An employer is onboarding four people on the first of the month. The contract he is about to send was adapted from one a friend gave him in 2016, it references a company that no longer exists, and he has just noticed.
He needs this fixed in nine days and he does not know whether that is a small job or a large one.
Step 1: find out what triggered it
A new hire, a dispute, a funding round, an acquisition, a regulator, an insurance requirement or somebody finally reading the old document. The trigger sets the urgency and often the scope.
Step 2: establish the deadline
A start date, a tribunal date or a due diligence deadline changes everything. Capturing it in the first exchange is what allows a consultancy to say honestly whether it can help.
Step 3: capture the headcount and role types
Total employees, how many distinct roles, whether any are part time, casual, fixed term or overseas. This is what drives the fee more than anything else.
Step 4: ask what exists already
A current contract, an old handbook, policies scattered across a drive or nothing at all. Building on something is a different job from starting fresh and should be priced as such.
Step 5: ask about the sector
Regulated sectors, care, finance, education and anything involving vulnerable people carry specific obligations. Knowing it up front prevents a proposal that misses the point.
Step 6: publish your packages
A starter set for a first employer, a full suite for a growing business and a review service for existing documents. Employers cannot picture the service until they see the shapes.
Step 7: publish an indicative fee range
By headcount band and by package. Vagueness here is why employers use a template from the internet instead, which is the argument in what an HR consultancy website should not say online.
Step 8: publish a realistic timeline
Draft, review, amend and issue, with the working days each stage takes. Employers with a start date need to know whether nine days is possible before they enquire.
Step 9: explain what the employer must supply
Role details, hours, pay, benefits, notice, probation and reporting lines. Half the timeline is usually spent waiting for this, and asking for it at the enquiry stage saves a week.
Step 10: never give the advice in the enquiry
Whether a clause is enforceable or a policy adequate is the paid work. Capturing the facts and booking the call is the correct response.
Step 10b: publish what a finished set looks like
Employers cannot picture the deliverable, and a plain list of what they receive, contracts per role type, a handbook, the individual policies and a short guide to issuing them, makes the fee legible. A proposal against a described deliverable is accepted far more often than a proposal against a vague description of advice.
Step 11: explain the review rhythm afterwards
Documents drift out of date, and offering an annual review turns a one off drafting job into an ongoing relationship the employer genuinely benefits from.
Step 12: respond at the speed the trigger demands
An employer with a problem today will instruct whoever answers, which is the pattern in HR help enquiries from small employers with a problem today and temp and contract staff requests that cannot wait.
Getting started
Publish packages, fee bands and timelines, capture headcount, trigger and deadline at any hour, then follow up properly, which is the method in the follow up email after a chat. SpideyChat for consultancies answers from your published pages. Try SpideyChat on your own site, or read about capture on the features page.