Shreman S wrote:
Hi, Upwork Community!
I’m Shreman and part of the team that developed this feature. My fellow colleagues and I are committed to making your experience on Upwork as positive and fruitful as possible. As many of you may have noticed, we recently launched the Auto Check-ins feature. We recognize and understand that users aren’t happy about some of these changes. Let’s talk a little bit about our Auto Check-ins feature and would love to address concerns you’ve expressed here.
No, you are not committed to making our experience as "positive and as fruitful" as possible, you certainly don't care and we are fully aware of same. But thank you, let's move on.
What are Auto Check-ins?
Auto Check-ins is a feature that only clients can turn on/off during an active contract. This will prompt 1 message on a weekly basis on Friday asking 3 simple questions on the work you are doing. The questions should take just a few minutes once a week. You are encouraged to reply to them. If you are strongly against it, the recommendation would be to speak to your clients about turning it off because they turned on this feature and would expect a timely response. Clients can enable and disable the auto check-ins via a link in the contract Messages room or in the contract terms/setting area.
Again, you don't seem to understand, or maybe you do, but I'd like to point out that this puts us in an INCREDIBLY uncomfortable situation with a new client.
Why did we develop Auto Check-Ins?
We developed this feature because we received feedback from both clients and freelancers that visibility into contracts in a structured manner is something that is lacking on Upwork. Auto Check-ins would keep communication and progress “on the record” on a structured cadence. We believe added visibility on a structured cadence can lead to better contract outcomes for both our clients and talent.
Apparently you didn't check with us. It's pretty obvious the group you pulled from...
What are the benefits for talent?
For talent, timely, concise replies could result in fewer ad-hoc requests from your client for status updates and although this feature does not play a role in dispute or in arbitration, it is helpful to have a paper trail in messages on progress if ever needed to resolve disputes.
Benefits??? Ha ha!!!!
What is the expectation from talent?
We know that our freelancers are professionals and acknowledge that our growth as a company has been attributed to the quality of our talent. This feature does not intend to be counter to that. As mentioned above, this feature resonated while we conducted client and talent user testing. We decided to test this feature with the belief that it could help add more structure and clarity to ultimately influence more positive outcomes for our clients and talent. The expectation when you receive the Auto Check-ins prompt is to take a few minutes to write a few lines to reply to each of the three questions. When developing this, the idea was that each question would take no more than a few lines to write.
The auto check-ins are sent on Friday so if you do not work on Fridays, letting your client know would help set expectations on your working hours. While there are no penalties for not replying or replying with a delay, it is encouraged that you reply when you have a moment as this feature was turned on at the request of your client. If you cannot, it is encouraged to send them a quick message to help set expectations. If you believe this may not be needed for your circumstances then you can let the client know. The client can switch this feature on or off via a link in the contract Messages room or in the contract terms/setting area.
Why don't you allow us to shut if off on our end? I don't want you to contact me if you feel the need to babysit me....
What are the benefits for clients?
For the client, this enables them to have greater understanding and visibility on the project so they can plan accordingly. Auto check-ins and hourly contracts A few of the comments here were specific to hourly contracts. We understand that clients that enable the time tracking functionality can view in details what Upwork talent are working on. Auto check-ins was not developed to replace this functionality but can understand why this may feel like duplicative work. However, we do believe that auto check-ins is a great method to summarize in a few minutes the status of your work in a few lines. If you believe this is unnecessary and takes a significant effort, then a conversation with your client may be best to decide what works best for the both of you. The client can switch this feature on or off via a link in the contract Messages room or in the contract terms/setting area.
Again, benefits? Most of us would run as fast as we would away from a client who would enable this. So sadly, they will not have top talent. But since we don't know UNTIL the job is in place, we then need to school these clients on same...again AWKWARD and NOT CONDUCIVE!
-- More info on the questions
- What did you work on this week?
The goal is to provide visibility to the client on tasks that would have progressed.
- What will you work on next week?
The goal is to help clients know what you will work on so they can plan accordingly. This also adds visibility to both you and your client.
- What might delay your planned work?
From our research, one of the leading results of a bad contract outcome is when something happens that may impact your planned work such as a dependency for your project. Examples include if you may need something to complete your work such as content or approval from the other party to complete your work. This aims to help resolve this so talent can clearly state what may be unexpected and clients can be kept informed ahead of time and plan accordingly. We envisage there to be delays in a low amount of contracts but believe this is an important question that helps lead to better contract outcomes for both Upwork talent and clients. If there are no delays, a simple answer such as ‘None’ or ‘N/A’ should suffice. --
I don't think I ever in a million years would have thought that as a "freelancer" I would be asked these types of questions. Because I (and the rest of us in this post) take the initiative and actually do this little thing called communicating with our clients...not something that needed to be taught and if it needs to be they don't belong here. That would HELP your clients out. Well, the ones we would hope you'd like to hang onto.
We have learned a lot from feedback and concerns you’ve shared on this thread. A few points that we’ll be considering:
- We understand that a lot of experienced professional freelancers would like more control over this feature being turned on for their contracts.
- We also understand that it may not work well with short-term contracts and for some hourly contracts.
- We know that more can be done to better educate clients around the purpose of this feature so that they only use it when it’s necessary.
Your comments along with feedback we receive from other channels and metrics about how this feature is utilized will inform how we proceed with this feature.
