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Job size will now be factored into your JSS

lenaellis
Community Member

UPDATE: The JSS Metric has been updated to reflect the changes that were announced below. As of today, March 1st, all Job Success Scores are now displaying the updated value.


We will soon update JSS metrics to reflect job value in the calculation. Today, a one-week $20 job typically carries the same weight as a one-week $1,000 job in JSS. Soon, JSS will be weighted by job earnings. For example, a one-week $1,000 job will be weighted more than a one-week $20 job. JSS will also exclude contracts with $0 earned and positive feedback. All other JSS policies will remain unchanged.



What does this mean?

We are making this change so a freelancer’s Job Success Score will display a more comprehensive representation of their freelancer workWe understand not all jobs are equal. We know higher budget contracts require more work and freelancers who complete these more complex contracts successfully should get credit for them. Just as longer-term contracts hold more weight in JSS calculations than shorter ones, we believe contract value should also hold significance in the calculation. By giving these jobs more weight, these jobs will have a greater influence on a JSS. 

 

Many freelancers will see an increase in their scores if they’ve successfully completed higher budget contracts in the past. At the same time, a small percentage of freelancers may lose their JSS, see a drop in their scores, or lose their Top Rated badge. Today, we are emailing freelancers whose JSS will see a decline of 5% or more, to let them know they will be affected.  Freelancers that see a drop in their score can improve their JSS by completing more jobs with positive feedback, as it works today. Larger budget contracts with positive feedback will result in a higher increase in JSS, however, all great feedback contributes to JSS and whether you work on large or small contracts you can still reach 100% JSS.

 

This change will take effect in March, at which time all Job Success Scores will be updated retroactively. We know many of you will have questions about this update. We won’t be able to discuss your individual score or outcomes of specific contracts. We have listed some anticipated questions below, let us know if you have any additional questions.



FAQS:

 

Can I know what my new JSS is now before this launches?

We will not be able to provide you with your updated score until the JSS calculation refreshes at launch, in March.

 

Does this mean if I don’t get big contracts I’ll never be able to get a JSS of 100%?

Receiving stellar feedback on smaller budget jobs can still get you to a JSS of 100%. We are only changing the impact of jobs based on earnings. This means that strong client feedback on a higher-budget job could boost your score more than a lower-budget job. All other aspects of JSS will remain the same.

 

How will I know if it affects me?

The majority of freelancers will be affected positively by this change and will see an increase in their scores. We are sending out emails to those who will likely see a drop in their score once the new JSS calculation goes into effect in March. 

 

Can this affect me positively, will my JSS go up?

Yes! The vast majority of freelancers on the platform will see an increase or very little change in their scores. This is because you may have worked on one or more higher paying contracts in the past, and because you received great feedback that great feedback is being weighted more. 

 

Can I lose my JSS?

A small percentage of freelancers may lose their JSS. This is because they had one or more jobs with no earnings. Positive feedback on contracts with no earnings will not be factored into JSS once we move to the new calculation. As a result, some freelancers won’t have enough outcomes to be eligible for a JSS until they successfully complete more jobs. Nearly all freelancers have scores after completing eight projects. 

 

How does weighting work specifically? 

To ensure fairness and avoid manipulation, we don’t share the specifics about how we calculate the Job Success Score. Thanks for your understanding.

 

So if I take a bigger job and get negative feedback that counts more than positive feedback on smaller jobs?
Yes. A job with higher earnings will always impact your Job Success Score (JSS) more than a smaller job. For example, feedback on a $1,000 job carries more weight on your JSS compared to a $20 job. However, receiving poor feedback on a job with more earnings can be balanced out by doing well on a job of the same size in the future or on a number of smaller jobs. 

 

Can I lose my Top Rated badge?

Yes, a small percentage of freelancers who see a decline in their JSS may drop below 90% and lose their Top Rated badge. This is because they received less-than-positive public or private feedback on one or more of their higher-paying contracts. Feedback on contracts with higher earnings will affect JSS more after this new change.

925 Comments
kochubei_valeria
Community Member

Hi Ali,

 

I can confirm that this change has been rolled out. Some freelancers saw changes in their JSS due to this update, but a lot of users had very little or no change in their scores.

prestonhunter
Community Member

re: "I have one contract without any earnings. It made my JSS lower."

 

Yes, that is correct.

 

re: "But client left good private feedback."

I don't think that matters.

And: It is not Upwork's intention that freelancers know what what feedback was left for them when clients leave private feedback.

 

re: "We'll have JSS updates in March 2020. Does it affect to my JSS?"

A contract closed with zero earnings had a negative impact on JSS in February.

