Outsourcing

Managing outsourced personnel in Peru without creating an employment relationship

Managing contractor staff in Peru: what client managers may and may not do with outsourced personnel, and how to adapt global vendor policies to local law.

Written by: Lynch Laboral editorial team
Published: 27 September 2026
Reading time: 7 min read

Executive summary

In a lawful outsourcing under Law 29245, the contractor’s workers remain under the contractor’s exclusive direction; the client manages the contract, not the people.
Direct instructions, control of working time, evaluations and discipline by client managers are the clearest evidence of subordination to the client.
The client keeps legitimate powers: defining the service, checking results, controlling site access and security, and coordinating health and safety.
Global vendor-management policies, such as client approval of individual vendor staff or inclusion in group performance systems, often need a Peruvian adaptation.
Clear channels, contractor supervisors on site and trained line managers are the most effective day-to-day safeguards.

The short answer

To manage outsourced personnel in Peru without creating employment, the client should direct the service, not the individuals. Requests go through the contractor’s supervisor; the contractor sets schedules, assigns tasks, approves leave and handles discipline. The client may define deliverables, check quality, control site access and coordinate safety. When client managers act as the workers’ boss, the outsourcing can be recharacterized and the workers treated as the client’s employees.

The legal quality of an outsourcing arrangement in Peru is decided less by the lawyers who draft the contract than by the managers who work alongside the contractor’s staff every day. A procurement team can negotiate a textbook service agreement, and a site manager can undo it within months by treating the vendor’s technicians as members of his own team.

This is a particular challenge for multinational groups, whose operating models tend to favor integrated teams, unified tools and global policies that apply to “everyone on site”. Those habits are reasonable from a management perspective. Under Peruvian law, they can become evidence that the client, not the contractor, is the real employer. This article sets out where the line falls and how to keep managers on the right side of it. It builds on our guide to outsourcing and staffing in Peru.

Why day-to-day management matters legally

Law 29245 permits outsourcing only when the contractor keeps its workers under its exclusive subordination, alongside the other autonomy requirements explained in outsourcing requirements under Peruvian law. Subordination, in Peruvian employment law, is the power to direct, supervise and discipline. It is also one of the three elements, together with personal service and pay, from which article 4 of the Productivity and Competitiveness Law presumes an indefinite-term employment contract.

Legal note

If the client exercises the powers of direction over contractor staff, the arrangement risks being recharacterized under Law 29245: the workers are treated as having a direct, indefinite-term employment relationship with the client. Labor inspectors apply the primacy-of-reality principle, so actual practice prevails over contract wording.

The dividing line: the service versus the person

A useful rule of thumb for line managers is that the client manages what is delivered, and the contractor manages who delivers it and how they work.

Topic	What the client can do	What to avoid	Safer alternative
Work requests	Define scope, priorities and service levels	Assigning tasks to named individuals	Route requests to the contractor’s supervisor or a ticket queue
Working time	Set the hours the service must be available	Approving overtime, leave or shift swaps	Contractor manages rosters to meet coverage
Quality	Measure results against the contract	Evaluating or ranking individual workers	Service reviews with the contractor’s manager
Conduct	Require compliance with site, security and safety rules	Applying the client’s disciplinary procedure	Contractor investigates and disciplines; client may request replacement per contract
Identity	Issue contractor badges and access rights	Client email titles, uniforms and org-chart listing	Clearly marked contractor accounts and IDs

Instructions and communication channels

The single most common problem is informal direct instruction. A client manager messages a contractor technician to “take care of this first”, then again the next day, until the technician effectively reports to the client. The fix is structural: a designated contractor supervisor, a ticketing or request system that belongs to the service, and a rule that client managers do not assign work to individuals. Where the contractor is small and has no on-site supervisor, the contract should at least specify a remote coordinator who receives and allocates all requests.

Working time and attendance

The client can require the service to run between certain hours and can control physical access to its premises for security reasons. What it should avoid is managing the individuals’ working time: recording contractor staff in its own attendance system as if they were employees, approving their leave or overtime, or deciding who works which shift. Access logs kept for security are legitimate, but they should not double as the contractor’s timekeeping.

Onboarding, training and safety

Site inductions, safety briefings and confidentiality training are not only permitted but, in the case of health and safety, required. Under Law 29783, the employer guarantees safe conditions at its workplace, and failing to verify that contractors and intermediaries comply with health and safety rules is a serious infringement under article 27.16 of Supreme Decree 019-2006-TR. Where the activity is high-risk, SCTR (supplementary occupational-risk insurance) must also be in place for exposed workers of contractors. Training on the client’s internal processes, by contrast, should be limited to what the service requires and, ideally, delivered through the contractor.

Performance and discipline

Global performance programs are a frequent source of risk. If contractor staff appear in the client’s rating cycle, receive the client’s bonuses or recognition awards, or are subject to its disciplinary procedure, the client is exercising employer powers. The client should assess the service and raise concerns with the contractor, which then decides what to do with its own personnel. A contractual right to request the replacement of a worker for objective reasons is common and reasonable, provided it is exercised through the contractor.

Watch out

Global vendor-management policies sometimes require the client to “approve” each contractor worker, interview candidates or set minimum ratings for individuals. In Peru, these controls should be rewritten as requirements the contractor must meet, such as qualifications, background checks and certifications, rather than as the client selecting and managing people.

Does the recent court ruling change any of this?

