Employment or Contractor Policies
4ourth Mobile gets contracts with clients to perform work, based on a rate and hours. Our organization scales up and down in size (as small as two, has been as high as 15). To work with 4ourth Mobile you are not an employee, but an independent subcontractor of ours, performing work for hire.
Philosophy
If you know (or know of) me at all, you know that I have strongly held beliefs around design, what devices we design for, how important the user is in the process, and what makes a good design document. This article covers key principles of design, and others Steven wrote may be worth perusing as well to see if you agree with the way we pursue design work. The following principles of design work should help you understand if you'd like to work with us:
Be empathetic to your customers, your clients, your co-workers. No Nazis. Not kidding, it comes up.
Be open and sharing, early and often — Reveal ideas and concepts early. Make plans, and tell everyone about it. If you are going to miss a deadline, tell everyone immediately.
Write down your tasks — Make sure you actually do everything you promised to do.
Don’t over-promise — Learn how to say no to demands, from me or from clients. Better yet is “maybe” or “actually it’s complicated…” or just give a different date. Overpromising is a good way to do bad work, be too stressed, or simply miss the deadline.
Design is documenting — We draw, and we specify. We create design documents that are efficient, useful, clear, and will make sense years from now. You should (ideally!) not have to verbally explain anything or wonder what it does, because it is written in a specification document (or better yet a guide or system. We believe in cascading specifications).
Design for all scales — We do good and high fidelity design, but never "pixel perfect." Don't pick your favorite platform and do that first, or only.
Prototyping is fine also — But it's not final. Prototypes are not code.
The right platform is whatever the business and user needs — But not necessarily what the org asks for. Web? App? Both probably. iOS, Android? Probably both, but whichever one the end users work with most.
Don't be swayed by personal opinion or biases — Yours, or others. Be conscious of your choices.
Divorce data from opinion Ask for help — We are all about continuous improvement of products and ourselves. I may well have hired you early-career or when changing careers, on purpose! You are to learn so never muddle through, but ask if You can have opinions, but most of the time when you argue a point with the product team, it is based on observation, research, or principles.
Don't assume everyone's data is yours — Get data about how our users of this product work.
Play to your strengths — Design for ways people will use the product, not how some engineering group thinks it is easy to build.
Play to your personal strengths — Work as a team, and try to do what you personally do best, then pass off or collaborate with others on the design team when you don’t do that, or need help.
Let computers do computery things, so people can do human things — Don't make people enter data we have or type in specific formats. Do your job being human-centric, and fight systems, jargon, and bad process.
Design systems to be resilient — Components, connections, and data will fail you. Plan on it, without having to write error messages.
Create a hierarchy of tasks and stick to it — Extend IA into the view level, and make it consistent across the product.
Ask for help — We are all about continuous improvement of products and ourselves. I may well have hired you early-career or when changing careers, on purpose! You are to learn so never muddle through, but ask if you don’t understand anything at all.
If it is hard, you are probably doing it wrong — Same as above but reiterated to tools, etc. If something seems too hard, ask. There may be an easier way, a trick or tip we can all learn to make our life easier.
We back each other up — I have gone so far as firing clients who didn’t respect our people. This isn’t always good as that’s how our money comes in, but it’s better than being disrespected or doing bad work to me.
This article outlines are some really good practices as well. Call it a roadmap for your career if you wish, but I also find it's a mindset thing and you don't need to have been doing this for twenty years to have these attributes.
Contractor policies
First of all the policy is “no surprises.” Read this page, talk to us, and set your requirements, we communicate our expectations.
Wait, so you don't actually hire people?
Traditionally, design agencies hire you on full time and give you business cards and a desk and maybe even benefits, then fire you when the work disappears. Like, same day, pack your desk and leave. Been there. I don't think it fosters a good environment, and I don't want to promise you full time employment if I can't give it. So these are contract/free-lance type jobs, even the full time ones. When I am confident the work is regular and persistent enough I can offer full time actual employment, and you want that, then I will but that’s not happening these days.
