Spanish bureaucracy gets funny

Sorry if you have seen this before. I put it on the main website under "Autonomo : the Movie" but it is worth a look, even a second look. It´s a short film from the No Todo FilmFest (Spanish but with English subtitles) that features a young woman trying to register as autonomo and coming up against an intransigent bureaucrat. Sounds very unpromising material but actually is extremely well done and anyone who has dealt with Spain´s officialdom will agree that it is achingly true to life. Thanks to the client (an autonomo himself) who alerted me to it. It is 3 1/2 minutes long -

Our autonomo service is not quite as painful: Services for self employed / autonomos Spain

Is there such a thing as an autonomo free lunch?

Going self-employed in Spain - "autonomo" in the local parlance - has many attractions for foreigners living here, not least of which is that good paying contracted jobs are in short supply, particularly for foreigners without much Spanish. Many foreigners in Spain run their own business, er, "informally" without registering or paying any tax but would prefer to be legal either because they fear investigation and prosecution or because of the limitations of working in the black economy e.g. not being the equivalent of "VAT registered" and being able to issue proper invoices or not being able to sign a lease, take a loan or employ people.

That all points to registration and formalising your business but many people are put off by the taxes and social security. Without going into massive detail (there is a guide on the firm's website which covers all of this - Autonomo Guide) the main sticking point is social security for most people. It is a minimum of 251€ per month and can be more if certain unemployment, sickness insurances are taken in addition to the basic cover. Even if you don't make a profit (or make losses) this monthly payment never goes down, although younger autonomos can get a 30% discount for their first 15 months registered.

The "solution" if you want to register as autonomo but don't fancy this hefty outlay is sometimes touted as opting out due to low earnings. Spain has a national minimum wage and theoretically autonomos who earn less than it can apply to opt out of social security. But there are conditions which make it only applicable to a minority.

- you must always earn under the minimum wage so anyone earning irregular amounts which sometimes exceed the minimum could not apply

- you must be working occasionally - if you are doing a regular contract or regular work you cannot apply

- you cannot have a permanent place of business

This is why the bulk of people continue to have to pay social security if they are self-employed in Spain. Besides unless you pay into the system you cannot apply for the benefits, mainly health and pensions related which could ultimately be worth hundreds of thousands of euros (see article Spanish pension benefits )

Will Spanish business ever get the internet?

Anyone who has ever lived in Spain (or owned property there, or done business there, or even been on holiday there) will know that generally levels of customer service leave much to be desired. During my family's 8 years in Spain we have had all sorts of problems with all kinds of private sector organisation from the local shops to nation-wide corporations. Not only can service be slow and erratic but outright deception seems to be a common and accepted tactic among those employed to deal with the public.

This is hardly news but I would just like to comment another twist to this sorry record of bad service - the 'net hasn't changed much. On the surface of things Spanish business seems to have embraced the internet, not to the extent of the US or Northern Europe, but at least most reasonable sized businesses have a web presence and offer some options for online service. However dig below the surface, i.e. start making orders, enquiries, complaints etc online, and you will find that the same poor service culture exists online just the same as offline. Many times I have used an email for enquiries, quotes etc and not received a reply. The attitude seems to be 'out of sight, out of mind' and the online message is often. You need to get on the phone (if you can get a response there) or go down to see someone face to face.

As an example I needed 4 new tires for our car and decided to save money by getting a deal online (my local tire changing garage charges at least twice as much as they should). There are a lot of options once you do a search and I got what looked like a good deal from webneumaticos.es and all seemed well on the surface with automated payment, email confirmation etc I then arranged a garage to do the fitting again finding one with a website and all the trappings of modern service and communications. Without boring you with the details needless to say I soon got bogged down in a host of problems and it has taken me 2 weeks of chasing, unreturned phone calls and broken promises to get the job done.

Advoco has written before about how Spain can lift its economy out of recession and focused on a better deal for autonomos and employers. Maybe businesses need to start getting serious about service culture. It can be changed. Pre-Thatcher Britain used to be equally rubbish but now I would say most businesses are good on service because they have to be. Even in Spain I have noticed that Telefonica (or is it Movistar) seemed to have improved their previously appalling customer service record of late.

Related article at Advoco.es - 30 ways to market your business in Spain