Yetta-
In addition to what Otis wrote, I’ll add this:
The trainee is technically and legally an “employee”, not a sub-contractor. Check with the IRS regarding the definition; since their licensing status requires significant supervision, they cannot be classified as a “contractor”.
I’m in California, and we have a “at will” work state (hired/fired at will). I don’t have “contracts” for my trainee employees. We do have an employee manual for all employees and contractors that cover their job description, quality issues, procedures and disciplinary procedures (disciplinary procedures are needed with the employees, not so much with the contractors).
I did have one interesting situation happen with a trainee. She wasn’t meeting the standards we had set (competency); after meetings and review, we let her go. She filed for unemployment benefits (thank God we did the right thing and have her as an employee).
I contested the claim; my position was that because of her licensing, she was required to obtain and maintain a level of competency to complete her assignments. I lost the first contestation, and appealed. It finally went to a hearing.
The administrative law judge heard the case. I had USPAP, showed the judge the competency section, cited the need for competency to “Protect the Public Trust”, and stated that what I had advised the trainee to do was to go back to school, get additional education in some core courses, and I’d be happy to re-start the training process. My position was that the level of instruction she required was “basic education”, not “apprentice/on-the-job training”.
Lastly, I argued that since she had a license, and to fulfill her job requirements she needed to be licensed, and that part of the licensing requirement was to be or obtain competency, and that as a licensed supervisor appraiser, my responsibility was to insure that she was competent to do the job, I could not co-sign with her on the appraisals until she reached a minimum level of competency to do her job.
Since she couldn’t do appraisals (which was what her job description called for), she wasn’t able to do any work for our firm.
Sounded reasonable to me!
Yes, you guessed it; we lost. I was told that we should provide her another position that doesn’t require licensing until such time when she became competent and could start doing appraisals again.
Somewhat off track- my point to this story is that if you are taking on a trainee, you are taking on an employee. In my state (CA), that creates a different set of obligations; some that can’t be superceded by a written “contract”.
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