Also notice that some of the work is for proposed projects, and I (probably) get the contract once I find a person. I have to go that direction, annoyingly. That means if you like one, and agree to work it, we do all the paperwork but then some time passes between that and actually working — or you do related work but maybe not exactly what was originally planned, for a bit. We'll discuss that before you have to commit to anything. Again, no surprised.
So, that may make me look like a shady jerk, but I am very deliberately doing that now so I don't have to either string you along, or fire you without notice (or both) later on. Questions? Ask away!
We are nearly 100% remote
Sometimes there will be clients who want someone on site. If you take one of those jobs, much of what we say here is worth clarifying. There will likely be hours of work, dress codes, and so much more. You will (probably) be issued an email address, and computer, and a parking pass, and have to use them. We comply with client policies in all matters but when we know, you know, and we can discuss if any are a burden, ideally before work starts.
How much do you pay?
Rate, and most everything, is negotiable. Tell me what you think you are worth an hour and we'll talk about it. More often than not I pay more than you ask as designers under-value themselves.
I try not to adjust for regional pay rates and pay the same fraction of my client contract rate to everyone based on their career level and experience. However, this is not a hard and fast rule and can vary.
Individual or Company? Sure
I am happy to work with you as an individual, or as a company. There can be tax benefits to setting up a little company for yourself, so more often than not individuals do that. It's fine with me.
There are minor paperwork differences, but for my side no real differences, no tax problems, etc. If you have multiple employees at all (even just your significant other is technically an employee) please disclose that so I can do background checks or whatever else the client requires for everyone in your organization.
We Cover…
Yeah, no benefits because you work for yourself. Think about that when you ask for your rate. I will remind you if you ask for very little money.
We do pay for directly work related expenses, such as software you may not have. Most of the time this is a shared company account to things like the time tracker, Dropbox, Microsoft or Adobe Suite, Figma, stock photo or video source, or whatever else we decide to use.
Basic work stuff, we usually do not. You have to have internet and a computer for example. Commuting is on you in the rare case a client requires it (as we arrange to hire you as a local), but travel to another city for a research project for example is an expense you submit.
If any of that is confusing, just ask.
Health and work/life balance
If you are sick, don’t work. We believe in work/life balance with “life” first. Tell us so we know, but almost always your time or your time with family is more important so take the time to pick up kids, go to the school play, etc. Don’t work weekends or evenings unless you like to.
There are, generally, no work hours. We may if closely collaborating or a client requires specific hours or on-site work be “work hours” but this is not a blanket policy.
As much as we encourage evidence based behaviors and public health, there is no blanket policy on vaccination, or other healthcare measures. This may be over-ridden for individual employers or for other site visits such as travel for research. 4ourth Mobile will follow at least the minimum requirements of client organizations, and their regional governmental requirements.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion
4ourth Mobile is a human-centered organization, and always places end user experiences first in our work product. We cannot do that without equally believing we live in a civil society, and respect all those we work with in any capacity.
We value diversity, equity, and inclusion and we believe that fostering a workplace culture that is inclusive and respectful of all individuals is essential for our success.
Being able to acknowledge diversity is one of the most crucial steps for an inclusive workplace. If you have the opportunity to bring your full self to work without fear of discrimination, you will build stronger connections with your teammates, you will feel more engaged in your role, and the organization, our clients, and our products will actually perform better. There is a clear correlation between a diverse and engaged workforce and better financial performance in companies.
Under this policy, we are committed to creating and maintaining a work environment that is free from discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion, or any other protected characteristic.
We are committed to providing equal opportunities for all employees, and we will not tolerate any form of discrimination or harassment in the workplace. We will take appropriate disciplinary action against any employee who engages in discriminatory or harassing behavior, up to and including termination.
Additionally, we are committed to promoting diversity and inclusion at all levels of the company. This includes recruiting, hiring, and promoting employees from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, as well as providing training and support to help all employees feel valued and respected.
We believe that fostering a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace is essential for our success, and we are committed to supporting our employees in this effort. We encourage all employees to join us in creating a work environment that is inclusive and respectful of all individuals.