Leapers.
Research Resources Collaboration About
 
As a Freelance Friendly organisation, we are continually striving to work well with external independent workers for our mutual benefit, and aim to uphold the following principles:

1/ Recognising the role of and responsibility towards our independent talent.

We recognise the value of working with external independent workers - providing us with capabilities and people we wouldn’t otherwise be able to access - and the impact they bring to the growth and success of our business.

We see external independent talent as a part of our extended team - not just overflow or outsourcing, but a way to bring in fresh thinking, diverse skills, and deep expertise to support and accelerate our work.

We recognise we have a responsibility and duty of care towards these critical members of our workforce.

2/ Pay fairly and on time.

We pay fair market rates for our freelancers services, never ask for free work or pay contingent on a client paying us, and will pay invoices on or before the due date.

Day rates and project fees will be revised over time to reflect increasing costs of living and value of experience. No payment terms will be longer than 30 days. We are signed up to the Fair Payment Code.

3/ Offer clear and fair contracts.

We will ask you to agree to a fair and understandable contract of engagement and scope of work which which is clear and identifies what you will deliver for us, and our acceptance of this work.

Contracts will not be overbearing or restrict you from working as as freelancer. We have fair cancellation terms and fair project kill fees.

We do not implement blanket status determination policies around worker status.

4/ Provide onboarding and signposting to support.

We agree to offer you with onboarding into our organisation, culture, ways of working and the project you’ll be engaged with.

Part of this onboarding will signpost you to additional support for the self-employed, whether provided by us or third-parties, including communities of your peers.

5/ Respectful ways of working and communicating

We agree to work together in a respectful and transparent fashion - and understand that individuals have preferences to how, where and when they work, and will come to an agreement on what works best for the delivery of the project.

We will communicate clearly and consistently both prior and during the project. If we no longer wish to work together, we will end our conversations respectfully.

6/ Provide points of escalation.

We will provide you with an impartial and anonymous points of escalation and commit to listening to any grievances or concerns you have with our organisation without threat to your contract.

Any concerns will be taken seriously, and discriminatory or abusive behaviours will not be tolerated.

We will also signpost you to industry bodies which will also listen to any points of concern.

7/ Offer feedback and followup.

During the project, we will provide you with constructive feedback to inform your work. After the project, we will offer you the opportunity to request and provide you with feedback on the project and working together.

Within 12 months of the project completing, we’ll happily connect with you to follow up on what impact the project had.

We will also ask for your feedback on us, and run an annual impartial feedback exercise where you can share openly.

8/ Allow the right to promote work.

You have the right to talk and publicise the work you’ve done with us, for the sake of your own marketing efforts.

There may be exceptions where we actively ask you not to, i.e. confidentiality, but these are exceptions rather than the norm.

9/ Encourage development and diversity.

We will endeavour to actively hire a diverse range of freelancers inline with our company policies on inclusion and diversity across race, gender, neurodiversity, ability and beyond. We will include freelancers within our diversity reporting.

We will look for opportunities to hire emerging talent to invest in the future of fluid workforces.

10/ Agree to accountability, continual improvement and reporting

We commit to indentifying key individuals within our organisation who are responsible for ensuring effective and supportive ways of working with our independent collaborators. We will gather feedback from our freelancers to understand where we can make improvements, and publish an updated version of this statement every 12 months to identify improvements identified and delivered.

This policy framework is designed to help organisations design and communicate effective and supportive ways of working with freelancers.

We are not asking for free pizza and gym memberships, but signposting to support and behaviours which do no harm.

This helps the employer get the best work from the freelancer AND supports the freelancer to do their best work and be mentally healthy.

This statement is a boilerplate, and your version of the document would reflect what you are current providing to your freelancers and independent collaborators. The purpose of this framework is to provide transparency for your freelancers, a structure for your organisation to work towards.

Any organisation can commit to this policy framework by registering their details with us, and publishing their own statement.

Register to become a Freelance Friendly organisation