Equal Experts

[SlipTheJab]

It's covered. Doing the same job as Government Employees are (and Equal Experts are) you're hit by IR35. Plus I really don't think the company would take the risk of being hit for the tax if it went to tribunal (and under the new rules the agency / consultancy is liable)...

Thought so, one wonders how they will protect their business model given that they do so much work in the public sector and seem to rely on Ltd company contractors to resource those projects.

[cojak]

If that's the case they may have to start employing people in order to keep the contracts.

As I said....

[SlipTheJab]

As I said....

The work they have is heavily project based and can ramp up and down quickly that's why they use contractors rather than an army or permies, also a lot of it is London based and finding good permie resource in the capital is like trying to source unicorn blood! Can't see them going out and hiring 100 permies to fill the contractor gap, rather I think rates will increase to offset the IR35 reduction, even then it's anyone's game about whether contractors would want to work inside (it a big no from me).

[m0n1k3r]

Most of their clients seem to be public sector and I wouldn't fancy being there come April

Why not? IR35 applies when there is a passive intermediary who just passes on bodies to be managed by the end client. Working as an associate of a consultancy is different - you are line managed by the consultancy, not the end client, so there is in effect no intermediary. The consultancy is your client, not the public sector body. You would normally wear the consultancy T-shirt and the consultancy badge, not just "some contractor through that body show agency".

I view it as an insurance policy, although who knows. In the case there would still be IR35 concerns, I envision that proper consultancies would offer split contracts, where you go on payroll for a decent junior salary, and then get to invoice the remainder from your company.

[cojak]

We currently have quite a few bods from EE on site.

I am not sure about a toxic culture although as a developer you are most definitely a resource to be squeezed for every last drop of productivity.

Do they do true agile?

Well I am sat in a room surrounded by many sprint plans etc etc on the walls so I think that will come down to your interpretation of what 'Agile' is.

In terms of alienating the customer - they tell it how it is - so if as customer you only like to hear what you want to hear and are not really interested in the truth then yes you may well be alienated.

The situation we are in however is that these guys have been bought in by the new MD and Ops director mainly to shake up the rest of the board who have become fat n lazy and in this instance their 'abrasive' approach works quite well.

Well, it sounds as if they are a consultancy then.

[m0n1k3r]

We currently have quite a few bods from EE on site.

I am not sure about a toxic culture although as a developer you are most definitely a resource to be squeezed for every last drop of productivity.

The toxic culture comes into play when they have to collaborate with other suppliers on site. They tend to want to complain and outmanoeuvre the other suppliers to take it all over for themselves, which might be in their business interests but doesn't provide for a good, collaborative workplace culture.

Do they do true agile?

No. And I write this as an agile coach. They are good at many XP engineering practices, but sorely miss out on most of the other parts (and the essence) of agile. If that is what you are interested in then it might be a good fit. Much of the others is just for shows, just another "must do" thing that is not used for any real benefit other than political ones, but it serves a purpose to show management at the client that they do things differently, so it must be good.

They are on one of the fast-growth company lists, so they have to do whatever it takes to keep growing and stay on those lists.

The situation we are in however is that these guys have been bought in by the new MD and Ops director mainly to shake up the rest of the board who have become fat n lazy and in this instance their 'abrasive' approach works quite well.

Well that is quite a niche to be in, and one that, in my experience, they would do well in.

[Samison]

Equal Experts

Anyone had a contract via Equal Experts?

Do they allowed contracting via Ltd. or by their own umbrella / payroll?

Keen to hear anything around this. Been contacted recently by them and want to know what its like for anyone working through them. Sound just like an agency, but I don't want to fall foul of IR35 in public sector.

[TheGreenBastard]

I gave it a miss; I think they operate almost entirely in the PS.

[parker0phil]

Wow. There is a lot here to cover but I hope you’ll let me throw my two pence in.

I’m a Partner with Equal Experts (permanent employee, full-time practitioner, spending most of my time on-site with clients). Before that I was an associate (contractor) with EE for 5 years. Previously I worked in a variety of roles; permanent (engaging agencies and consultancies alike), contracting directly and working for another consultancy.

Obviously I’m biased but some of what is written in this thread is incorrect information , and some opinion - about which I’d like to understand more.

First a few facts! Equal Experts is a consultancy with 200 employees and a network of 500+ associates . Both of our founders are from consultancy backgrounds.
The network approach is key to our business model. Amongst other things, it means that we can build the best suited team to meet the best possible outcome for our clients. . It also means our associates can choose interesting work at EE but equally go off and do their own thing (before coming back to more interesting work!).

Check out our website for a bit more about what we do and how we work - https://www.equalexperts.com/

The majority of our clients have always been and still are in the private sector. We currently have a sizable amount of business in the Public Sector as this is something that has grown in the last 3-4 years with the GDS/GCloud effect (and we are particularly proud of the work we do for UK plc btw). Obviously IR35 is a concern for lots of contractors working in and around the Public Sector. The Public Sector Framework Agreements we supply under and our working practices mean that we are confident the new legislation coming into effect in April does not apply to us and our associates.

Now a little bit of opinion! I think the 'toxic' term is unfair. Most of our work is coming from referrals (normally people that have worked as clients of ours previously). As far as "alienating customers", we have multiple years relationships with the majority of our customers. Our longest standing customer has been working with us for 7 years now (and counting).
Likewise we have multiple years relationships with hundreds of our associates (who keep coming back to work with us) - and over half of our hires are through personal recommendations from existing associates. (see our Glassdoor page for others opinion on working with EE).
In terms of working with other suppliers we do it all the time, and are happy to. Our aim is always for the best outcome for the client. I’m not going to pretend that it’s never hard but if you’ve had a bad experience from this perspective I’d genuinely like to know more about that.

Finally I suppose I should address the "real Agile" question. I’m not going to get into a debate on what is or is not agile but our approach is definitely to focus on the context of the client. We don’t apply “by the book” methodology and we recognise that “start where you are” is normally the best approach for adoption. If you are interested in some of my personal views on agile then I’ve been doing a conference talk on this very topic -

If you are considering Equal Experts then I would recommend just going through the selection process. You will learn a lot more about what we do and how we work and meet other people working with the organisation. It may not be for you - it’s not for everybody - but you will at least be able to make a decision based on your own first-hand judgement, rather than missing out on a great opportunity due to what someone said on a forum ;o)

[eek]

If you are considering Equal Experts then I would recommend just going through the selection process. You will learn a lot more about what we do and how we work and meet other people working with the organisation. It may not be for you - it’s not for everybody - but you will at least be able to make a decision based on your own first-hand judgement, rather than missing out on a great opportunity due to what someone said on a forum ;o)

I just operate on the basis of the people who represent you (I.e. the ones I've met at clients).

And on that basis I'm out.