Dear Contractors,
I have a problem and I decided to ask you guys for help. I have a limited company and the current situation stresses me a lot and no one is able to provide me with an advice.
Long story short – I have a contract for limited amount of hours to deliver a project. Contract starts in January, ends in December, hours cover 11 months so usually I take December off because the company wants to renew contracts in January next year anyway.
Oral agreement with my current company which I work for, doesn’t match which what I actually do. Even my job task isn’t relevant - I am a “project support” to a massive project, which I am solely responsible for – so who do I support? I don’t consider myself being a support at all because there is not a single person who works on my project but me and the project is very independent (doesn’t cover any other areas or projects). Agreement (oral one, because in my contract there is literally nothing), was that as a contractor I work each year with one new project which I must deliver on time (target – 100%). No one else is involved in this project. The thing is that I was involved in so many additional things that I finally called the agency and said that if the company wants me to spend my time on other things, then increase my hours because how can I still be responsible for providing my project on time if I am delegated to another tasks? So what they did is basically emailed my manager and they established there won’t be any target for me this year. At that stage I decided to clarify what in that case the area of my responsibility is, because again – it wasn’t the agreement that I will be working with something different than my current project.
My contract has been renewed few times already and I had an episode when I was trying to clarify with my agency what the area of my responsibility exactly is. I was supposed to work with one project and I was working with six. Pressure was horrific and my agency didn’t support me at all so to avoid further problems at that time I bite my lip and let it go.
Currently management has changed (this is “my” third manager within the last 2 years so you can imagine every new manager has different expectations and different understanding of working with a contractor) so I decided to finally sort things out, because I had an episode of being literally like assistance/secretary for one of managers which was unacceptable for me. Also IR35 started worrying me. I don’t understand level of my independence anymore.
Anyway, when I contacted my agency, I listed all things I’ve been doing and I requested this to be reviewed by them, to adjust my job title/task description etc. What worries me is that when I asked them to define area of my responsibility (my understanding was it was my main project), they replied:
"Ultimately, clients will want to engage with a contractor for a specific reason, but will often move them internally onto other projects and doing other roles. This wont make your contract invalid or have any legal affect.”
Is this a normal attitude? My impression was that I am a separate company and I am responsible for delivering the project I am contracted to. But when it is convenient for them, I am also an assistant, secretary and I work with whatever they want me to. Even if I don’t have the target this year, I am not happy to adjust myself to literally whatever the company wants me to do. I believe that’s the point of being a contractor – I am solely responsible for my project and without my approval of adjustments in my contract this mustn’t be changed just like that.
One more thing – I have a contract for hours which cover 11 months to do my project. But as I mentioned, I am also delegated to another tasks. When contract is renewed, it is expected from me to do the job from that 1 unpaid month, when I wasn’t at work. Is that legal at all to require something like that to be done? So basically I go back in January and I must do the work for December.
I am expecting now my manager to prepare the job description for me because as I mentioned also IR35 worries me – I have doubts if I finally work as independent contractor or I am a support, or something else.
I am unable to attach terms and conditions of my contract as this is my firs post.
Could you please let me know what you think about all of this?
Thank you in advance.
I have a problem and I decided to ask you guys for help. I have a limited company and the current situation stresses me a lot and no one is able to provide me with an advice.
Long story short – I have a contract for limited amount of hours to deliver a project. Contract starts in January, ends in December, hours cover 11 months so usually I take December off because the company wants to renew contracts in January next year anyway.
Oral agreement with my current company which I work for, doesn’t match which what I actually do. Even my job task isn’t relevant - I am a “project support” to a massive project, which I am solely responsible for – so who do I support? I don’t consider myself being a support at all because there is not a single person who works on my project but me and the project is very independent (doesn’t cover any other areas or projects). Agreement (oral one, because in my contract there is literally nothing), was that as a contractor I work each year with one new project which I must deliver on time (target – 100%). No one else is involved in this project. The thing is that I was involved in so many additional things that I finally called the agency and said that if the company wants me to spend my time on other things, then increase my hours because how can I still be responsible for providing my project on time if I am delegated to another tasks? So what they did is basically emailed my manager and they established there won’t be any target for me this year. At that stage I decided to clarify what in that case the area of my responsibility is, because again – it wasn’t the agreement that I will be working with something different than my current project.
My contract has been renewed few times already and I had an episode when I was trying to clarify with my agency what the area of my responsibility exactly is. I was supposed to work with one project and I was working with six. Pressure was horrific and my agency didn’t support me at all so to avoid further problems at that time I bite my lip and let it go.
Currently management has changed (this is “my” third manager within the last 2 years so you can imagine every new manager has different expectations and different understanding of working with a contractor) so I decided to finally sort things out, because I had an episode of being literally like assistance/secretary for one of managers which was unacceptable for me. Also IR35 started worrying me. I don’t understand level of my independence anymore.
Anyway, when I contacted my agency, I listed all things I’ve been doing and I requested this to be reviewed by them, to adjust my job title/task description etc. What worries me is that when I asked them to define area of my responsibility (my understanding was it was my main project), they replied:
"Ultimately, clients will want to engage with a contractor for a specific reason, but will often move them internally onto other projects and doing other roles. This wont make your contract invalid or have any legal affect.”
Is this a normal attitude? My impression was that I am a separate company and I am responsible for delivering the project I am contracted to. But when it is convenient for them, I am also an assistant, secretary and I work with whatever they want me to. Even if I don’t have the target this year, I am not happy to adjust myself to literally whatever the company wants me to do. I believe that’s the point of being a contractor – I am solely responsible for my project and without my approval of adjustments in my contract this mustn’t be changed just like that.
One more thing – I have a contract for hours which cover 11 months to do my project. But as I mentioned, I am also delegated to another tasks. When contract is renewed, it is expected from me to do the job from that 1 unpaid month, when I wasn’t at work. Is that legal at all to require something like that to be done? So basically I go back in January and I must do the work for December.
I am expecting now my manager to prepare the job description for me because as I mentioned also IR35 worries me – I have doubts if I finally work as independent contractor or I am a support, or something else.
I am unable to attach terms and conditions of my contract as this is my firs post.
Could you please let me know what you think about all of this?
Thank you in advance.
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