It will still have a negative impact in March.

alialkis
Community Member

That's what I meant. If there is little or no change at all, how does it work then? If it had affected, I would have higher JSS thanks to my higher rate 5 star review. 

grg183
Community Member

Most of the contracts that I take are the long-term type and what bothers me most is that the rating (and effect to JSS) on these are still based on a single subjective feedback left by the client at the end of the job. Long-term projects are inherently much more prone to fail than short-term projects even if the freelancer does a great job and acts professionally, and because of this even doing the best possible work it is easier to get a bad rating on a long-term job. If you take on a job that will take you 4 hours to complete and you plan to do it tomorrow there are really no unknowns and very little that can go wrong. This doesn't mean that these cannot be challenging but they are surely much more predictable. If the client is not satisfied it is also possible (just like in the offline world) to refund such a few hours of work. However, with a project that spans months and years, this is a completely different matter. How can one predict his effective availability in a year's time? How can one predict how a project will evolve over many months? Often there are many unknowns that need to be tackled at different stages and sometimes it may be even difficult to known upfront if it is possible to meet all requirements. Some clients may run out of budget, they may change the scope of the project or just lose interest in the project. As the project progresses it might appear that it is not feasible, or simply that external changes suddenly made the project no longer feasible. The preception of the complexity of a large project by clients also varies a lot depending on their background. Sometimes the mood or attitude of a client changes drastically throughout a project. I've had cases where no specific deadlines were set initially but in the long term all of a sudden a deadline was requested and the client started asking for a higher availability which I never agreed to and could not offer. These are all things that more or less I have faced at some point and the reaction of clients varies a lot, some are professional and acknowledge the good work done but a few become verbally aggressive. There is no way one can (or even should) refund a large project. Even if the freelancer did great work for 1 year but something happened on the 13th month the ultimate feedback and rating still depend completely on a single subjective rating by the client. The problem is further that because larger jobs have more weight, to make up for a bad rating on a long-term project requires much more effort, it is useless to try to take a few small projects to improve the rating. 

 

The question I always ask is, why would anyone in his right mind keep paying a freelancer week after week for many months if he is not satisfied with the service? If I hire someone and the work done is substandard I won't wait 1 year to stop the project and give him a bad rating, I would stop him after the first week or two. In my opinion, it just does not make sense that the single rating of the client at the end of the project is allowed to have a significant negative impact on a freelancer's rating when the same client kept paying for the freelancer's service for such long periods. Money talks much more than any feedback the client may leave.

josephjohn_78
Community Member

So, How much is a 'Good rate"?

AveryO
Community Manager

Hi Joseph, 

 

To ensure fairness and avoid manipulation, we don’t share the specifics about how we calculate the Job Success Score. I would like to confirm though that with this change a job with higher earnings will always impact your Job Success Score (JSS) more than a smaller job. For example, feedback on a $1,000 job carries more weight on your JSS compared to a $20 job. However, receiving poor feedback on a job with more earnings can be balanced out by doing well on a job of the same size in the future or on a number of smaller jobs. 

 


Joseph J wrote:

So, How much is a 'Good rate"?


 

kavitagabani
Community Member

Hi Avery,

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

I was just responding to NANDKISHOR'S concern regarding the connect usage on the fake client. And I will definitely do a further discussion of this topic in the given thread.

 

Thanks again,

Regards.

 

 

mwendell
Community Member

I'm very disappointed in this change. It's well-known that client feedback is subjective. Many things that go wrong are out of freelancers' control (although obviously many others are due to poor performance). It was already bad enough that we can be penalized if several clients ghost us in a certain span of time. Now this.

 

Are we going to be given any guidance about how many small contracts with 5 star feedback it would take to counteract a bad experience on a large project? Is it going to be dollar-for-dollar? How many successful small contracts would it take to counteract a $5000 contract that was going great then suddenly went south? This is very concerning because stuff can go wrong on big contracts.

 

I once had an ongoing, long-term contract that went well for over a year. I started at 20 hours/week, was raised to 40 and then to 60. No issues were raised, and I was working with several leaders in the company. Suddenly one day the client ended the contract, accused me of overbilling and not communicating. He was never able to show any communication I hadn't responded to (I repeatedly asked him to show me any such messages), and Upwork support and I tried to help him understand I literally couldn't overbill. When he ended the contract, it wiped out my work diary...showing him that would have been helpful to demonstrate my productivity. My best guess is that he didn't realize how quickly my hours were adding up and got sticker shock, although I could be wrong. But my point is that a situation like that would be really hard to recover from considering I'd earned over $10,000 by that time. 

 

I've had several clients get upset when an hourly project takes longer than they expect. It doesn't necessarily mean my work was actually bad, and yet I can still take a hit.

marafx
Community Member

Hi George

Quite a post you made. Took me a while to parse it al. 
You make your point regarding long time contracts that, afrer 10 months of work end up in a bad review.

There is a solution, not the best to be honest but there is.
Since you, as I am too , are a 100% JSS and you want to stay always top, we can have a paid member ship ( I do have for conncects) . being a premium allows removal of a bad review from JSS and public display. Obviously not every single month... Is more like 1 every 3 months or so. Anyway, if you have 99%  normal  customers and 1 happe to be a  boiling  pot that explodes hurting your stats, well in such cases you can consider the premium as an option.

marafx
Community Member

I edited since the info I provided was wrong. Sorry Mod