Following on from my last piece, at Christmas those with jobs may well be off work for a week or so, and students are home for the holidays. They may have some time on their hands and be thinking about earning extra money, which is when some of us might be tempted to ask them to help with a project, thinking that they will charge less than if we hired a full time professional. Oh the temptation to think we could gain whilst at the same time helping someone with a little pocket money!
Of course I am not against a bit of charity, but what happens when our part-time bookkeeper goes back to work in January having left a job half done with a well-intended promise to find a few evenings to finish off? What about our student web-designer or graphic artist disappearing for ten weeks or so back to college or Uni with real study to do plus the social distractions of student life? Will our project get finished and will it be satisfactory?
Let employees at a loose end help out with something which doesn’t need them to finish it, and give the kids pocket money, but employ a full time business with recommendations and a track record for anything important to your business.
One of my friends once recommended a young student to design a logo for me. He didn’t have a clue and could not come up with a design that was even web-friendly, let alone good for a corporate image. I wasted my money. Do you have any tales to tell, or have you been too sensible or lucky enough to learn from the mistakes of others, rather than your own?
© Jon Stow 2009
