Annualised salaries

There’s been a lot written recently about the above topic. It’s pretty confusing so let’s try to make some sense out of it.

  • Firstly, the change is happening from 1st March this year so there’s less than a week to go. What is changing exactly?
    • Annualising an employee’s salary means that you calculate how much overtime and shift penalties etc would normally apply to each pay and make an assumption that your employee will normally receive this amount every payday. It saves you the trouble of manually calculating overtime and shift penalties each payday. You annualise the salary then divide that number by the number of paydays in a year to work out how much your employee earns each payday
    • From 1st March 2020 more Awards will allow this form of paying employees
    • You may already be doing this and that’s fine – see below for more information
  • As an employer you will need to ask yourself a number of questions. Your answers to these questions will determine how much this legislative change is going to affect your business:
    • Do you have any employees covered by a Modern Award? Chances are you do but you mightn’t know it. Get advice if you don’t know the answer to this question
    • If the answer is yes, do you know which of the 122 Modern Awards cover your staff? Refer to the list of 22 Awards which have had annualised salary clauses recently added. Again, you may need to get advice on this one
    • If any of the Modern Awards that cover your employees are on the list of 22 you will need to make a decision as to whether you want to annualise your employees’ salaries or simply pay them as per the Award with all the penalty rates, overtime and other loadings that may apply.
  • Why would you want to annualise? A lot of employers do this to ease the administrative burden of having to work out each pay as it arises. With annualised salaries, the pay is the same every payday because the variables like overtime and penalty rates have all been pre-calculated and taken into account, to a certain extent
  • What if I’m already doing this? That’s fine and you can continue to do so but there are a lot of extra safeguards you’ll need to consider to meet the new legislative requirements. These are mainly concerned with time-keeping and regular salary reconciliations to ensure that your employees are better off being paid an annual salary than being paid via the Award.

Feel free to drop me an email or call to discuss further. It’s a bit of a minefield and each case will be different.

How to set your fees as a freelance developer

This article was originally published by JetCake.

One of the trickiest parts of making the shift from full-time to freelance is learning how set your hourly rate. There are many factors to consider when going from salary to hourly, including your level of expertise, added costs for health insurance and other overheads, as well as your time and the project scope. The further along you are in your career, the more you can charge; but setting your rates too high can disqualify you from many opportunities that can bring professional development and build your portfolio.

We’ll take you through the various parts that make up a salary calculation and help you determine how to optimize your offering for the best possible rates. But, if you’re looking for a quick benchmark, CodeMentor reports that experienced developers based in the US are asking for between $60 – $100+ per hour; developers based outside the US ask for between $40-60, depending on where they’re from. 

Here are some tips for setting your hourly rate as a freelance developer.

Fixed-rate, hourly rate or retainer? 

The first step to setting your rate is to determine how you’re going to be paid. There are three ways to charge as a freelancer: 

  • Fixed-rate: a fixed-rate project is one in which the price is agreed upon in advance. The final cost doesn’t change, regardless of how many hours you spend doing the work
  • Hourly rate: more flexible than the fixed rate, the hourly rate means an hour paid for an hour worked. Some companies ask developers to track their time for more transparent invoicing
  • Retainer: “retainer contracts are based on an hourly rate, but specify the number of hours and weeks the freelance developer is to be retained for,” writes CodeMentor. For instance, a client can reserve a developer’s time, ensuring their project will get priority for 20 hours per week for 10 weeks. 

The way you charge – fixed, hourly or retainer – depends on the scope of the project and the type of work you’re asked to provide. Fixed cost contracts are generally not suitable for developers unless you’re already experienced in setting expectations, scheduling milestones and adhering to your timeline. Since one report found that more than 83% of software projects aren’t carried out as initially planned, you could lose a lot of money when a fixed-price contract goes off schedule. For this reason, many developers stick to retainers or hourly contracts. 

What’s the market rate?

The next step is to learn more about the market in which you’re competing for work. Price your services too high, and clients will go to someone more affordable. Discount your work too much, and you’ll struggle to make ends meet. 

As we mentioned previously, freelancers charge different amounts based on where they live. Cost of living varies dramatically depending on your home country; a developer in San Francisco must charge more than a developer in the Philippines. Keep this in mind as you compete for contracts. Your level of experience is also an important factor. When you’re just starting out, you may want to discount your rates slightly to help build a portfolio of work and a reputation. Ask for client testimonials as you go. Your reputation as a freelancer is crucial to continuously grow your business. 

Lastly, price your services based on your unique offering. Are you well-versed in a specific language? Can you work faster than most coders in your area? Do you know how to design an app that never crashes? Price your skills higher to attract clients that are more discerning when it comes to quality and expertise.

What are your overhead costs? 

There are some administrative costs you must factor into the overall rate calculation. Freelancers have to pay taxes as well as healthcare, professional development costs, software subscription fees and other things for which your company may have historically picked up the tab. 

One freelance developer who has gone through this process notes, “You’ll have to pay all your own Social Security and Medicare taxes, and you’ll pay your income taxes out of whatever you have saved yourself. Make sure you factor this into your rates and that you save for it. I’ve generally saved 20% for taxes, but last year that wasn’t enough for me. I’m saving 35% this year.” If you’re unsure how much you should save for taxes, speak to an accountant who can provide more information about your tax bracket and the according rate. 

Still not sure how much to charge? Check out CodeMentor’s rate finder tool or get in touch with the experts at JetCake to learn how to join our network.

