[foundation-board] Modelling employment costs

[Jason Kitcat]

Hi

On 22 Aug 2011, at 19:49, Jordan S Hatcher wrote:
> Do you have any thoughts on :
> 
> * what guidelines we should have in place on who becomes an employee or not initially?
> * what guidelines we should have in place on who becomes an employee or not generally?

General thoughts on both those points are that they should be staff who are core to OKF, generally erring towards full-time and having a notional UK-basis.

Developers generally don't want to be employees anyway and people who are project specific only are doubtful.

We want to employ people we'd keep on regardless of one project continuing or not. Another way of saying they are core. CKAN and OpenSpending are very core projects so perhaps special cases slightly.

> I think we should have a policy around this, especially given Martin's board position,  which may raise some eyebrows if we make him an employee and not others.

I agree you need to clarify position re directors. There is nothing inherently wrong with directors working for the OKF as employees -- indeed many companies have directors as staff -- but culturally I think it does raise questions about the nature and role of OKF's board.

>  Purely by FTE, our people above 0.5 FTW are:
> Adria Mercader			CKAN	1
> Friedrich Lindenberg		CKAN, LOD2, OpenSpending	1
> Lucy Chambers			Core, CKAN, OpenSpending	1
> Tim McNamara			Open Gov Data	0.9
> James Gardner			CKAN	0.8
> John Glover				CKAN	0.8
> Jonathan Gray			Core, LOD2	0.8
> David Raznick			CKAN	0.8
> Martin Keegan			OpenSpending	0.7
> Irina Bolychevsky			CKAN	0.6
> Daniel Dietrich			Core, OKF-DE, OKCon, ePSIplatform	0.6
> Jason Kitcat				Core, LOD2, ePSIplatform	0.6

But if you remove those who are not core and/or are developers it is narrowed down.

> On the financials,
> 
> * It looks like the models are based around the employment costs equivalent to maintaining paying people the same day rate, except as salary.  Typically being employed reflects a decrease in gross earnings per day over being a consultant due to the other advantages one gets as an employee (statutory leave, maternity/paternity leave, etc).  Do you have any thoughts on this difference in your model and how we might do budgeting here?  

Most on my proposed list are on pretty low wages anyway e.g. Lucy and Kat. Jonathan and I are on roughly £35k pro rata and would be justified in seeking that in a salaried position. I agree that developers, who currently are charging pretty high rates, would need to come down if they went salaried.

> * What about salary increases?

Increased fees because of inflation or increased demand for someone is something we're dealing with anyway. I don't think it's a "new" cost to this model.

> * Would you be able to indicate which country people reside in inside the model so that we can scope out the issue of any international concerns?

Have done so.

> * Could you perhaps indicate anyone that has expressed a strong interest in not becoming an employee to date?

The CKAN development team.

> * Perhaps our accountants could give some advice or materials on modelling costs here?

Done.

> * Do you have any thoughts on fixed term contracts versus permanent employees as we get started?

My thoughts would be a mix between fixed term and permanent contracts would best suit our needs.

> * I think we need to have a statement explaining the advantages/disadvantages of employment here in order to take a decision on this as a board.  If we could start to record this in the wiki, it would be helpful.


The advantages are that for UK-based staff nearing full time we almost certainly need to start employing them as we'll be liable for NI on them anyway. There are also benefits in terms of retention & benefits for staff.

The disadvantages are increased costs, liabilities and admin. However good accountants with payroll services can cover off some of that burden.

All the best,
Jason

--
Jason Kitcat
Foundation Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation

+44 (0) 7956 886 508

http://www.okfn.org
http://twitter.com/jasonkitcat