My firm has one employee and eight independent contractors. It is important for your business just like mine, that you clearly differentiate how you work with, manage, and treat each separate group of team members.
The IRS has very specific guidelines on when an Independent Contractor is really an employee. If you are hoping that a contract stating that they are an Independent Contractor is all you need, guess again. I work with all types of Independent Contractors, those that are super organized and are working with several clients and I just happen to be one of their customers, and others that seem so needy and inexperienced that I have to be really careful to not cross the line and provide support services that may be misconstrued as potentially treating them really as an employee.
The bottom-line is that an Independent Contractor is a business entity that you have hired for a project. They need to be totally self sufficient and running their own processes and services where you are just one customer in their queue.
I have to say from my experience that there are plenty of Independent Contractors out there in my industry who don’t get that, they really want to be treated like employees. As a business owner you have to “man up” and make Independent Contractors be what they are supposed to be – independent – by not slipping into providing support or training which may get YOU into trouble just by being nice.