Editor’s note: Jeff Allen has heard every employer excuse that you can imagine for not paying up — and dozens more that defy imagination. Over the last 18 months, he’s documented one a week. Because of the importance of collections, Fordyce will periodically reprise the most common situations he addressed. The complete collection is here.
What Client Says
We hired the candidate as a temporary employee.
How Client Pays
Look at your fee schedule. See how it says (or conveys) employment will be “permanent” or “regular.” Can a temp assignment avoid its terms?
One trap you’ll probably miss is the annualized compensation. Somewhere clearly in your schedule, you must state something (consistent with the rest of the terms) like:
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While projected annual compensation is used to determine the fee, anticipated or actual duration of the candidate’s tenure is not a factor in computing the amount due.
Then again, you might just have a rubber stamp made that reads: Life is a temporary assignment.
Fee schedules, employer-generated PSA’s (placement service agreements), e-mail boilerplate, invoices, and all other communication to clients, should contain consistent language that decouples the fee from the tenure of the candidate.
That will eliminate the “temp defense.”
