independent contractor

Offboarding: What Happens When You Stop Doing Business with Bredemarket?

Consulting firms (and other firms) make a big deal about the amazing processes we use when we onboard clients. (In Bredemarket’s case, I ask questions.)

But often we don’t talk about what we do when we OFFBOARD clients. And that’s equally important.

So let’s go inside the wildebeest habitat and see how Bredemarket handles client offboarding.

“Hey guys, a client jumped ship.” By Danijel Mihajlovic – https://thenextcrossing.com/wildebeest-migration-kenya, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=96024366.

This is the end, beautiful friend

Yes, offboarding happens.

In 2023 I signed a contract with a client in which I would bill them at an hourly rate. This was a short-term contract, but it was subsequently renewed.

Recently the client chose not to renew the contract for another extended period.

woodleywonderworks, CC BY 2.0, https://www.flickr.com/photos/wwworks/2248069430.

On the surface, that would appear to be the end of it. I had completed all projects assigned to me, and I had been paid for all projects assigned to me.

So what could go wrong?

(Don’t) Tell all the people

Plenty could go wrong.

During the course of my engagement with the client, I had enjoyed access to:

Confidential information FROM the client.
Confidential information that I sent TO the client, as part of the work for hire arrangement.
Access to client systems. (In this particular instance I only had access to a single system with non-confidential information, but other clients have granted me access to storage systems and even software.)

And all of this data was sitting in MY systems, including three storage systems, one CRM system, and one email system.

By Unnamed photographer for Office of War Information. – U.S. Office of War Information photo, via Library of Congress website [1], converted from TIFF to .jpg and border cropped before upload to Wikimedia Commons., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8989847.

Now of course I had signed a non-disclosure agreement with the client, so I legally could not use any of that data even if I wanted to do so.

But the data was still sitting there, and I had to do something about it.

Take It As It Comes

But I already knew what I had to do, because I had done this before.

Long-time readers of the Bredemarket blog will recall an announcement that I made on April 22, 2022, in which I stated that I would no longer “accept client work for solutions that identify individuals using (a) friction ridges (including fingerprints and palm prints) and/or (b) faces.” (I also stopped accepting work for solutions involving driver’s licenses and passports.)

I didn’t say WHY I was refusing this work; I saved that tidbit for a mailing to my mailing list.

So, why I am making these changes at Bredemarket?

I have accepted a full-time position as a Senior Product Marketing Manager with an identity company. (I’ll post the details later on my personal LinkedIn account…)…

If you are a current Bredemarket customer with a friction ridge/face identification solution, then I already sent a communication to you with details on wrapping up our business. Thank you for your support over the last 21 months. I’ll probably see you at the conferences that my employer-to-be attends.

That communication to then-current Bredemarket customers detailed, among other things, how I was going to deal with the confidential information I held from them.

So I dusted off the pertinent parts of that communication and repurposed it to send to my 2023-2024 client. I’ve reproduced non-redacted portions of that communication below. Although I don’t explicitly name my information storage systems in this public post, as I noted above these include three storage systems, one CRM system, and one email system.

Bredemarket will follow the following procedures to protect your confidential information.

Bredemarket will delete confidential information provided to Bredemarket by your company by (REDACTED). This includes information presently stored on (REDACTED).

Bredemarket will delete draft and final documents created by Bredemarket that include company confidential information by (REDACTED). This includes information presently stored on (REDACTED).

If your company has provided Bredemarket with access to your company OneDrive, Outlook, or Sites, Bredemarket will delete the ability to access these company properties by (REDACTED). This includes deletion from my laptop computer, my mobile phone, and my web browser. Bredemarket further recommends that you revoke Bredemarket’s access to these systems.

If your company has provided Bredemarket with access to all or part of your company Google Drive, Bredemarket recommends that you revoke Bredemarket’s access to this system.

I will inform you when this process is complete.

So I executed the offboarding process for my former client, ensuring that the client’s confidential information remains protected.

Love Me Two Times

Of course, I hope the client comes back to Bredemarket someday, in some capacity.

But perhaps you can take advantage of the opportunity. Since your competitor no longer contracts with Bredemarket, perhaps YOU can.

To learn WHY you should work with Bredemarket, click the image below and read about my CPA (Content-Proposal-Analysis) expertise.

Postscript

No, I’m not going to post videos of the relevant Doors songs on here. Jim’s Oedpidal complex isn’t business-friendly.

Freelancing example from Florida

I’m obviously interested in freelancing stories, so I was intrigued when PBS shared this story from Next Avenue. It’s an update on the story of Joan and Steve Reid, who moved from suburban New York to Vero Beach, Florida on 2019.

Photo by Don Lamson from City of Vero Beach website. https://www.covb.org/gallery.aspx?PID=156

While it’s cast as a “retirement” story (both were 67 in 2019), it’s actually a freelancing story.

Both Joan and Steve had been working part-time in New York (as a librarian and florist, respectively), and they initially planned to get part-time employment (minimum wage, 10 hours a week) when they relocated to Vero Beach.

They’ve given up on that idea. “We looked initially, when we arrived,” Joan explains. “But both of us quickly realized we were square pegs trying to fit into round holes.”

So they turned to freelancing.

Steve, who creates art from found objects and mixed media, sold two pieces of art this year for a total of $350.
From November 2019 to April 2021, Joan worked as a content editor for two local magazines, grossing $800 a month. “This was an incredible boost for us,” she says. She earned $630 in 2019 from freelance writing, editing and teaching, but only $305 in 2020 and zero so far in 2021.

Joan also self-published a book on Amazon, and expects to earn $45 from the book in November.

So they’re not getting rich from freelancing, but luckily have other sources of income including pensions and Social Security (which they began to receive at age 62).

