Okay, this is an odd opinion, but I have a justification for it.
I do not believe that contractors and consultants, such as myself, should receive public praise inside a client’s organisation.
There are lots and lots of reasons for this, but the formal one comes from a practice that used to exist in the Royal Welch Fusiliers around the time of the First World War. You can read about it in Robert Graves’ Good-Bye to All That.
It goes roughly like this.
The regiment regarded medals and commendations as things that were primarily useful to career soldiers. These were people who were in the Army regardless of whether there was a war on, and medals could affect promotion, responsibility and their future career.
If you were only in the army for the duration of the war, then such things were of far less use. You weren’t in it long term, so the recognition was better used on somebody who could actually benefit from it afterwards.
This translates neatly to my view of a corporate environment.
A contractor is hired to do a job, and nowadays that is normally quite strictly defined. You have a Statement of Work and deliverables that you are expected to complete.
You have also had a fairly significant form of acknowledgement already: you have been paid.
By and large, contractors are paid slightly more than permanent members of staff because they don’t have the same job security, benefits, career progression, etc etc.
So giving a contractor a commendation or some other public display of thanks is, to my mind, largely a waste.
It is better to keep those things for the permanent members of staff who have put in the extra effort, because that recognition can be used in their year-end reviews, promotions and future career development. It actually has value to them.
That’s the big formal reason.
But there are supplemental reasons.
It removes any resentment that permanent staff might feel. Why should a contractor be congratulated publicly when the permanent staff around them have worked just as hard, particularly when the contractor is probably being paid more?
From a contractor’s point of view, particularly in the UK, it can also be useful to keep the relationship clearly professional and contractual rather than becoming too embedded in the organisation. You are there to do a solid job and deliver what you were hired for. You don’t particularly need the personal attention. 1
Practically, public praise is not usually much use to you anyway. The people who hire you know whether you’ve done a good job because you are reporting to them. If they think you’ve done a good enough job to hire you again, that’s probably the best commendation a contractor can get.
I know people will say that it’s simply nice to show acknowledgement, and they’re right.
But there are better places for that acknowledgement to go.
Give it to your permies.
- Though, to be honest, it is rather nice.[↩]