Not for line managers. Supreme Decree 001-2022-TR, which prohibited outsourcing the core of a company’s business, was declared null by the Supreme Court in a popular action (acción popular, the proceeding used to challenge regulations that exceed the law they implement). That opens the door to outsourcing activities that were off-limits between 2022 and the ruling, and its current status should be verified before relying on it. But more outsourcing of central functions means more contractor staff working closely with client teams, which makes the discipline described above more important, not less. Autonomy and exclusive direction by the contractor remain the test.

Illustrative scenario

Illustrative scenario: a Japanese manufacturing group applies its global vendor policy in its Peruvian plant. The policy requires plant managers to interview every vendor technician, include them in the monthly “all-hands” recognition scheme and apply the group’s safety disciplinary code directly to anyone on site. The facility management contractor’s 30 workers therefore report to plant supervisors for daily priorities and are disciplined by them for safety breaches. A Peruvian adaptation would keep the safety standards, but require the contractor to enforce them; replace interviews with qualification requirements the contractor certifies; exclude vendor staff from employee recognition; and route all daily requests through the contractor’s shift lead.

Checklist for line managers

A short list that can be handed to managers who work with outsourced teams:

Send requests to the contractor’s supervisor or ticket queue, not to individuals.
Do not approve leave, overtime, shift changes or absences of contractor staff.
Do not evaluate, rank, reward or discipline contractor staff; raise concerns with the contractor.
Do not add contractor staff to internal teams, org charts or employee-only communications.
Keep contractor accounts, badges and email addresses clearly identified as such.
Enforce site, security and safety rules, and report breaches to the contractor.
Escalate to legal when the service scope changes or the contractor’s supervisor stops attending.

Common mistakes

Assuming seniority solves the problem. Senior engineers from an IT vendor embedded in client squads are still subordinated to whoever directs their work.
Using the client’s collaboration tools without boundaries. Shared channels are practical, but daily task assignment through them is evidence of direction.
Confusing access control with timekeeping.
Letting the contractor’s supervisor disappear because the service “runs itself”.
Treating staffing agency rules as if they applied. With a staffing agency, the client does direct the workers, but only in the limited cases Law 27626 allows. The distinction is explained in outsourcing vs. staffing agencies in Peru.

What is at stake

If management practices create subordination, the outsourcing can be recharacterized, with the workers treated as the client’s direct, indefinite-term employees, and SUNAFIL, Peru’s labor inspection authority, can impose administrative fines. Even without recharacterization, a client that receives continuously displaced contractor staff is jointly liable for their labor and social security entitlements during the displacement and for one year afterwards. The broader signals and exposure are covered in when outsourcing is recharacterized in Peru.

Preventive recommendations

As a professional recommendation, groups operating in Peru should:

Write a short Peruvian annex to global vendor-management and site policies.
Require an identified contractor supervisor or coordinator in every service contract.
Train managers who work with vendors, with concrete examples of acceptable and risky behavior.
Review access, systems and communication tools to separate contractor staff from employees.
Audit a sample of outsourced services each year for signs of drift.

Our outsourcing and staffing advisory can help design these rules and train the managers who apply them.

Closing thoughts

Managing outsourced personnel well in Peru is not about keeping contractors at arm’s length. It is about respecting a clear division of roles: the client defines and checks the service; the contractor directs its people. When global policies and local managers are aligned with that division, integrated operations and legal compliance can coexist.

Frequently asked questions

Can our managers give instructions to contractor staff at all?

Operational requests about the service are normal, but they should go through the contractor’s supervisor or a defined ticketing channel, not to individuals as if they were team members. The more a client manager decides who does what, when and how, the stronger the evidence that the workers are subordinated to the client rather than to the contractor.

Can we require contractor staff to follow our code of conduct?

The client can require the contractor to ensure that its staff comply with site rules, security, confidentiality, anti-corruption and health and safety standards. The safer route is to impose those obligations on the contractor through the contract, and let the contractor train, monitor and discipline its own people, rather than applying the client’s internal disciplinary procedures to them directly.

Can contractor staff use our systems and email addresses?

Sometimes access to client systems is unavoidable, especially for IT services. The risk grows when contractor staff look indistinguishable from employees: client email domains, client job titles, inclusion in internal org charts. Where access is needed, identify contractor accounts clearly, limit them to what the service requires and keep the contractor responsible for managing its users.

What health and safety duties does the client keep?

The client remains responsible for conditions at its own workplace and must verify that contractors comply with health and safety rules; failing to do so is classified as a serious infringement. Site inductions, safety rules and coordination meetings are legitimate and necessary. They do not by themselves create employment, provided the contractor keeps managing its workers.

Sources and legislation

Legislation Law 29245, Law regulating outsourcing services — Congreso de la República
Legislation Supreme Decree 006-2008-TR, regulations of Law 29245 — Ministerio de Trabajo y Promoción del Empleo
Legislation Supreme Decree 003-97-TR, consolidated text of the Productivity and Competitiveness Law — Ministerio de Trabajo y Promoción del Empleo
Legislation Law 29783, Occupational Health and Safety Law — Congreso de la República
Legislation Supreme Decree 008-2020-TR, amending the regulations of the General Labor Inspection Law — Ministerio de Trabajo y Promoción del Empleo

Lynch Laboral editorial team

Prepared by the Lynch Laboral team under our editorial policy: official sources, a clear line between statute and professional judgment, and legal review before updates. Editorial policy.

This article is for general information and reflects the legislation reviewed as of the update date shown. It is not a substitute for advice on your specific situation.

managing contractor staff Peruoutsourced personneldirect instructions riskcontractor supervisionclient company dutiesco-employment