Most companies treat contractor scheduling like an afterthought, an extension of employee shift planning, with a few tweaks. But this approach ignores everything that makes independent contractors independent. They don’t work for you. They work with you. And yet, you still rely on them to show up on time, fully prepared, qualified, and accountable, often with little formal onboarding, limited oversight, and no second chances. If you're still assigning shifts to contractors the way you assign them to staff, you're not just risking no-shows. You're risking lawsuits, service failures, and systemic inefficiencies that you may not even see. Contractor scheduling isn’t a logistical function. It’s a structural challenge. And solving it requires a complete rethinking of how trust, time, and responsibility flow in your organization.