What is in neither contract
Belonging, career, equity, progression — the matters that fall between the two documents and are owned by nobody.
Whether the person feels part of your company
Career progression
Your own share scheme
Who notices when it is going wrong
YoursThe provider'sCrosses the twoNeither contract
Four matters, and no share: what any one agreement covers differs by agreement. One crosses both, and the handoff is where these arrangements fail. Three sit in neither contract. The section where the most arrangements are lost, and the one no document addresses.
Belonging, Which Nobody Owns
Whether the person feels part of your company appears in no document, and is the commonest reason these end.
Career Progression Without a Career
Your ladder is for your employees and theirs is administrative, so progression here is something you build by hand.
Equity, and Why It Rarely Works
Share awards to somebody another company employs raise tax and securities questions in their country, not yours.
Pay Review With No Review Cycle
Nothing in either contract makes anybody look at this person's salary, so a rise happens only when you start it.
The Person Who Is Not on the Org Chart
Being absent from the directory, the chart and the headcount has practical effects well beyond the symbolic.
Nothing Behind the Conversation
You can say the work is not good enough; what you cannot do is anything that follows from saying it.
Grievances With Two Addresses
A complaint about you goes to their employer, who has no authority over you, and that is the whole difficulty.
The Team That Does Not Include Them
Tooling, calendars, all-hands and the small administrative exclusions that accumulate into a person feeling outside.