Fixed Price Contracts For First Time Customers

Fixed price contracts are the best and safest method when working with a customer for the first time. You put clients at ease, you reduce your risk, and you establish willingness and ability to pay buy using fixed price contracts.

Keywords:

Fixed Price Contract

Article Body:

Fixed price contracts are the best and safest method when working with a customer for the first time. This puts the customer as ease and it reduces your risk of not being paid at all. With this first fixed price contract your main objective is to establish the willingness and ability to pay. After that you can build the relationship.

It's important to note that when you establish a fixed price contract you do that with a customer - not a client. Until a customer has proven that they'll be with you through the duration they are a transaction related customer. They are not a long-term client yet. When you first start out with somebody if you set up a price fixed contract the customer will be a lot more receptive because they perceive lower risk.

This perception may mean a lower margin for you because your fixed price contract is less per hour than you normally charge. Don't worry about this. The more important objective here is to turn this customer into a client after you have established the willingness and ability to pay.

Fixed Price Contract Conditions

Doing price fixed contract work is only viable if you have very a defined project. It is very difficult to do with an emergency service call. You don't know what you're walking into. Keep that in mind. Don't do foolish things like committing yourself to spend three days on a server rebuild for a fixed rice contract of $250.

Include in every fixed price contract two or three sentences that explain that it is subject to credit approval. If you grant credit, always leave yourself an out if they refuse to give you a credit application or the credit application is incomplete. This first fixed price contract is the riskiest. Because of this you want to do things that are in your own best interests.

The Bottom Line on Fixed Price Contracts

The key thing to remember with fixed price contracts is that you are more likely to get stuck with the first bill with a new customer than anywhere else. Use fixed price contracts as way to entice new customers and to lower your risk of nonpayment. Your goal is to turn these fixed price contract customers into long term clients but first you need to know how willing and able they are to pay their bills.

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Fixed Versus Flexible Working Hours in Workforce Management

Flexible working hours have been found to lead to a happier workforce, and to far better customer service and share valuations. However, there is a fear that implementing flexible working hours is complicated and that it could lead to a flood of impossible demands from employees.

Keywords:

Time and Attendance, time, attendance, Employee Scheduling, Absence Management, Rostering, workforce management, workforce scheduling

Article Body:

Flexible working hours have been found to lead to a happier workforce, and to far better customer service and share valuations. However, there is a fear that implementing flexible working hours is complicated and that it could lead to a flood of impossible demands from employees.

Before we look at flexible working hours in more detail, let us take a brief look at the standard working hours.

Working Hours for Employees

Working hours for employees have changed dramatically over the last two centuries. Back in the nineteenth century when industrialization started in Europe, workers were compelled to work even 16 hours a day. In twenty-first century France, however, the government had fixed working hours at 35 hours a week.

Most industrialized countries have regulated the workweek by stipulating the maximum number of working hours per week, minimum daily rest periods, annual holidays and sickness pay. The standard is around 40 working hours per workweek, typically Monday through Friday. Paid vacations range from three to five weeks a year.

Long working hours can lead to stress-related health problems, less time for busy parents to attend to child-rearing, and less leisure to enjoy consumer products and services. Henry Ford introduced low working hours so that his employees would have the leisure to buy and enjoy the cars he produced.

Flexible Working Hours and its Impact

One major problem with fixed working hours is that employees find it difficult to balance the demands of their personal lives and work lives. Flexible working hours can lead to better work/life balance and result in a happier workforce.

Flexible working hours can come in different forms such as:

• Part-time working that enables an employee to be free during business hours to attend to personal matters. For employers, it could mean engaging employees during peak workload hours, and reducing overall payroll costs






• Flexi-time working where employees work extra time when needed by employers and bank the extra hours/days off for arranging their personal commitments






• Annualized hours is an arrangement where times worked and times off are balanced across the year as a whole. Extra hours are worked during peak business seasons and less during lean seasons. Employers can retain experienced employees instead of hiring inexperienced casual or contract staff






• Customized flexible working hours during special events to enable employees watch, say, world cup matches and yet meet their work time requirements

Studies have indicated that flexible working hours produce tangible benefits to employers in the forms of:

• Reduced absenteeism and employee turnover






• Lower recruitment costs as they can retain their existing staff






• Higher staff morale leading to better work performance, customer service and even company stock performance

A survey even revealed that employees preferred flexible working hours to substantial additional pay.

Implementing Flexible Working Hours

Employers must know when they have peak workloads, needing more employees. This is not too difficult to assess with today's technologies like EPOS and computerized systems that can record transaction times.

Once the requirements are identified, flexible rostering software can generate rosters to fit the workload. This software would then help to optimize the rosters to meet:

• Work contract requirements






• Sociability factors, and






• Employee work preferences to the extent possible

Where employee preferences cannot be met in full, the software would show the employees why this happened. This creates greater trust in the employees that their needs are being genuinely attended to.

Conclusion

The standard practice so far has been fixed working hours arranged in different shifts. This can lead of difficulties in balancing employees' personal and work life demands. Flexible working hours help better work/life balance and lead to a happier workforce. A happier workforce results in less absenteeism, better customer service and higher stock performance.