Why We Charge More for Work We Perform Outside of Business Hours

 

As our clients know, when we’re billing hourly on a project, we charge more for work requested to be performed outside of our business hours.

We’re upfront and transparent about it from the beginning of the relationship.

Let’s talk about why we do it.

First, our demographics. We are a woman-owned, women-led company, and the vast majority of our teammates are women. As many studies show, even today, women take on a disproportionate workload at home. When a client asks us to perform work outside of normal working hours, it disrupts our home life—regardless of whether we have kids, partners, pets, etc. When additional client work means that our teammates must spend even less time on their already overloaded home life, it’s important that we compensate them for that time.

Yes, the increased hourly rate translates directly to the person doing the work being paid at an after-hours premium. Compensating our teammates more for work performed outside of business hours helps them cover the cost of additional child care, cleaning, laundry and other services to help alleviate the burden of the compounding workload.

Second, I know that our teammates serve our clients best when they are well-rested and recharged for work. I’m writing this during the global coronavirus pandemic. Right now, it’s even harder for our teammates who are parents to find uninterrupted time to work. Our teammates who aren’t parents are also juggling caring for others and serving their communities. Asking them to work a full day and then add on more hours on top of that—without monetarily acknowledging what we’re asking of them and compensating them for that—feels, frankly, wrong. Even in non-pandemic times, I know that our brains benefit from time off, sleep and that our productivity and creative ideas stem from our hobbies and unfocused time. This is even more important for our BIPOC teammates, who bear an additional burden from internalized trauma due to racism. So when client work regularly cuts into that critical time away from work—everyone, including the client, eventually suffers.

Finally, our teammates are amazing rockstars, all with incredible resumes that highlight their expertise in issues of children and families. They are—and I say this without hesitation—the best in the field, and DANG do I want to keep them working with Forthright long-term. This means protecting their health and happiness.

I know firsthand that working long hours—more than 40, but especially more than 60—leads to burnout. Charging more for work requested outside of business hours ensures that clients are thoughtful and deliberate about when, and how often, they ask for that work, since they know they’ll be charged more. That pause and additional intentionality allows us to preserve better balance for our teams long term. While we’re usually happy to jump in and firefight when needed, the surcharge encourages both the client and our team to not make a habit of it, therefore preventing burnout. When our team works while burnt out, we serve no one—not the teammate nor their family, and especially not our clients. Chronic stress and exhaustion have long-lasting health implications, and I firmly believe that happy clients are best served by happy and healthy teammates.

Now, allow me to be vulnerable for a second. When I decided to take this stance and start asking our clients to pay surge rates for work performed outside of business hours I was, frankly, nervous. We are a young and growing firm, and even with our specific niche there’s plenty of competition. I knew this stance could be a risk

So, I did what I always do when in doubt—I made a hypothesis and I got data to back it up.

We decided to only respond to emails within business hours, and we added our surcharge rates. We did so quietly, and without making a big deal out of it for months and months (in fact, this is the first time I’ve named it out loud and so publicly).

Then, in our 2019 client happiness survey, I specifically measured if we’re meeting our clients’ expectations for responsiveness. We provided a scale of 1-7, 1 being does not meet expectations, 7 being exceeds expectations. A rating of 4 meant meets expectations.

I was really sure we’d get all 4s—I didn’t think we were disappointing our clients, and, in fact, I was sure we were meeting expectations, but I also wasn’t sure how my new experiment of advocating for my team’s work-life balance would be perceived.

I’m proud to say we earned straight sevens, meaning we exceeded expectations for responsiveness, while only working during business hours.

The other thing I was worried about when I introduced our outside of business hours rates is if we’d lose out on new work because of this stance.

Would we fail to win great accounts and miss out on partnerships because we don’t work around the clock, and ask to be compensated more when we do?

Truthfully, some clients have pushed back on the surcharge—but 99.99% of our clients haven’t batted an eye. I’ve even had new clients recognize the strategy and congratulate me for the respect I’m showing my team.

That means we’re working with the right people.

So—to all our current and future clients—rest assured that when you work with us, you’re getting a respected team with fresh brains who are properly compensated for the work they do.

To all our current and future teammates, you can be sure that when you’re asked to go above and beyond and perform outside of the typical workday, you’ll be properly compensated for that time, and that work outside of business hours won’t ever be the long-term expectation.

The result? Satisfied clients and a healthy team, ultimately leading to better outcomes for kids across the country.

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