How to prevent freelancers from robbing you?

why don't you try odesk?
Outsource to Freelancers, IT Companies, Programmers, Web Designers from India, Russia, USA, and more

They have excellent reporting facilities and a piece of software that the contractor install on their pc that monitor what they do, take screenshot of their activities

Take a look at their presentation video:




You could move your existing contractors to the platform and employ them there, Odesk do charge a commission on their payment (around 10% ) which you will need to factor in.




The other alternative would be How To Live The 4 Hour Work Week Through Outsourcing | New Sales Page


Hope this helps,

Regards,

I don't really see how a "timeclock" application could help this. They can simply clock in and take a nap, unless the app also monitors screen activity. I'd go with Odesk, since it already has that feature.

Don't have a solution for you, areebb, but Odesk don't take a share of the provider's earnings, they add their commission onto what you pay. Just last week I arranged to have a small job done for $10, and my credit card was charged $11.11.

I don't know what is the nature of the tasks your freelancers do for you, but try to make a fixed price for as much as anything you ask from them. For example, I used to pay hourly rates before for some SEO work, now I try to get people to do it for fixed price. It's a little bit harder, but it's manageable, and then you are not bound to oDesk that much.

In my experience you are going to get what you pay for with freelancers. If they are charging you a bit more and you want to track what they are doing, they may decrease the quality they are delivering. Not that I am suggesting they should, but you tend to get what you pay for. I understand trying to save money, but in an effort to not short change your business why not just approach them and ask what's going on?

Just some advice...

Don't hire freelancers...

If you do, hire them at a flat rate as other have stated.

The bottom line is there is a difference in mindset when you hire freelancers, they are hired guns, ready to take on the next shiny object project that hits their inbox.

That's what they do, its the nature of the system.

Simply look for contract workers, or people to place on your staff, for fixed fees.

Are there going to be days you are paying more for your worker than the hours worked ? I am sure there are...

I don't focus on pennies, I focus on tasks and completed jobs. Not to mention workers on your team can share project tasks.

Even if one person on your team is a killer in their area, I think its a good idea that someone else is aware enough of what is going on in a project that they can either fill in or at least have enough knowledge to tell me exactly what needs done if I have to get a temp (shiny object worker) to assist.

Mark Riddle

Hi,

I now John Jonas who has the replace yourself site says that he wants them to send him an email once a day telling him what they have done and he always says that he gives them enough work for several days so that they will never run out of things to do.

I do not have a full time employee so I do not know but just like "Irnes Jakupovic" I tell my people what I expect them to do everyday and if the after a while do not meet that requirement I go looking for someone else. When you tell the "slackers" that it's not working out they normally just say "ok" and you get the feeling that they already know why.

Another solution would be to hire people from the same area and also hire an office and hire a manager to look after them. It all depends on how many employees that you have.

Good luck!

Jute

My opinion...never bill by the hour. Pay for what you need in one lump sum or partial payment upfront and the rest on completion. State what you need in a contract and if they do things outside of normal hours they would have to explain it really well in a detailed report to justify any extra money needed from yourself.

It's always best to agree to specific terms upfront or else they can bill you for anything. The more rocksolid your agreement/contract, the better it will be for you.

Hire and pay flat rate per project. Hourly people, no matter what line of work, always look to pad the clock. It doesn't matter if it's a brick and mortar job or online work, and it's not just not-so-credible freelancers. It is unfortunately, human nature.

I bill or contract with all clients on a flat rate basis. I had one client that wanted me to do hourly rate, but frankly there is no way to accurately account for all the variables involved. One of us loses money.

This way, instead of questioning are you getting billed an accurate number of hours, it falls on the freelancer to make the project profitable for them. The freelancer has an obligation to propose a fee for what it is really going to take them to perform the task. You can either accept the fee or look for a different freelancer. For an example, if someone wants me to write articles on home improvement, writing or fishing they will get a flat fee of x because I know the stuff like the back of my hand. If the client wants something on psychology or dog health, I charge a little more due to the research time that may be involved. But the client know what the cost is up-front. No surprises.

Charging a flat fee or paying a flat fee, eliminates any question about how much a project is going to cost you in the end. As far as outsourcing overseas, though I understand the cost factor, in the end you get what you pay for. Sometimes it's a win/win situation for the short term. But what is the long term value?

Areebb,

I assume you are the Areebb of SENuke fame. Working on that assumption I base the following remarks on the idea that you are part of an enterprise that takes in a lot of money (as opposed to someone who is barely scraping by).

If you are trying to eliminate fraud among your workers, I'd say (I've taught Psych at grad and undergrad levels, if that means anything to this discussion) you can only do so much. No system I am aware of eliminates fraud 100%. There will always be good apples and bad apples. And sometimes good apples (Tiger Woods, anyone) turn out to be bad apples. And vice versa.

If I were you, I'd do a cost-benefit analysis. How much $$$ are you losing via fraud? Include the time you take away from other parts of your work to try to solve this problem.

Let me give you an example. At most retail businesses it is assumed customers with light fingers steal a certain amount of your products. Well, there's a word for the amount stolen by your own employees and workers. It's called "shrinkage." It's assumed to be an amount greater than the loss to light fingered customers. Shrinkage is assumed to be 5% more or less.

Basically, it is unlikely that you will reduce loss due to fraud by your workers to less than 5%.

Then the question becomes: how much time and resources should I devote to this problem that will keep shrinkage to ONLY 5%.

If the $300 per month you pay to oDesk keeps your shrinkage to a 5% level and no more, it's worth it. If your total labor costs for your outsource workers is less than $6k per month, oDesk is not the way to go (plus additional time costs to run the system, including your time to look at their desks). Get my point?

Now, about that SENuke thing. If you're THAT Areebb, I'm very POed at you. SENuke's too damned complex for me, an amateur at this game. Make the damned thing easier, will ya? I waaaaay overpaid for the use I get.

If you're not THAT Areebb, nevermind.

What we do is agree to a "billable hour agreement". Basically I will ask my developer how long it would take to finish the project. We draw out a detailed map of what needs to be done. Then we come to a final agreement. If the developer takes longer thats his/her dime. If the developer finishes quickly, then thats a plus for the developer. That is just how most AD Agency's roll. Whatsamajig is prob. the biggest software for this type of business model. You need 15 employees to even purchase it though. There may be a more less expensive software, but you can handle your freelancers by coming to an agreement ahead of time.