Employees versus self-employed subcontractors

Answer:
Organizations have work contracts with their employees. Those contracts are excluded from clause 8.4 of ISO 9001:2015. Contracts with subcontractors are included in clause 8.4 of ISO 9001:2015, even if they are self-employed subcontractors. I believe that under the law, in many countries, those self-employed subcontractors cannot be called or considered employees.

The following materials will provide you more information about supplier evaluation:
- How to evaluate supplier per formance according to ISO 9001:2015 - https://advisera.com/9001academy/blog/2015/10/27/how-to-evaluate-supplier-performance-according-to-iso-90012015/
- - Free webinar on demand - Overview of ISO 9001 implementation steps - https://advisera.com/9001academy/webinar/overview-of-iso-9001-implementation-steps-free-webinar-on-demand/
- Enroll for free in the course – ISO 9001:2015 Foundations Course - https://advisera.com/training/iso-9001-foundations-course/
- If you need help or want to develop documentation faster, check - ISO 9001:2015 Documentation Toolkit - https://advisera.com/9001academy/iso-9001-documentation-toolkit/
- Book - Discover ISO 9001:2015 Through Practical Examples - https://advisera.com/books/discover-iso-9001-2015-through-practical-examples/

We have received an additional question:

> Thank You for reply, to make it clearer, having around 100 self-employed subcontractors for service performance, according to clause 8.4 ISO 9001:2015 - do we need to evaluate, select and monitor performance for every single of them?

Answer:

ISO 9001:2015 does not require that all suppliers or subcontractors be included in the quality management system (QMS).
First, you can remove those that work outside of the scope of the QMS.
Second, you can remove those that perform activities considered not critical for your product/service.
Third, you can establish a limit above which suppliers or subcontractors are evaluated (a limit based on annual amount of money, or number of works, or number of days, or …)
Do not forget that today, almost sure, someone in your organization is already evaluating and monitoring subcontractor performance. Why not use that criteria? ISO 9001 is not about complexity.