CXC Global has just announced they can now provide PI/PL to ANY contractor regardless of whom their employer or agency is. They offer various levels starting from just $300 + GST per year and one easy to complete, plain English application form.

Why take PI/PL cover? If a mistake is made it will help to cover you for any damages you then become liable for, subject to the level of cover your business is insured for.  It also helps to fixing any mistake on your part so that there is not much loss, financially or even legally.

Take the example of an Analyst Programmer in an IT firm who is responsible for analysis, design, modification, testing, installation and maintenance of various application programs. If by mistake they commit some error in analysis or say in testing, then they could be held accountable for legal consequences, but indemnity insurance would defend him during such situations and will provide him legal aid as well as will help pay financial cost.

There is also a section covering property damage or bodily injury you may cause while on your client’s site and Statutory Liability cover for legal costs and expenses in defending yourself against a breach of Statute/Act of Parliament.

CXC Contractor InsuranceTM also includes other contractor-specific policies such as Income Protection, Life, Critical Illness and Business Equipment  Insurance. Please call Trudy Atherton on (09) 358 4133 or email trudy.atherton@cxcglobal.co.nz for more information.

Interested in putting your hand up to be included? Please let us know by emailing Kristen on kristen.barrett@crackerjacks.co.nz by Monday the 15th March.

We will include a brief blurb on what you do, why you decided to go contracting and, yes, a picture of you.

Your CJ reference number will also be included, which means businesses can contact you directly through Crackerjacks if they have a job they want to float past you.

In three weeks we will be releasing the National Professional Contracting Rates Guide, so it is very important your rates on Crackerjacks are current.  This information is used to help create the guide, simply log in, select the Your Profile tab and Rates, to ensure that your rates reflect your current expectations.

This information is also important so you can be considered for suitable jobs. When a business searches for contractors, your rates are one of the key factors used to determine whether you’re a good match for the job.  We encourage you to log in and check what you’ve listed.  Is it up to date?

Contractors can enter and operate in your organisation in a number of ways. They can either be engaged directly with your organisation (i.e. through Crackerjacks) by issuing an invoice or timesheet for work done and receiving payment via accounts payable, engaged as a ‘fixed term’ worker on the PAYE system, or they will be handed over to a recruitment agency for payroll and management.

The practice of using multiple agencies, in many cases combined with a direct sourcing effort, gives rise to multiple sets of costs, on-boarding processes, time sheet approval, invoicing and payment.  There are variations between the way insurance, contracts, visas and statutory and company compliance polices are addressed, therefore putting your company at risk of policy irregularities.

Additionally, reporting is non-standard or not apparent, cannot be consolidated and, critically, gives no visibility of spend.  These variations create the exposure to additional costs and unmeasured risks to the organisation as well as cumbersome processes for hiring managers and accounts payable.

These methods present a myriad of potential problems to organisations. Research shows that approximately 85% of organisations using contract workers are not even able to determine how many contract workers they have, nor can they determine what those contractors are doing or how long they have been doing it, where they were sourced from or how much they are being paid.

The above is an excerpt from a CXC Global Research Whitepaper that discusses current models and practices, risks and the Disaggregation Process for Best Practice.  To request a copy of this whitepaper or to find out how CXC Global assists businesses in achieving Best Practice please contact Trudy Atherton on (09) 358 4133 ext 205 or trudy.atherton@cxcglobal.co.nz.

Remuneration specialists – Moyle Consulting – have just released the February 2010 Rem-On-Demand salary survey.  We will also be releasing our 6 monthly Professional Contracting Rates Guide in March, so keep an eye on Crackerjacks.co.nz for this to get the latest contracting market rates and trends.  For our most recent contracting rate guide please click here

The Rem-On-Demand February salary survey has uncovered some interesting findings.  Despite what was reported during 2009, the overall median salary increase was 3% in 2009. However, only about 60% of organisations provided any increase at all.

Looking to 2010 it appears that businesses are more optimistic, with 65% of respondents predicting improved economic conditions over the next 12 months – which is a dramatic increase from the 6% who shared this sentiment last year.  In line with this, it is expected that there will be a 3% increase on median base salaries for all levels of staff and no organisations expected to decrease salaries for their staff.

Watch this space for further pay updates.

]]> http://www.crackerjacks.co.nz/news/the-latest-on-pay/feed/ 0 http://www.crackerjacks.co.nz/news/the-state-of-play-accounting-contracting/ http://www.crackerjacks.co.nz/news/the-state-of-play-accounting-contracting/#comments Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:00:22 +0000 Kristen Barrett http://www.crackerjacks.co.nz/?p=1940 Tony Wai from Crackerjacks and Megan Alexander from Robert Half were panelists at NZICA’s February contracting forum, which took place on the 23rd February.

The key theme of the discussion focused on what the 2010 market would have in store for accounting contractors.  It was the general opinion that for the first three quarters of the year, accounting contracts would still, unfortunately, be low in volume.  While other sectors such as IT and sales could experience a spike earlier in the year due to new project work; it will take a while for this to flow on to the accounting sector.

Market rates were also discussed; Megan felt that career contractors had taken pay cuts to secure work over the past year, which has had a deflationary affect on market rates.  Tony agreed with this but made the point that contractors with specific skill sets who can ‘tick all the boxes’ have retained their hourly rate, as specialist skills are still in demand.

But it appears that contracting rates are still approximately 40% higher than those of equivalent permanent roles.  This is based on ‘naked rates’, which is what the contractor is actually paid – without agency fees incorporated.  Tony used the the Crackerjacks September rate guide and recent rate data from Moyle Consulting’s Rem-on-Demand February data to make this comparison.

