Hiring Manager closed a contract without leaving feedback, CS tells me to pester the client

[gilbert-phyllis]

Patience, please! This is long but not complicated. I'm including so much detail because I've hit a dead end with CS.

Relatively large (for the category) contract, final milestone was approved in June. A couple of weeks later, I sent the client a message reminding her that if she had no more work immediately, she could close the contract and easily re-hire me later if needed. Obviously, I hoped she would close it and leave feedback but I consider it unprofessional to say more than that. 

Fast-forward to this week: Received an UW message that the contract had ended, so I left feedback for the client. Oddly, after a couple of days the closed contract was still not showing in my job history. I made a minor edit in my profile and saved it, t trigger the profile to refresh. Job still not showing as closed.

I contacted CS, who first told me I closed the job and simply need to wait 14 days for the client to leave fb. I explained that I did not close it, that I received a message the job ended. (It is now evident there's a difference between 'ended' and 'closed' but I had never thought about it before.) Then CS recommended that I send the client a message requesting her to leave feedback and offered to send such a message on my behalf, if I preferred. I told CS I do not believe in pestering clients for fb, and asked him to please find a way to help me, since it seemed like something had gone awry. 

Then CS said that further investigation revealed the Hiring Manager had closed the contract (it was an Enterprise  client) and again offered to send the client a message on my behalf, requesting feedback. He also assured me that a single no-feedback job will not hurt my score. I am aware of that and had not mentioned my JSS.

As a FL, it's tricky enough to manage around the feedback system and the only mechanism that works to our advantage is that a client is required to leave fb when they close a job. If a Hiring Manager can close a contract without leaving feedback for the FL, that seems to interfere with the whole FL-client dynamic and leave the FL in a no-win situation. Is there really nothing that can be done here besides pester the client for feedback?

[pandoraharper]

Shame on said Hiring Manager.

I have/have had Hiring and Firing control here on Upwork. If I close somebody's' contract, I leave Feedback. I urge my clients to also leave feedback when closing contracts (not mine, other people they hire). Personally, I never mention feedback, but I usually get it.

It's unfortnuante this happened to you, but it's also good that you highlight this experience so well, because I think this is something that could be solved with some extra verbage on a "close contract" page. 

[gilbert-phyllis]

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Pandora H wrote:

Shame on said Hiring Manager.

I have/have had Hiring and Firing control here on Upwork. If I close somebody's' contract, I leave Feedback. I urge my clients to also leave feedback when closing contracts (not mine, other people they hire). Personally, I never mention feedback, but I usually get it.

It's unfortnuante this happened to you, but it's also good that you highlight this experience so well, because I think this is something that could be solved with some extra verbage on a "close contract" page. 

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So, this is a known issue? That a hiring manager who has had nothing whatsoever to do with the project beyond setting up the initial contract, and therefore can reasonably have no basis for offering feedback about the FL, can close the project and unless the FL chases down the actual client, then it becomes a no-feedback contract? Seems like a huge flaw in the system, to me.

[pandoraharper]

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Phyllis G wrote:

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Pandora H wrote:

Shame on said Hiring Manager.

I have/have had Hiring and Firing control here on Upwork. If I close somebody's' contract, I leave Feedback. I urge my clients to also leave feedback when closing contracts (not mine, other people they hire). Personally, I never mention feedback, but I usually get it.

It's unfortnuante this happened to you, but it's also good that you highlight this experience so well, because I think this is something that could be solved with some extra verbage on a "close contract" page. 

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So, this is a known issue? That a hiring manager who has had nothing whatsoever to do with the project beyond setting up the initial contract, and therefore can reasonably have no basis for offering feedback about the FL, can close the project and unless the FL chases down the actual client, then it becomes a no-feedback contract? Seems like a huge flaw in the system, to me.

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That is not what I was trying to explain. Anyone on the client side who closes a contract can and should leave feedback. If the person doing so is a hiring manager, they should arrange to get a copy of the feedback the client wants to provide, and use it when the job is closed. It's possible in your case the client & hiring manager did not know this, or even think about it. Sure, I am way more organized than most, but it just seems like a good business practice on Upwork. 

And when I said I ask my clients to provide feedback, I was again not well understood. What I mean is that I explain to clients who hire on Upwork that it's a win-win for everyone to provide feedback when closing a job. I've worked for a couple of clients who never left feedback, or even closed jobs. They appreciated I gave them that advice, as it ended them getting feedback from the freelancers they hired.

In my case, I am often the Chief of Staff, Operations Manager and Project Manager wrapped into 1. I am then totally qualified in providing feedback for a freelancer who reported to me. Obviously, this is not going to be the same for everyone.

[gilbert-phyllis]

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Pandora H wrote:

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Phyllis G wrote:

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Pandora H wrote:

Shame on said Hiring Manager.

