team to fully focus on being amazing at their craft instead of worrying about when their next job will come in. We believe that by investing in our employees in this way, they will be invested in us and our customers and we can build a healthy, long-term, professional relationship. We are committed to giving our employees a solid onboarding and training experience so that they can hit the ground running. In addition, as with any career, we know that learning and development is crucial to job satisfaction and a long-term career, so we also provide opportunities for our employees to learn new skills. Again, by investing in our people, we know they will be more invested in us and our customers and, therefore, be committed to delivering an amazing customer experience. This investment in our workforce allows us to guarantee a high standard quality of service. Additionally, our use of technology to operationalize the delivery of services provides a never-before-possible level of consistency - from the professional who arrives at a customer’s home to deliver recurring services such as gardening or cleaning to the actual quality of the service, itself. The Highest Value Customer Experience Before ezhome, a common frustration we heard from customers is the amount of time they needed to spend to find professionals to care for their home. For services from painting to flooring to tree pruning there was the need to research and contact potential providers, meet them in person, receive quotes and ultimately negotiate and choose a provider. Meanwhile, all of this is before their home is even being serviced. With ezhome, this pre-service work is 100% eliminated. Via our web or mobile applications, customers simply select a service, receive their quote, and make their purchase. We do the heavy lifting of finding and employing amazing home services generalist and specialists, keeping their skills sharp, and ensuring on-time, high-quality delivery. We’re proud to be able to provide long-term career opportunities to our service professionals while also providing a better experience to our customers. It’s the sort revolution that’s not short on operational and business challenges, but we believe it’s the model of the future and are excited to be building a company which will improve the lives of both our employees and customers! Dilpreet Sethi has a background in management consulting at McKinsey, operations at Liberty Mutual, and technology at IBM. Currently, he is the Director of Operations at ezhome.