The point was repeatedly made that networking is crucially important and contractors should be actively pursing all their options to secure work, including personal networks, job portals, social media and agencies.

A Knowledge Workout with John Shackleton (UK) CSP

Christchurch
Tuesday 9 March 2010, 9:00am – 12:00pm
La Vida Centre – Hansons Lane, Upper Riccarton

Wellington
Wednesday 10 March 2010, 9:00am – 12:00pm
Holiday Inn – 75 Featherston Street, Wellington City

Auckland
Thursday 11 March 2010, 9:00am – 12:00pm
Aotea Centre – Auckland Convention Centre at THE EDGE, Auckland City

Purpose
“Failure is so important; it will often lead us to our greatest success in life.”

In his youth, John Shackleton failed to succeed as a sportsman always missing out by fractions of a second and never quite reaching international standard, but this failure led him to become involved in professional coaching and eventually to studying sports psychology. In this motivational Knowledge Workout, ‘Wimps Don’t Win!’ John uses a sports psychology approach to look at the mental habits that successful sales people have developed to help them achieve at the highest level – an approach that he has since used to shape his business life, sporting life and speaking career helping him to achieve great success in all three areas.

“I love performing this key note,” says John, “because I really love working with the performers of this world and people that take full responsibility for their outcome.  They know how to fail on a daily basis and how to perform out of that failure – that’s the rule of the game of achievement.”

‘Wimps Don’t Win!’ is a humorous but hard hitting Knowledge Workout that will challenge anyone in sales to raise their activity levels, smash through their targets and achieve new personal bests.

What Will I Get Out of This Workout?

• Gain the resilience and determination of an athlete who consistently achieves new personal bests through improved confidence levels.
• An understanding of how to fail on a daily basis yet perform by selecting the appropriate response towards both success and failure, enabling a higher level of motivation and sales performance.
• A challenging 10 week goal that you are 100% committed to achieving that will raise activity levels and smash through targets.
• The ability to identify the goals that you are automatically drawn towards and which motivation strategies work for you so that greater success is guaranteed.
• A practical toolkit to programme the sub-conscious mind and form mental habits to drastically improve morale and productivity.

Your Coach

Author of best selling title, ‘Life is for Living’, John Shackleton now believes that much of his success in life – in sport, business and as a speaker, has come from the lessons he has learnt from sport.

Shackleton built a number of very successful businesses including the UK’s largest training company of its kind, and became a business coach to many CEOs and senior executives within his blue chip client base.  He is an award-winning international keynote speaker and workshop leader in high demand in Europe and the UK and a CSP – a designation awarded to only the top 5% of professional speakers worldwide.

Agenda

• Warm-up    8:30am     –     9:00am     (Registration & Networking)
• Workout    09:00am     –    10:15am    (Seminar)
• Stretching    10:15am     –     10:40am    (Morning Tea & Networking)
• Workout    10:40am     –     12:00pm    (Seminar)

Investment
Standard Price: $395.00 + GST
Crackerjacks Price: $330.00 + GST (Save $65)    CRACKERJACKSMAR

As a Crackerjacks contractor you are entitled to this discount.

Special Offer
Go into the draw to win a developing people skills resource kit valued at $630.  This kit contains seven and half hours of audio content recorded live at our events, more than 120 pages of complete transcription of these events, and lastly over 50 pages of work book materials.

To Register
There are 4 easy ways to register.

1. 1.  Using your unique Crackerjacks pricing code (CRACKERJACKSMAR) simply click on this link and type in your pricing code on the registration page.
2. 2.  Email workout@theknowledgegym.com and quote your Crackerjacks code.
3. 3.  Phone on 0800 WORKOUT (967 568) and register over the phone.
4. 4.  Fax at 0800 967 570 and quote your Crackerjacks pricing code.

In terms of business sectors on Crackerjacks, IT/Computing is the most highly represented followed by Professional Services, Manufacturing, Banking Finance, Retail/Wholesale, Advertising/Media and Telecommunications.  Please note there are numerous other sectors – these are just the top seven.

Want to know more?  Simply log on to your business account – or create one (free of charge) to conduct a search and get the low-down on our proven performers.  Keep in mind – to request a person’s full profile you need to have a live role posted (which is free of charge too!).  If you are interested in a specific skill set, or certain business sector experience, we suggest you set up a Talent Alert to be notified when people who meet this criteria register.

Happy searching,

The Crackerjacks team

Happy Contracting!

The Crackerjacks team

From our perspective – the year has started off well.  After the Christmas/New Year period we came back to find a number of new jobs on Crackerjacks, which could indicate the buoyancy of the contracting market.  According to the Hudson Employers Expectation report there is set to be a 4.9% increase amongst organisation’s contracting and temporary workforces between January and March this year.  The major job-boards – Seek and TradeMe have also reported an increase in job postings.  The signs appear to be pointing in the right direction.

Is this uplift being felt over all professions and sectors?  There have been strong signs of growth in the IT and Accounting contracting professions, but we have not seen the same level of activity yet in the Marketing or Sales professions.  As yet, we have not had any contracts listed in these professions on Crackerjacks this year.  But it’s still early days, traditionally March and April are strong months for recruitment.  With the financial year ending around this period, companies are in a position to assess their plans for the year and the associated budgets.  The creation of new roles and the need for extra resource goes hand in hand with this period.  It will be interesting to see the level of job activity at this point; this could well set the tone for 2010’s job market in the contracting and permanent sectors.