fact-based management Keys To A Successful Buyer-contractor Relationship A continuation of last month’s column. By: Vince Elliott L Last month, I presented four issues to focus on to improve the complex buyer-contractor relationship. The following is the conclusion of those thoughts. The Contract The buyer-published contract “specifica-tion” is another reason why a buyer-con-tractor relationship may not meet the needs of the buyer. Contractors often take these task/fre-quency “specs” with a grain of salt — if not a strong cup of coffee. They understand that if they were to deliver everything specified, their bid would likely be too high to win a contract. Again, the buyer — or buyer team — is in control of this decision. Buyers typically specify everything, including: The amount of labor, wage rates, benefits, equipment, chemicals, materials, hours of work, etc. In effect, the buyer has designed the service delivery system. If it doesnʼt work, donʼt blame the con-tractor; itʼs your system. And, this approach has likely created a co-employment risk for the buying company. The way to approach this relationship is to avoid providing the tools of the trade and instead require that the contractor design the service delivery system. In short, the cause of poor performance is often not the contractor, but the buyerʼs specification. There are two solutions to creating an operationally sustainable procurement process: 1. Develop a practical set of tasks and frequencies — often with contractor or consulting help 2. Adopt a “performance-based” con-tracting model. Of the two options, national studies are showing that the performance-based serv-ices model delivers greater quality, better satisfaction and lower cost than the tradi-tional task/frequency specification. ble; on-going performance measurement is the best prevention strategy. I suggest that it is the job of the contrac-tor to prevent the failure, not create the need to respond to it. If done well, youʼll measure key perform-ance metrics to prevent problems and fail-ure versus responding to it. Avoid Common Pitfalls Too many buyer-contractor relationships seem to go wrong, driving buyers to look for “a really good contractor” in their next re-bid. Itʼs important to realize that it is the buyer that creates the environment for a success-ful or unsuccessful relationship. Buyers who have more important things to do are really saying that itʼs just not worth their time to create an operationally sus-tainable working relationship with their building services contractor; after all, “itʼs only cleaning.” They simply leave it to the contractor “to do their job,” creating an atmosphere con-ducive to a difficult relationship. The contractor shows up, performs the usual tasks, asks if there is something else youʼd like them to do and believes theyʼve done a good job. Yet, the things that create unsustainable relationships are often predictable and pre-ventable. CM Vincent F. Elliott is the founder, president and CEO of Elliott Affiliates, Ltd. of Hunt Valley, MD, www.ealtd.com. He is widely recognized as the leading authority in the design and utiliza-tion of best practice performance-driven tech-niques for janitorial outsourcing and ongoing management. On-going Measurement And Management There are two important considerations for buyers and managers when it comes to on-going measurement and management of the buyer-contractor relationship: 1. Establish a prevention-oriented man-agement style 2. Focus on constant process improve-ment of the service delivery system. Many buyers and managers judge the success of the relationship by the number of complaints that are received. This creates a crises culture where con-tractor “responsiveness” is accepted as one of the most valuable parts of a suc-cessful manager-contractor relationship. And, indeed, quick response to problems is important. But, this may be a better indicator of fail-ure than success. Think this through — often, the reason that some kind of response is needed is that something went wrong, did not get done or was done improperly. Most — but not all — causes for com-plaints and service failures are preventa-44 CM/Cleaning & Maintenance Management ® • March 2010
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