I have been managing a remote team of freelancers. The pay is on an as the work is completed bases.
Recently, one of the freelancers sent an e-mail expressing some dissasisfaction with the difficulty of the task, and also requested the entire amount for the task he hadn’t completed in advance to pay some urgent debts.
I phoned him, and he seemed to genuinely want to complete the work, and to be in fairly tight financial situation. He’s a nice sort of fellow. I offered to pay him a portion of his commission in advance, but he needed all or nothing.
I opted for nothing because it didn’t seem pertinent for him to ask in the first place. I feel obligation towards him, but not responsibility for his personal finances. However it isn’t a good feeling.
I am just wondering how more experienced managers out there would handle such a request. It would be easy if you were just a link in the management chain and could fall back on a policy from above, but when there is no higher power what do you do?
