Frequently Asked Questions
If you do not feel comfortable with your client, please contact us immediately. You should always feel save working for a client. Many reasons can cause your not feeling ok, but whatever reason, we are here to work with you together to solve. We are also connected to an organisation specialized to handle situations. Feel free to ask their contact details. Iris Calmes icalmes@smelt.nl +3127874036
The notice period of the agreement is determined by what you have stipulated in the agreement with the interim professional or with the service provider. According to Dutch law, you may terminate the agreement by the next day. Smelt does not consider such a notice period appropriate in the life sciences industry and therefore always suggests a period of one week to two weeks to both parties.
Yes, we have to admit that when you count the numbers, a freelancer is more expensive than your employee. But if you take into account that a freelancer only bills the hours worked for your company, take into account that you have much more flexibility, access to specific knowledge and experience, the benefits far outweigh the numbers.
Smelt already has (master service) agreements with many companies in life sciences. And if Smelt is not yet listed as a supplier in your company, our contracts manager will support you in the process. If you want to learn more about how we can support you send a message to finance@smelt.nl.
When you have a pre-identified candidate, Smelt Interim is supportive as a (master) service provider to contract, onboard, and take care of all administrative activities to ensure that you can work seamlessly with the freelancer.
In the case of a short-term assignment, your hourly rate is established and fixed. The moment the assignment is extended or changes in nature, this could be a reason to adjust your hourly rate. In-between assignments you can edit your rates.
Smelt does not subtract an amount from an interim professional’s hourly rate but adds the agency fee to the interim professional’s rate.
Smelt makes the match between an assignment and the interim professional. Customers also know where to find us if they have already recruited an interim professional for an assignment, but would like to leave the contractual and administrative handling in Smelt’s hands in a professional manner and in line with laws and regulations. In that case, we have not made a recruitment effort and we apply a lower agency margin.
Sometimes a client gives a maximum rate for an assignment in advance. The moment we (from our knowledge of the market) believe that this maximum rate is not sufficient to make the match between the assignment and the interim professional who has the required knowledge and experience, we will discuss this with the client and advise them to adjust the rate.
In the case of a short-term assignment, your hourly rate is established and fixed. The moment the assignment is extended or changes in nature, this could be a reason to adjust your hourly rate. In-between assignments you can edit your rates.
Making the match between a client and an interim professional is really no different than a recruitment & selection assignment.
To make a successful match, we constantly maintain our network of clients and our network of interim professionals with a team of colleagues. We invest in our ICT systems to make our processes as efficient as possible. The agency fee is compensation for our efforts.
Smelt discusses with the interim professional what rate the interim professional wants to invoice and proposes this to the client. The interim professional’s rate is then increased by Smelt’s agency margin. This increase is not at the expense of the interim professional’s hourly rate.
Do you have another question? Please contact us and we are happy to support.
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