Posted By Paul Darren Joseph
Hey Guys,

I recently started doing some consultancy work in occupational safety and health and has been requested by a small company to prepare a sms for them. they are obout 45 people strong and operate two work-over rigs in the petroleum industry. I do not want to overprice neighther do i want to sell myself short. Does anyone have an idea of the industry standard for a company that size?

Advice is invited.

Paul

Posted By GeoffB4
Yes, I was surprised at the question as well.

Work it out for goodness sake. What is your daily rate, how long will it take, what are the travel and other expenses, and then simply add those up!!!

Posted By Paul Darren Joseph
yes, yes, yes. I did my figures and charged 12000 trinidad dollars.(12 Trinidad dollars to one pound) so is 1000 pounds considered exorbitant or is it reasonable? just a guide i am looking for people.

Posted By Tabs
I think your price (Darren) is very reasonable and I would hope your invoice reflects the hours worked (show them what value they are getting).

Posted By GeoffB4
How can you judge that Tabs unless you know the circumstance in Trinidad, you know the exact amount of work involved, the state of the premises, you know the level of expertise involved, you know the current state of h&s in that particular workplace etc etc ....

The second response was about right - guesswork!

Oi fink £250000 is a reessonabbe figer fer it. eny1 wont to aggue

Posted By GeoffB4
Spot on Kieran.

Posted By Mitch
Paul,

A reasonable cost would be one that both you and the client are happy with. I would have thought a company 45 strong in the offshore industry would expect to pay more for a robust SMS than a contract office cleaning company employing 45 people.

Mitch

Posted By Tabs
Geoffb4 - I gave an opinion, I am free to do that.

Ian - I think you might have misread his post, I don't think he suggested that it would not be tailored or unsupported ... but I might be wrong, perhaps you could point it out to me?

Because of IOSH's policy for this forum, none of can tell whether he is a member or not anyhow.

Here in the UK prices for consultancy range dramatically, here in the City it is as much as £750 per day.

If Darren has provided a tailored policy to a company in the oil industry, I still hold it is a reasonable (even cheap) cost. Sure things depend on local economy, but where company profits are set at global standards, then surely cost can be set to reflect that, and good luck to them. My suggestion of including the hours worked would provide them some gauge as to value.

Darren was obviously nervous of charging $12k and my experience (which you don't know Geoffb4) suggests that is reasonable. Only opinion though ...

Posted By GeoffB4
Of course you can have an opinion tabs, and you express it frequently. Good for you.

But you are wrong to try to approve a price with the information you have to hand. There are a huge number of factors involved - that with your 'experience' you should know.

Ian is right, we were being asked the cost of a package - you can't possibly know the answer to that and you could be misleading both the inital contributor and other readers.

Posted By Tabs
City = London

Ian, I have experience of a few consultancies that price based on square footage, or size of company. It is not as rare as perhaps you would like, or more correctly, it should be.

I have had to price services in different countries, and find wide variance, but none of them particularly cheap.

Posted By Merv Newman
H&S consultants have to be very flexible, ie no fixed "package", but must have some idea of roughly how much work/time would be involved depending on the client company and their circumstances.

And the "depending" depends on where they are today. And where they want to be next year.

For a small company (less than a few hundred employees) we quote 1 day of preparation (in the office) "send us all the paperwork" (this can range from a few pages to a few kilos) then we go for a minimum of three days on-site, starting and finishing with management meetings (part of the analysis is how many managers turn up on time at these meetings)

Bigger sites take more time, but not much more (5 000 employees ? 5 days on-site)

We then reckon the equivalent time, 3 to 5 days, for preparing the report, analysis, synthesis and recommendations. And one day to go back, present the report and recommendations and work out a detailed future path.

First contract finished. (8 to 12 days) Send the bill. Further work/contracts depend on needs and take-up of the recommendations.

"Office-based" follow up is usually free (letters, phone calls, e-mails. So long as I don't have to get off my bum. Further on-site visits, follow-up or training, are charged at the day rate. (I'll get to "day-rate" in a minute)

We also charge for travelling and hotels. Mileage/kilometres charges can be at what the income tax people allow for employees to be paid travelling on company business or what the company is prepared to pay an employee for using own car for company business (usually a lot less) Hotels (bed, breakfast, evening meal) depend on country and town. For mileage and hotels we estimate how much that will probably cost and write it into the initial contract. This way the client has an exact cost to write on the purchase order.

Now the tricky one. Day-rate. How much do you think you are worth ? How much does your client think you are worth ?

And how many days each year do you want to spend away from your wife and family in some grotty (or five-star) hotel ?

Charge high and you get to do a lot of gardening. Charge low and you are on the road every day of your life.

Take out CoL, income tax, social security and think about how much you would like to end up with at the end of the financial year. comfortable, or rich ?

(there are actually a few rich consultants. Most of us go for comfortable)

You could research other consultants in you area (and not just H&S) and base your thinking around that. Compare experience and client bases (should there be an apostrophe in there ?) Are you reallyreally worth it ?

Or just think of a number. And double it.

And I do mean "double it". First, you will only ever work half the paid days your business plan says you will. 100/year, not 200. And, second, the really worthwhile clients, those who believe in you, will be prepared for the higher cost. And have higher expectations.

When I started I based fees on getting back to my previous salary level. Plus a bit. And was comfortable. Then I got offered a job I really did not want to do (uranium mines in Niger, 1 000 kilometres from civilisation, in the middle of a rebellion ?) So I doubled the price. They took it ! So you've gotta go. The armed escort thing was pretty relaxed anyway.

Be comfortable and do a bit of gardening.

Merv

Posted By Paul Darren Joseph
Tabs, either Paul, Darren or Joseph, any name you call me by, your opinion was well received

Posted By Philip McAleenan
Regarding the point made by Ian in respect of disciplining IOSH members, it is a statement that is unsupported by the institutions code of conduct and disciplinary procedures and members, particularly new members should not be worrying if they are in contravention of rule that they have net been made aware of.

Published guides are namely that, “Guides” and there is no requirement in the constitution or code of conduct that members of IOSH follow the recommendations contained within such guides, thus no-one can be made subject of a disciplinary hearing merely for ignoring them.

The definition of misconduct is contained in paragraph 3.2 of the Disciplinary rules, which can be obtained at http://www.iosh.co.uk/fi.../about/CodeofConduct.pdf

Any member who remains concerned should contact their local branch or a member of Council,

Regards, Philip