The all-contractor "accessibility team" has become an increasingly common pattern in organizations trying to build some semblance of an accessibility program while avoiding headcount limits and long-term commitment in expensive locations. While it appears to be an attractive shortcut, unless done mindfully, it frequently creates more problems than it solves.

When Contractors Make Sense

Contractors absolutely play a role in building accessibility capacity. Some things make perfect sense to contract out:

Sign language interpreters: Unless you're hosting events every single day, you don't need full-time ASL interpreters on staff. Contract them when you need them.

Braille printing and tactile graphics: Specialized production work that happens episodically? Sure, find a good vendor.

Surge testing: You're launching two new major products in the next month? Bring in contractors to supplement your regular accessibility efforts.

Urgent legal work: This is a lot like surge testing, except the demand is coming from outside of the organization rather than from internal product releases

Specialized audits: Getting a third-party accessibility assessment of a security or privacy component in your software? That's a reasonable use of contractors.

Notice what's not on that list? Your core accessibility team. Your ongoing testing capacity. Your embedded experts. The people who are supposed to be building institutional knowledge, which is one of the most important but rarely talked about aspects of a successful accessibility program.

The Hidden Costs of an All-Contractor Approach

Here's what happens when you build your accessibility program entirely on the backs of contractors:

The institutional knowledge revolving door: That contractor who spent six months learning your design system and platform quirks? They may not be available the next time the work comes up. Contractors are far more likely to leave roles than full-time employees, sometimes by an order of magnitude, depending on the industry. New contractors start with zero internal knowledge. If your accessibility team is largely based on contractors, you've built a very expensive institutional knowledge reset cycle into your program.

No institutional power: Contractors can only recommend. Employees can push harder and escalate more easily. Inevitably, someone will want to ship an inaccessible feature. Contractors get overruled. Every. Single. Time.

Misaligned incentives: Contractors get paid to do work. They don't get paid to transfer knowledge, build internal capacity, or figure out how to work more efficiently.

The "permanent temporary" problem. That contractor who's been "temporary" for three years, sitting right next to employees doing the same work, but without the benefits, job security, or institutional authority? It's bad for them, bad for group morale, and definitely bad for your accessibility program.

What the Tax Authorities Says About This

Beyond the practical problems, there's a legal dimension in the US that needs to be understood. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has clear rules about who is an independent contractor versus an employee. Misclassifying workers can lead to serious consequences. The IRS uses the following categories to determine worker classification:

Behavioral control. If your organization controls what the worker does and how they do their job, including providing equipment and a location to do the work, that is a significant factor indicating an employer/employee relationship exists, regardless of what the individual is actually called.

Financial control. Employees typically have their expenses reimbursed, receive regular wages, receive ongoing training, and don't have the opportunity to profit or incur losses. Independent contractors usually invest in their own equipment, can work for multiple clients simultaneously, and are paid for the number of billable hours they work rather than receiving a regular salary.

If you have contractors who are doing the same work as employees, working your standard hours, using your equipment, following your processes, and working indefinitely rather than on specific projects, the IRS may determine they should have been classified as employees all along.

The consequences of misclassification aren't trivial. Organizations can be held liable for employment taxes that should have been withheld, along with penalties and interest. In some cases, this can also trigger state-level audits and penalties. In larger-scale cases, retirement benefits and stock grants may also be part of the settlement. Worker misclassification can also expose organizations to claims under employment laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act, potentially entitling workers to overtime pay, benefits, and other protections.

That "permanent temporary" accessibility contractor who's been with you for three years? That's exactly the scenario that draws IRS scrutiny. If the person looks like an employee, acts like an employee, and does the work of an employee, the IRS is likely to conclude they are an employee, regardless of what the paperwork says.

The UK also has a rule about this called IR35. Basically, any business structure that looks like you are trying to end-run paying taxes is going to be suspect.

The Contracting Agency Shield (That Isn't Really a Shield)

"But we hire them through a contracting agency, so it's fine!" This is the favorite deflection used by organizations that know they're treating contractors like employees but want to avoid legal exposure.

Here's how this typically works: Instead of hiring contractors directly, organizations pay a contracting agency, which then employs the workers. The agency handles payroll, taxes, and benefits (if any). The worker shows up at your office, works your hours, follows your processes, uses your equipment, and sits on your team for months or years. With a couple of minor exceptions, what the contractors largely do is indistinguishable from what the employees do. But they are employed by the agency, not by the organization for which they are doing the work. Problem solved, right?

Not always.

De facto employment/Joint employer liability. Organizations that exercise behavioral control over workers are functioning as employers, regardless of who signs the paycheck. Behavioral control includes setting schedules, directing daily work, evaluating performance, and requiring the use of your tools and methods. The contracting agency is nothing more than a payroll intermediary. If a contractor harasses someone at the workplace and neither the agency nor the business takes action, both will be sued.

Courts and government agencies increasingly recognize "joint employer" situations where both the staffing agency and the client company can be held responsible for employment law violations. If your "contractor" should have been classified as your employee, the contracting agency relationship doesn't necessarily protect you from liability.

You're creating a two-tier workforce. That accessibility contractor from the agency sits in the same meetings, does the same work, and has the same responsibilities as your employees, but without the benefits, job security, career progression opportunities, or organizational voice. This is both ethically questionable and terrible for team cohesion and morale.

The agency takes a cut. You're paying a premium to the contracting agency for the privilege of avoiding commitment. That 40-50% markup over what you'd pay an employee? That's a "claiming you have an accessibility program while not having a real accessibility program" tax.

It doesn't solve the knowledge problem. Whether contractors come through an agency or directly, they still easily walk out the door with all the institutional knowledge they've built. The agency model doesn't fix any of the fundamental problems with contractor-based accessibility teams. It just adds a layer of bureaucracy and expense. If the agency makes the contractor’s life miserable, without the employer's knowledge, the contractor might leave.

Some organizations genuinely believe the contracting agency model protects them from misclassification risk. It doesn't, if the underlying work looks like an employment relationship. Other organizations know exactly what they're doing: they're using the agency as a fig leaf to maintain a contingent workforce without making real commitments.

Either way, you're not building an accessibility program. You're building an expensive staffing arrangement that benefits everyone except your users and the contractors.

The Right Approach

If your accessibility team is primarily contractors, you don't have an accessibility team. You have an accessibility subscription. And you're going to keep paying that subscription fee forever because you're never building the capacity to do it yourself.

Use contractors strategically for what they're good at: specialized expertise, surge capacity, fresh perspectives, and genuinely episodic work. But the people setting strategy, building standards, transferring knowledge, and holding the organization accountable? Those folx need to be employees with a stake in the long-term success of the accessibility program.

This isn't just good practice for building an effective accessibility program. It's also the legally sound approach that protects both your workers and your organization from the consequences of misclassification. When you properly classify workers, you build stronger teams, create better outcomes, and avoid expensive legal complications down the road.