Do you have subcontractors or employees and what’s the difference?

You are going to hire a painting company. One question you may want to consider asking is this: do you have employees or subcontractors?

First off, an employees works directly for the employer, has no database of customers their own, usually works full time for the company, and receives a W-2 at the end of the year. A contractor may work from job to job for the company, may have clients/customers all their own, and gets a 1099 at the end of the year.

At Burnett 1-800-PAINTING, we hire only employees, team-player-employees. Why? We want our company to be like family: we care about each other outside of work, we encourage each other, and we all work toward the common goal of being the best painting company anyone has hired! When you hire a sub-contractor for a job, their main goal is having work – work is good, but creating raving fans from your work is even better!

Also, a sub-contractor may be set in their way of doing things that may be different from us. All fine and dandy until there is a conflict and a problem surfaces months after the job has been completed. Who then will own up to the issue? The company must take care of it and the sub-contractor is not going to feel obligated to make it right.

Furthermore, sub-contractors may not always be available and can make scheduling a nightmare. We schedule our team and where they will be; this makes it much easier to know right away, every day, when we are available and if we are booked to a certain date.

Sub-contractors are not the enemy; they are just not for us. We like to be more involved with our employees and root for them to have a job well done- each and every job with consistency, care, and way more than “satisfied” customers. We are a team. From the initial call or an estimate scheduled by me, estimated by Steve, and painted by our great team, we work together from start to finish to make our customers more than just clients, but life-long friends, too. Go Team Burnett!