There are unprofessional independent contractors out there who try to increase their prices without any notice at all to the companies they work for.

Not only is this disrespectful, it’s sneaky as well.

So companies online don’t let them get away with this. If they truly cared about your company, they would do things the professional way & in order to prevent this from happening in the future, you should get all independent contractors to sign a small contract that states that their rate is their rate & they have to have worked with you for at least X months at their given rate. Then they have to give you 2-4 weeks notice if they intend to increase their rates, whether it’s their hourly rate, or even a flat rate for a header design or something like that.

We can give you a contract like that if you wish. The reason this worker below hadn’t signed one, is because we only developed it after he had been hired.

To all independent contractors, here is how you should notify an employee if you wish to increase your hourly or flat rates.

1. First establish if enough time has passed working for the company or employer before even considering raising your rates.

   Unless you openly discussed with them the fact that you were giving them a lower test rate for the first & second task they give you so you are proving yourself, suddenly deciding to raise your rates after 2-3 weeks is totally unacceptable.

   Even if you have been working with them for months, employers can’t read your mind, they have no idea what you are feeling inside about your rates. All they know is that you gave them your price & they expect you to honor it.

2. Write up a “sorry to inform you” e-mail (no one likes to be informed that rates are increasing, so be empathetic towards them, ESPECIALLY in this economy), my rates will be going up as of _________.
3. Give them at least 2 weeks notice, 4 weeks is even better.

Trying to slip in increased rates because you are scared about notifying your employer, or you feel you are being taken advantage of is NOT professional.

You are the one that chose your hourly rate to begin with, no one put a gun to your head & made you do it, so blaming the employer is immature & clearly unprofessional.

I’ve heard it way too mnay times to count, the independent contracotr comes up with a rate, does the work, realizes they underestimated their rate & instead of taking responsibility for their actions, they start to resent the employer because of their mistake.

Then when they try to increase the rate without giving advance notice, they delusionally expect the employer (client) to be all happy about it & then they play shocked at the employer’s reaction.

I even had a worker who had been with us for 11 months try again (he did this once before, but we just thought it was his mistake) to raise the rate by quoting us how many hours it was going to be & changing his hourly rate in the e-mail with the task we had just given him. No notice, nothing, just expected us to take it because he felt this is the way you tell employers you are raising your price.

Even when he was told that isn’t the proper way to raise a rate & we explained to him how he should have done it, plus we stated his rate increase could start with the next task now that we had notice, his immature behavior refused to acknowledge his mistake. He instead tried to use guilt & ultimatums.

Then he started to come up with all of “his” reasons why he was right & we were wrong like:

a) he’s done so much free work for us. Umm, just because you do a company a favor doesn’t mean you have the right to be unprofessional & disrespectful. Often times a company has no clue what you have done for free, so again, expecting them to read your mind is not a very smart tactic.

b) then he tried to accuse us of not paying him for one project which of course wasn’t true unless something slipped by us, but this was the FIRST we were hearing of this, & why would he have continued working for us if we had “not” paid him. I certainly wouldn’t work for someone who hadn’t paid us.

So if you want to build a professional reputation as a fair worker & NOT upset companies who will later on tell other companies of your behaviour, please please, use common sense & follow the simple rules & strategy above.

Michelle

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Geeze, I just seem to be hip hoping around on here tonight LOL

I totally get what you are saying & I respect that, but listen to what I have to say being a buyer…

1. I reject 90% of all providers for ONE reason, they DON’T read the hiring ad & follow simple instructions, so to base my rejection behavior on your next decision isn’t fair to me & other buyers who do the same thing.
2. I know I’m rare, but I tell everyone if I’m not interested, & I’ll even tell them why.

I may not be soft & cuddly about it, but I feel it’s better to be straight forward, than to disrespect the person & just disappear. Also I feel it’s a great learning tool a sharp IC can learn from.

The nasty ones don’t care b/c they don’t want to learn from their mistakes, they just blame others.

Some thank me for my kindness, others flame me & it starts a problem.

The ONLY 2 reasons I won’t tell a person I’m not interested is the following:

a) I end up hiring someone & I get sooo caught up in the work (part of a problem being a very small company, I wear many hats), I don’t have the time to notify everyone.

Now this generally only happens when I post a hiring ad on CL, but it’s happened on bidding sites too, & there have been many times when the project has expired & I still don’t have anyone to fill the position.

b) I used to tell everyone via e-mail why I wouldn’t even go to the next stage in the screening process, but now I just delete b/c I no longer have the energy or the time & if they are that disrespectful, then I shouldn’t waste my time.

I am forced to do this here b/c I have to make a decision on some bidding sites. Others just allow you to delete.

If it’s an ethical professional company, don’t think for one minute the hiring process is easy for them.

Just to hire one position costs me

a) around 3-6 hours of typing time via e-mail, the interview, & reading over their initial response. I don’t read resumes, I feel they are a waste of time.
b) another 30-60 minutes checking references
c) screening any samples they may be required to give

So the energy to do all of this, not to mention the time it takes me to do that when I could be doing other tasks is very taxing.

One last thing to keep in mind if you haven’t already figured this out, small companies don’t have an HR department like mid to large companies do, so it’s usually either the owner or an assistant who does the hiring process & that makes it very stressful, b/c technically an experienced person should be handling that one task, & the owner or assistant is juggling that task & all the other work they have to do.

If you ever have doubts, try hiring just one position for about a week.

Put the shoe on the other foot & see how it feels, you may start to have a newfound respect for certain companies : )

Thank you for listening

Michelle

P.S. I liked my response sooo much, I’m going to put it on my blog : )