Reply to: HSBC Contract Start

[MrButton]

Why are you not enforcing it yourself? It's your business and you control the amount of time you work.

It’s more because then I’ve got an excuse to give the wife for taking more time off.

[fidot]

I wish my contracts would enforce 220 days max. And enforce a furlough.

Hopefully next year.

Why are you not enforcing it yourself? It's your business and you control the amount of time you work.

[MrButton]

I wish my contracts would enforce 220 days max. And enforce a furlough.

Hopefully next year.

[MLB]

I may have been lucky re the max days but my recruitment wasn’t standard. I imagine it depends on the project/team structure but they’ve been flexible re location and wfh too - clearly there are some big differences in the onboarding and working practices between the projects/depts.

[BoredBloke]

I’ve been @ Hsbc 1 week short of 6 mths and taken 3 non billable days out excl bank holidays. Contract via Reed, no terms in re max number of days to bill.

For me the 220 days thing was the final straw. My main gripe was the length of time they took to do anything. With about 4 weeks left on my last contract I started looking. That's usually plenty of time to get things sorted, but not for HSBC

With about 2 weeks of my previous contract remaining I spotted a role at HSBC and applied. I was asked to attend an interview a couple of days later....1 week later I attended the interview.....1 week later I was told I'd got the gig.....one week later they gave me the formal offer - The manager was new to HSBC and they had to set him up on their system. So why not do that when you issue the role - it's a fairly safe assumption that the manager will be taking somebody on! I was told that the company who do the checks have an SLA of 3 weeks, but that it was likely to run to 4. I sent them everything they needed on the day the offer was made, tons of stuff. 3.5 weeks later I was told I'd passed their checks and the contract would be issued. That's when I spotted the 220 days thing. Taking into account that the job was away from home, a chunky drop in day rate and with no possibility of WFH, I was still prepared to do the role because I got on well with the guy who interviewed me and I would have been able to pick up a few extra skills. But having spent 5 weeks not billing while HSBC went about their checks at glacial pace, the fact he said I'd have to take another 4 weeks off in the next 6 months was the killer. I told them I wasn't going to sign on the Thursday and was due to start onsite the Tuesday.

FWIW at RBS - still in Edinburgh, WHF at least 2 days per week and not as big a rate cut. Background checks completed within 2 days!

[MLB]

I’ve been @ Hsbc 1 week short of 6 mths and taken 3 non billable days out excl bank holidays. Contract via Reed, no terms in re max number of days to bill.

[BoredBloke]

Lot of people who don't know anything about HSBC on this thread... and a few who do.

First thing - their standard contract enforces no more than 220 chargeable days in a year plus at least one period of 'core leave' (which they enforce for all workers, regardless of permanent or contract) which is at least 10 days, in every 12 month period. I'm led to believe this is common in banking, as a fraud-prevention thing (because nobody can hide something they're doing for 2 full weeks - as an aside, permies can face a disciplinary if they so much as check their email on their phone during this core leave period. It's serious.) They often have 6 month contracts, but at this time of year it could be shorter because your contract might be taken up to financial year end i.e. 31st December. You probably won't be forced to take a 2 week core leave period for a contract shorter than a year, but if you get an extension you will be at some point in the next one. Plus they'll probably enforce a contractor shutdown over Christmas that'll cover it anyway (so be aware you'll probably lose 2 weeks in December).

Like I said, I asked the Resource solutions guy the specific question....would I be expected to take 4 weeks off within my 6 month contract and he said that I would. That was the basis of me rejecting the contract I had with them......and I was only a few days from starting. If he had told me that I wouldn't be expected to take time off, then I would have started and not left the manager having to look for another contractor and start the ball rolling all over again.

It still comes down to 220 working days per year out of a maximum of 365-104 = 261 means 41 non working days per year. So if they enforce the no more than 200 days thing then you are going to have to factor in 8 working weeks of down time. That has obvious rate implications and it's somewhat unfair to drop that clause on the contractor a few days before the start date. My RBS contract doesn't have that clause in it and neither have any of my other banking ones...a number of them via resource solutions

[BR14]

If it's in tellytubby land, it'll take you 2 hours per day getting in and out of the fecking kraphole.

[Glencky]

Lot of people who don't know anything about HSBC on this thread... and a few who do.

