All You Need to Know About Managing Consultants Effectively

Working with consultants can be completely different from working with permanent employees. The most important thing to remember here is that consultants are usually not a part of your company’s organizational hierarchy. For this reason, a company’s representatives, who regularly work with the consultant, shouldn’t make it seem like they are ‘managing’ the consultant.

Also, when you hire the right consultant using an online consulting platform, you don’t need to lead them. Top consultants are self-motivated problem solvers and are capable of taking decisions themselves. But at the same time, it’s your company and their decision will affect your future. That’s why you need to understand the leader-follower dynamic carefully.

This means that sometimes, you should do what the consultant says, and sometimes, you might have to take the role of a leader and ‘manage’ them without appearing like a manager.

Remember, if you try to control everything a consultant does, you might ruin your relationship with them. And if you don’t intervene when you should, the consultant’s decisions might be detrimental to your business.

Get Them Well-Acquainted With the Company’s Internal Culture

Remember that movie Up in the Air in which George Clooney goes from company to company and fires people? Well, that’s one reason why the arrival of consultants in a company can stir discomfort among existing employees. It looks funny when you watch it in a movie. But when it happens in real life, it can be challenging to witness.

Not all consultants are downsizing consultants. But still, when an outside ‘expert’ shows up out of nowhere and your employees’ normal routine change, there can be some power struggles. So it’s your responsibility to make sure that the consultant is aware of your company’s internal culture. This will help them settle in with your staff easily.

If your company has a flat structure and employees bring their dogs to work, then that’s a part of your culture. And if pets are strictly prohibited, and employees are forbidden from adding each other on social media platforms (other than LinkedIn). Then that’s a part of your company’s culture too and you need to communicate to the consultant.

When you hire the right consultant through an online consulting platform , they’ll create a precise statement of work in which you’ll find details. For example, deliverables, project members involved, budget, length of various phases of the project, etc. In short, you’ll know what you are going to get for the price you pay right from the get-go.

However, things aren’t as simple as they seem. Even when you hire the best consultants, the project scope might sometimes increase which may raise your company’s overall expenditure, not to mention delays in project completion.

When a consultant proposes to increase the project scope, you should have a private discussion with your internal team and decide whether you want to go forward or not. If the answer is ‘no’, then this should be communicated in a way that doesn’t affect your relationship with the consultant. Let’s consider an example. Suppose you hire a marketing consultant to improve your company’s brand image.

Now in the middle of the project, they recommend that you should hire an SEO consultant to improve your local search rankings. In this case, it’s up to you to analyze whether this addition to the project is viable or not.

Communicate more, not less. After a consultant is done gathering and analyzing data, they’ll offer you their recommendations.

Simply put, expect something like: “This is what the analysis says, and this is what I recommend.” When this happens, you have every right to ask them questions and challenge their advice professionally. Even if companies hire the best consultants, it’s not uncommon for them to ask their consultants to collect more data and revise the analysis and recommendations.

The consultant that you hire won’t stay with you forever. In fact, the engagement will probably last for a few months in most cases. That’s why it’s necessary to keep the shortness of this timeframe in mind. You should squeeze as much knowledge as you can from the consultant. When you do this, you’ll be self-sufficient after the consultant moves on to their new project with a different company.

Of course, you can easily hire new consultants using an online consulting platform if you need to. But when you already have one working with you, maximize the opportunity.

Conclusion

Managing consultants is not the same as managing an intern. Consultants come on board with certain expertise and a seniority level which makes them a bit different from other employees. When you hire the right consultant, you’ll realize this immediately. Sometimes, you have to play the role of the leader, and sometimes, it’s the consultant who tells everyone what the next step is.

Keep this shifting leader-follower dynamic in mind and offer consultants all the support they need. And at the same time, feel free to raise questions if you don’t agree with them.