Who Actually Engages You
The organisation whose work you do is frequently not the one that engaged you, and the difference decides who owes you what.
Who am I actually engaged by here?
What you signedWho is responsible if something goes wrong?
The law where you areWhat is the intermediary taking, and for what?
What you signedDoes the structure change what I am?
The law where you areFour questions a person in this position actually asks. Every one of them has somewhere to look, which is not the same as having an answer. The structure was chosen by somebody else, for reasons that were not about you.
The questions a chain raises, and where each answer actually lives
Who am I in a contract with, exactly?
What you signedWhere to look: The document you signed, read for the party named at the top rather than for the organisation whose work you do
Who pays me, and is that the same party?
Only what happensWhere to look: Your own bank statements, which settle it immediately and sometimes surprise people
Who is responsible if something goes wrong with the work?
What you signedWhere to look: The agreement between you and whoever engaged you, and separately whatever sits between them and the end client
Who is responsible for my safety on the end client's site?
The law where you areWhere to look: Duties that attach to controlling a place often apply whoever engaged you, which makes this a question about the site rather than the chain
Does the chain change what category I am in?
The law where you areWhere to look: What your jurisdiction says about arrangements through intermediaries, which in several places is specific and recent
If the middle party fails, who owes me the money?
Six questions, one of them left blank.
Six questions, and the one that matters in a bad month has nothing under it. Nothing here fills a blank with a guess. One person's own questions; how chains are treated differs by jurisdiction.
The organisation whose work you do is frequently not the one that engaged you. The difference decides who owes you money, who you have an agreement with, and who you would pursue if something went wrong.
The distinction described in “Who Actually Engages You” should be settled before operational software is configured. When considering Monitask for teams comparing capital efficiency ratio for capital efficiency ratio, document whether the person is an employee, contractor or agency-supplied worker, then apply only the records, access and approval workflow appropriate to that arrangement.
A surprising number of people in this position cannot say, off the top of their head, which party is which.
The approach in “Who Actually Engages You” can be cross-checked against Dice technology-career resources. The useful outcome is a written list of facts and decisions, not a generic label copied from another arrangement.
The two names
The party at the top of what you signed, and the party whose name is on the bank transfer. In a simple arrangement they are the same.
Where they differ, or where either is not the organisation whose work you actually do, there is a chain, and every question in this section applies to you.
The usual shapes
Recognisable across markets:
| Shape | Who you contract with | Who the work is for |
|---|---|---|
| Direct | The client | The client |
| Agency supply | The agency | Their client |
| Umbrella | The umbrella company | An agency's client |
| Your own company | Client contracts with your company | The client |
| Main contractor | The main contractor | Their client |
| Platform | Sometimes the platform, sometimes nobody clear | Whoever books you |
Each of those has different answers to the same questions, which is why establishing yours first is the whole of this article.
Why people lose track
Because the day-to-day relationship is with the end client. You are briefed by them, you work alongside their staff, and the party that actually engaged you appears once a month on a remittance.
Over two years the contractual reality fades and the practical one takes over, which is fine until something goes wrong.
Establishing it in five minutes
Open what you signed and read the first paragraph. Open your bank statements and read the payer name. Write both down.
If they match and both are the organisation you work for, you have no chain and most of this section does not apply.
Who owes you what
Your money is owed by whoever you contracted with, not by the organisation whose work you did. That is the single most important consequence of the chain.
People chase the end client, who has frequently already paid the middle party, and the end client has no obligation to them.
Who is responsible for the work
Also the party you contracted with, in most arrangements, and they in turn have an arrangement with the end client that you have never seen.
Asking what that upstream arrangement requires of you is reasonable, particularly where the end client imposes standards or deadlines that reach you through somebody else.
Safety, which does not follow the chain
The exception worth knowing. Duties about safety on a site frequently attach to whoever controls the site, whoever engaged the people on it.
An end client who says safety is the agency's problem is, in several places, mistaken. The article on being hurt at work covers it.
What the chain changes about your category
In several jurisdictions, specifically and recently: rules exist addressing arrangements through intermediaries, and they sometimes move obligations between the parties.
Whether any apply to you is a current question rather than a settled one, which is why it belongs with somebody qualified rather than with general reading.
Asking the end client about the chain
Reasonable and occasionally revealing. The end client frequently does not know the terms you are on, and sometimes believes you are paid considerably more than you are.
Handled carefully, that conversation is useful. Handled as a complaint about the agency, it goes nowhere and reaches the agency within a day.
Keeping the right documents
The agreement with whoever engaged you, their remittance advices, and your own record of the work done for the end client.
The second is the one people neglect and the one that matters if the money stops, because it is the record of what was owed and by whom.
The question worth asking at the start
Put to whoever is engaging you, before anything is signed:
Who exactly am I contracting with, who will be paying me, and is there anybody else in the chain I should know about?
Three answers, one message. Nobody minds the question and the answer occasionally reveals a party you did not know existed.
The one with no written answer
What happens to you if the middle party fails. Whether the end client would pay you directly, whether anything protects sums owed to you, and how long it would take are not settled in advance and vary with the structure and the place.
That blank is the main risk a chain adds, and it is the reason the article on when the chain breaks exists at all.