Perhaps they could increase their freelancing income, but they’re retired. And apparently enjoying themselves.

Bringing in the specialist

When economic conditions are fluctuating wildly, a company has to strike a balance between avoiding overstaffing and avoiding understaffing. Hire too many staff, and they won’t have anything to do. Hire too few staff, and they’ll burn out.

Factorial HR published an article that provided some solutions to understaffing, one of which was to bring in contractors. Not just any contractors, though; contractors who are specialists.

By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5762509

Yet, unlike a temp agency, these workers have unique, specialist skills, that could be extremely useful to your business.

Factorial HR assumed that you’d have to go to an agency (a specialist sub-contracting agency) to find these specialists.

I disagree.

Incidentally, one benefit of bringing in a specialist for a particular project is that the specialist can concentrate on that project alone, and not get bogged down in other things.

When a business should use a (non-driving) independent contractor

In my previous post, I talked about the recently-passed California Proposition 22, how it relates to Assembly Bill 5, and the three criteria that Assembly Bill 5 uses to determine whether a worker is an employee or an independent contractor. As a reminder, those three criteria are as follows:

(A) The person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact.
(B) The person performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.
(C) The person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.

So when does it make sense for a company to contract with an independent contractor, rather than hire an employee?

The most obvious reason for a company to use an independent contractor is when the contractor provides services that are outside what the company usually does.

I could provide a whole list of examples of what those “services” could look like, but let me focus on a single example.

Wendy’s Widget Company has been manufacturing round green widgets since 1969, from a factory in Columbus, Ohio. (For various reasons, foreign or overseas round green widget manufacture was not desirable.)

One day, someone in a quality circle (Wendy’s Widget Company was old school) suggested that the company introduce square blue widgets. Square blue widgets had been around for a while, but Wendy’s Widget Company had never produced them.

The company decided to produce a small run of square blue widgets, and then get someone to market them.

But the company’s existing marketers were all accustomed to round and green things, and were incapable of marketing the square blue ones. (Not that they didn’t try, but the marketers did not understand the concept of 90 degree angles, so the effort was doomed to failure.)

The company could have hired an square blue widget expert, but what would have happened if the small run experiment was a failure, and the expert would have been terminated in a few weeks?

So the company hired an independent contractor to complete a well-defined project. This project required the contractor to develop marketing materials for a possible Wendy’s Widget Company square blue widget. The contractor would go off and work on the assignment, checking in with Wendy’s Widget Company at well defined checkpoints.

But when the company lawyer found out that the contractor was based in California, the lawyer asked, “Does this meet California AB5 criteria?”

Let’s see.

In this case, the contractor was NOT under the direct control of Wendy’s Widget Company. The contractor was not told to work from 8:00 am to 5:00 am Ohio time, was not assigned a Wendy’s Widget Company computer, and did not get matching contributions to the company’s 401(k) plan.
And, in this case the contractor was performing work outside the usual course of business for Wendy’s Widget Company. The contractor not only had in-depth knowledge of 90 degree angles, but also had a deep appreciation of the music of both Bobby Vinton AND Eiffel 65.
Finally, in this case the contractor regularly worked with a variety of companies to provide marketing materials for widgets of all shapes and colors.

The lawyer was satisfied, the contract was completed, and the contractor went on to help another company with its red octagon widgets. Everyone was happy.

OK, that whole example was made up. (But now I’m hungry for a hamburger.)

But there are times when a company wants to pursue something outside of its comfort zone, but doesn’t want to dedicate an employee to do it.

If your company has such a need, and if my experience (in biometrics, identity, and other areas) suggests that Bredemarket can help your company meet your goals, contact me.

California Proposition 22 and non-driving independent contractors

In case you haven’t heard, Tuesday was an election day in the state of California, and throughout the rest of the United States. There were a number of candidates and propositions on ballots throughout the country, but for this post I’m going to concentrate on a single California proposition, Proposition 22.

By Alexander Torrenegra from Secaucus, NJ (New York Metro), United States – On my first @Uber ride in Bogota heading to a Startup Weekend. Priceless easiness and safety. I love disruptive innovation., CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37982760

In ballot legalese, this proposition’s title was “EXEMPTS APP-BASED TRANSPORTATION AND DELIVERY COMPANIES FROM PROVIDING EMPLOYEE BENEFITS TO CERTAIN DRIVERS. INITIATIVE STATUTE.” What that means is that if the proposition passes, drivers for “app-based transportation and delivery companies” (think Uber, Lyft, DoorDash, etc.) will be exempted from the provisions of California’s Assembly Bill 5, and therefore will NOT be classified as employees.

And for the record, it looks like Proposition 22 has passed.

However, Assembly Bill 5 still applies to people who are NOT drivers for app-based transportation and delivery companies. Specifically, Assembly Bill 5 provides the following test to see whether a person is an employee or an independent contractor.

Section 2750.3 is added to the Labor Code, to read:
(a) (1) For purposes of the provisions of this code and the Unemployment Insurance Code, and for the wage orders of the Industrial Welfare Commission, a person providing labor or services for remuneration shall be considered an employee rather than an independent contractor unless the hiring entity demonstrates that all of the following conditions are satisfied:
(A) The person is free from the control and direction of the hiring entity in connection with the performance of the work, both under the contract for the performance of the work and in fact.
(B) The person performs work that is outside the usual course of the hiring entity’s business.
(C) The person is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business of the same nature as that involved in the work performed.

When AB5 was passed, a lot of attention was focused on the need for companies to properly classify their workers as employees, when warranted.

But not a lot of attention was focused on the times when companies would PREFER to use independent contractors instead of hiring employees.

I’ll talk about that in a future post.