I have/have had Hiring and Firing control here on Upwork. If I close somebody's' contract, I leave Feedback. I urge my clients to also leave feedback when closing contracts (not mine, other people they hire). Personally, I never mention feedback, but I usually get it.

It's unfortnuante this happened to you, but it's also good that you highlight this experience so well, because I think this is something that could be solved with some extra verbage on a "close contract" page. 

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So, this is a known issue? That a hiring manager who has had nothing whatsoever to do with the project beyond setting up the initial contract, and therefore can reasonably have no basis for offering feedback about the FL, can close the project and unless the FL chases down the actual client, then it becomes a no-feedback contract? Seems like a huge flaw in the system, to me.

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That is not what I was trying to explain. Anyone on the client side who closes a contract can and should leave feedback. If the person doing so is a hiring manager, they should arrange to get a copy of the feedback the client wants to provide, and use it when the job is closed. It's possible in your case the client & hiring manager did not know this, or even think about it. Sure, I am way more organized than most, but it just seems like a good business practice on Upwork. 

And when I said I ask my clients to provide feedback, I was again not well understood. What I mean is that I explain to clients who hire on Upwork that it's a win-win for everyone to provide feedback when closing a job. I've worked for a couple of clients who never left feedback, or even closed jobs. They appreciated I gave them that advice, as it ended them getting feedback from the freelancers they hired.

In my case, I am often the Chief of Staff, Operations Manager and Project Manager wrapped into 1. I am then totally qualified in providing feedback for a freelancer who reported to me. Obviously, this is not going to be the same for everyone.

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Pandora, what has me incensed is that, after being told for years that if the client closes a contract they are required to leave feedback, I have suddenly learned that is not the case. At least, it is not the case if a hiring manager is involved. The hiring manager can end the contract without leaving any feedback for the FL. Correct? As I understand it, that is what happened to me. If that is not what happened, I'd like very much to understand what did happen and why because, as I noted before, it's a complete up-ending of how we are told the feedback system works.

[petra_r]

Enterprise contracts often tend to have an "end" date (others do not) so it's possible that the contract just hit its end date and ended automatically. (Same as contracts with money in Excrow automatically close at 90 days)

I have closed Enterprise contracts with freelancers I was responsible for and had to leave feedback, but had I left them open until their end date, they would have closed.

I would take the "Hiring Manager closed contract" story with a pinch of salt as plenty of other info in that conversation has been inaccurate...

[tta192]

No feedback should automatically translate to 5-star and be displayed as such on the freelacer's profile.
It wouldn't affect discontent clients who usually make sure to leave negative feedback.
But in many scenarios - such as this one - when the job is done well, the client can't be bothered to leave feedback. It takes "valuable" time and they simply find a way around it, or allow the contract to be closed by the freelancer or by Upwork. Nothing points at issues with the deliverables on the contract, but "No feedback" causes a negative impact on the JSS. Or at a minimum, the freelancer misses the positive effects of the 5-star feedback.

[petra_r]

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Andrei T wrote:

No feedback should automatically translate to 5-star and be displayed as such on the freelacer's profile.

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 Nonsense.

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Andrei T wrote:

 "No feedback" causes a negative impact on the JSS.

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It does no such thing.

[pandoraharper]

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Phyllis G wrote:

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Pandora, what has me incensed is that, after being told for years that if the client closes a contract they are required to leave feedback, I have suddenly learned that is not the case. At least, it is not the case if a hiring manager is involved. The hiring manager can end the contract without leaving any feedback for the FL. Correct? As I understand it, that is what happened to me. If that is not what happened, I'd like very much to understand what did happen and why because, as I noted before, it's a complete up-ending of how we are told the feedback system works.

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I get that, and do hope a Moderator chimes in here to clarify. Also, the CS person you talked to was obviously not trained properly. Shocking.

[wickedlnl]

Pestering a client to leave feedback could end up in negative feedback because they felt pushed into doing it. Every time a contract ends, I ask if theres nothing left, to close the contract and leave feedbakc when they get a chance. Thats it, if they never leave it or if Upwork closes it by themselves because of long term inactivity, thats fine.

[pandoraharper]

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Nemanja R wrote:

Pestering a client to leave feedback could end up in negative feedback because they felt pushed into doing it. Every time a contract ends, I ask if theres nothing left, to close the contract and leave feedbakc when they get a chance. Thats it, if they never leave it or if Upwork closes it by themselves because of long term inactivity, thats fine.

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The OP knows this. And she's not talking about the same thing you are. She got shafted out of getting feedback because the client themselves did not close the job, and nobody told the Hiring Manager who closed it to give feedback.  Telling a client to give OTHER people they hire on Upwork feedback is another matter entirely, and that is what I was talking about.