First thing - their standard contract enforces no more than 220 chargeable days in a year plus at least one period of 'core leave' (which they enforce for all workers, regardless of permanent or contract) which is at least 10 days, in every 12 month period. I'm led to believe this is common in banking, as a fraud-prevention thing (because nobody can hide something they're doing for 2 full weeks - as an aside, permies can face a disciplinary if they so much as check their email on their phone during this core leave period. It's serious.) They often have 6 month contracts, but at this time of year it could be shorter because your contract might be taken up to financial year end i.e. 31st December. You probably won't be forced to take a 2 week core leave period for a contract shorter than a year, but if you get an extension you will be at some point in the next one. Plus they'll probably enforce a contractor shutdown over Christmas that'll cover it anyway (so be aware you'll probably lose 2 weeks in December).

On the original question, I can easily believe there is a problem introducing a delay, it's quite possible the agent isn't lying. In general, they had the longest and most drawn-out onboarding process I have ever experienced. It happened that I got the contract through a close personal friend, somebody i'd never worked with but been close to for a long time. the friend wasn't the hiring manager but the hiring manager delegated managing the onboarding process to the friend, so I literally knew everything that was going on, an unusual place to be in for a contractor. Between my 'side' and my friend's 'side', we both pushed and pushed, and it was still 6 weeks from interview to start date (bearing in mind the hiring manager made me a verbal offer on the spot and agreed rate IN THE INTERVIEW). I had to jump through more hoops in the prescreening than I have ever had to and if I hadn't known for sure the role wasn't going to evaporate and it was all c-ck-up and inefficiency rather than design, I'd have been convinced it was a wrong 'un. Once I got in, talking to all the other contractors, in many ways my experience was pretty good..! It's one of the reasons I think they 'recycle' a lot of their contractors internally because if you leave you have to go through all that again. It's crazy that their internal processes (particularly the outsourced screening with very rigorous requirements) prevent them taking advantage of the main point of hiring contractors i.e. a flexible workforce.

So don't think it's necessarily something nefarious going on. But on the other hand, expect not to be starting for at least several weeks. If that's a problem for you, start looking for something else. In fact, you could do worse than to do that anyway because a bird in the hand...

[BoredBloke]

If it's genuinely pro rata, you'd be taking a day off every 6 or 7 days

I specifically asked the question - would I be expected to take a month off in the next 6 months. He said yes! I asked the Resource solutions agent. Because my start date was very early june, my end date would be around the start of December. So 4 weeks off to be taken before the Christmas break, where they would impose a furlough, after the delays that their on boarding added. It all seemed too one sided for me. So I declined the contract. RBS on the other hand, on boarding took 2 days!

[fidot]

If it's genuinely pro rata, you'd be taking a day off every 6 or 7 days

[BoredBloke]

Eh? How does this work? Not seen this before. I'm also on 220 days but it just stops at 220 if I ever got to it. That would mean a 6 mother is a 6 mother but a 12 mother is a 11.5 er and some holidays... if you get me.

My understanding is this.....365 - 104 = 261 working days. 261 working days - 220 working days = 41. That means you have to take off 41 working days in 12 months. I was told this would be pro rata in my 6 month contract....so I'd be expected to take of 20.5 working days over the coming 6 months. My contract was due to start at the start of June, after they had dragged the whole process out for 7 weeks - meaning I'd have to take off 4 weeks out of the next 26, after they had already given me 4 weeks bench time, while they did their background checks. They only sent me the contract a few days before my start date and because of the delays they had put into the whole process, I'd been offered a different role. I wasn't going to take the other role until I saw this clause.

[blackeye]

Built by contractors?

Usually a mixture of consultants at the beginning, contractors later on and permie programme leads / SMEs throughout.

[blackeye]

Managed to secure a contract with HSBC. But, i have been told there was an upgrade (HR System) happened and that screwed something which delays my start date. I have been delayed by almost 4 weeks. Anyone in the same boat?

Thanks

HSBC has actually got a new HR system, so the agent isn't lying. If the agent is Resource Solutions (internal recruiter) then it's probably fine. People on here worry too much.

[fullyautomatix]

I am at HSBC and got an extension recently. The only upgrade I have heard about is some new hrdirect software upgrade but I really doubt it would delay your onboarding since that is all on peoplesoft. Was it direct? The hiring process takes minimum 5 weeks. But once you are in, its the best gig ever.
Also, that 220 day rule was not enforced, but entire December was a furlough. Even then, anybody working on production systems had to work 2 weeks but I took the entire month off and will do it again this year.