Deliveroo, the food delivery business, were embroiled in a row this week over plans to pay self employed drivers on a per delivery basis rather than by the hour.
Deliveroo wanted to pay £3.75 per delivery instead of the current £7 per hour plus £1 per delivery saying that they believed it would enable their self employed drivers to earn more whilst working less hours.
Naturally there was uproar, anyone can see that in densely populated Central London in peak times it could easily be possible to make more money, it’s equally obvious that in areas more sparsely populated and slack times that drivers could potentially earn considerably less.
Deliveroo has said that they’ll allow their drivers to opt for the old payment system if they prefers, but it does highlight the fact that self employed people don’t have the same minimum wage protections as employees.
Over the years I’ve known many online businesses who have taken on their first employee and grown their staff offering at least minimum wage (sometimes higher) as well as holidays, sick pay and all the other associated benefits of employment.
I’ve also known some businesses who don’t take on employees but have self employed assistants from time to time. For short term projects it could be from Gumtree. Others have used agency workers as that again avoids many of the requirements of being a full employer. Of course we also know that many Tamebay readers running ecommerce businesses are themselves self employed.
How do you value your staff – are they full time employees or do you also have some contractors paid by the job?