Tips for your next presentation

They say that public speaking is most people’s number one fear. I don’t buy it. Although public speaking always makes me feel anxious I have my own list of what scares me the most:

  • Flying
  • Spiders
  • Being a passenger in a car
  • People stopping me in the street to ask for money

If you’d like to feel better about making presentations or speeches here are a few tips I’ve picked up over my years of teaching presentation skills (in no particular order):

  1. There is no such thing as over-practising. The more you run through your speech or presentation the better it will be on the big day
  2. Use Powerpoint (PPT) sparingly. Choose visual content rather than words. Turn off your PPT by using the “b” or “w” keys (try it – it actually works!) during your presentation so your audience concentrates just on you and your message
  3. Work out where and how you want to finish your presentation and work backwards from there. That way your whole presentation will have a simple, logical flow that people will easily follow
  4. Use silence to give your audience (and yourself) a rest. They will appreciate that you’ve given them time to catch up with what you’ve been saying
  5. Work on removing “um” from your vocabulary and any other filler word that has no meaning (ah, you know, so, etc). The best way to do this is to be aware of when you say it – get your partner or work colleague to pick you up on it each time. It won’t take long before it disappears entirely
  6. Don’t forget to breathe. You may need to stop talking to do this but that’s good for you and your audience (see point 4 above)
  7. Never, ever introduce yourself with “For those of you who don’t know me…” I know, most people see you as a famous rockstar – how could anyone not know you?
  8. Try to have a few STAR (something they’ll always remember) moments in your presentation. This could be a shocking statistic, a poignant visual or a personal anecdote
  9. Never forget that your audience wants you to succeed. They want you to entertain them, teach them something and give them food for thought later

5 Steps to Professional Development as a Freelancer

This article was originally published by JetCake.

Freelancing can be isolating. The flexibility of freelancing is a double-edged sword: on the one hand, a professional can make their own hours and work from anywhere. On the other hand, a freelancer often works from home or at odd hours – and it can be lonely to work in that kind of solitude. 

Of course, loneliness can be resolved by going to a coffee shop to work or meeting up with other freelancers for a co-working session. The more serious threat to a freelancer’s career is the lack of professional development and mentorship that would otherwise be available in a traditional office environment. It’s incumbent on freelancers to seek out their own development and mentoring opportunities to continue to grow professionally. Often, there’s no formal corporate ladder, no regular one-on-ones and no development benefits available to freelancers. 

For a freelancer seeking professional development and mentorship opportunities, here are some steps to take to branch out and grow your skills.

Complete a skills evaluation

Part of learning where you can develop is identifying areas of strengths and weaknesses. This is an important first step to your professional development. “While it can be tempting to rely on a mentor to give you guidance on where you need to improve, you’ll get much more out of any mentorship relationship if you’ve done some self-reflection first,” writes Entrepreneur. 

There are a variety of tools to help you understand your work style. Some popular tools include: 

If you don’t have the time or the budget to take a formal assessment, ask trusted colleagues or clients to give you some feedback on where you could improve. It could be as simple as asking a client what they think they will need ten years down the road: for instance, what coding language would be useful to learn? What business trends or customer preferences are they planning for? Map your development around the needs of your customers to stay sharp.

Create a professional development plan

Once you have a sense of where you can grow, create a professional development plan. Flexjobs says this step involves deciding on which of two areas you should focus your effort: “learning new skills or developing existing ones.” Essentially, do you want to become an expert in something you’re already good at or do you want to broaden your skill set to learn new things?

There’s no right answer to this question. But, it does help guide freelancers to spend their time thoughtfully. When you have a path to focus on you can then begin to carve out time each day to practise a skill, enroll in a class, attend a seminar or listen to podcasts. It also gives you direction when working with a career coach or mentor.

Work with a coach

JetCake is just one agency where freelance developers can take advantage of coaching and a network of professionals to get career development. Our coaching focuses on working through a series of real-world projects that will hone your skills in effective communication, accurate estimation, agile methodologies, product concepts and more. Once a freelance developer completes this phase in their relationship with JetCake, and successfully completes a project with a client, they will have access to JetCake Developer Network for ongoing support, learning and growth. Codementor is a similar organisation that offers live mentorship on freelance projects. 

Other freelancers work with career coaches to help get feedback on their business, skillset and growth. A career coach can weigh in on your LinkedIn profile, business development plan and help you expand your network much in the same way a traditional mentor would. They can be expensive though, so make sure you go into a career coaching relationship with a specific goal in mind.

Keep in touch with former colleagues

Harvard Business Review recommends trying to schedule two substantive contacts per month with former colleagues to combat freelancer isolation and to make sure you’re apprised of industry trends. “Seek out real, regular interactions with former colleagues. If lunch at the old office isn’t feasible, there’s always a sustained IM chat on Facebook, an outdoor activity or an invitation to dinner at your home. Such connections maintain continuity in your life. They also help you stay on top of what’s happening in your industry in a way that mere consumption of media can’t.” Keeping in touch with colleagues can help you find new business and learn more about your industry.

Join a coworking space

Join a co-working space or another professional development organisation, like Toastmasters. Co-working spaces frequently offer guest presentations or seminars to their members. Simply talking to people over lunch can also bring new learning opportunities across your desk. Find a way to network frequently and keep your big goals in mind as you interact with other freelancers, colleagues and coaches.