Scope of Employment
A friend told me over drinks they worked 13 hours in one day. They weren’t proud, but they made three things clear: they had to do it, they’ve done it before and they’d do it again. All because of a client Statement of Work (SOW).
With any service-providing agency client are bound to a signed SOW. For the most part any SOW outlines the same three things:
- Scope of project - or what is actually being done
- Schedule - how long the project should take
- Budget - how much the project will cost, which is always an estimate
And the way we work against an SOW is typically the same:
- A service is provided based on a set schedule and cost.
- If any of those three things (service, schedule or cost) are adjusted then other areas of the SOW are impacted.
Most employees manage their clients and day-to-day responsibility based on a client SOW, but those same employees don’t work against their own SOW signed when joining a company.
Employee Contract = SOW
Agency employees are experts in SOWs. They know the ins-and-outs, how to get the best for both parties and how to deliver on time. But they can’t seem to do it for their own employment contract. When broken down, an employee contract is identical to a client Statement of Work. The legalese is slightly different but they allocate the same things:
- Scope of Work: The responsibilities of a person hired for a particular job on a day-to-day capacity. Basically, what service you provide the employer in return for payment.
- Schedule: Your working hours in a given day.
- Budget: How much money your services are worth. Read: Your salary.
“The project is going out of scope”
When a project is out-of-scope it stops until it’s adjusted to reflect a new scope, schedule or budget. When an employee contract is out-of-scope they keep working (by this we mean over-worked and/or under-paid for services provided). Wouldn’t it make sense to work by the same contract required of our clients and agency?
In easy terms: every employee working more than outlined in their contract is losing money. As responsible employees and SOW-experts we know the solution: speak with the client (employer) to adjust some or all aspects of the SOW to properly reflect the work agreed upon.
It’d be great to do that, right? Well, most agencies would lose money if they paid employees based on an employment SOW. The employee (the servicer) is working against an out-of-scope SOW is only beneficial to their employer (the client) by working at a lower wage.
Salary
This topic is typically a losing situation for most employees. Employees want what’s reasonable for market-value and their position. Market-value, however, doesn’t dictate the working day, which is usually contracted at 40-hours a week. Only in law or finance does this really balance out — employees are paid handsomely and chained to their desk.
Assuming some readers are in an agency/creative environment let’s consider this example — and we’ll assume some constants:
- Employee A has signed an employee contract that says they are paid $60,000 annually and typical work week is from 9 AM to 6 PM, Monday through Friday. Your typical 40-hour work week, not including 1 hour for lunch.
- We’ll use this equation for understanding Employee A’s hourly rate: Salary / Weeks in a Year / Hours = $60,000 / 52 / 40
- Notes: If you’re interested in converting your salary to your hourly rate check out whatsmyhourlyrate.com
If Employee A works the contracted 40/hr week they make $28.85/hour (before taxes).
If Employee A works 50hr/week (that’s only two more hours per day) they are now valued at $23.07/hour (before taxes).
Based on Employee A’s contract they’ve lost $12,000 in income annually.
What do you think would happen if a company realized they’ve lost $12,000 annually from a client.
How do we change the current state of the work mentality?
Conceptually, asking to reassess the scope of your employment contract should be a simple change since it’s a familiar model with agencies/clients but it’s not that easy in reality. Politics and fear of losing a job to someone who is willing to agree to an employers terms keeps mouthes shut and heads down.
Consider this type of loss at a company, would your CEO dare lose $12,000 annually because of inefficient employees or an over-resourced client. They’d stop the project and re-scope with proper budget and resource adjustments immediately.
We should be equally observant of our time and money as we do our client’s project and budget. It doesn’t mean you should run into Human Resources and demand a raise. Just consider what we’re losing when we work more than stated in our contracts. We often lose two things when working too much: our time and money.
