Is their any feisable way to offer incentives to employees. Since my last post (Paid Enemies)one member suggested offering incentives to stimulate production. I'm looking for your thoughts and experiences in this subject. There has to be a better way...

tsolanto,
the economy under the Bush cabal is sliding into the dumper, and you need to ask this?

~how about 'hunger'?

Here's one. Work your full day get your full pay!

one incentive that works for me, is the sign i have on the bulletin board: "there are too many good, qualified electricians in this area that truly need a job, for me to put up with any slackers, who wont carry their share of the load, and be happy about it!"

i give one warning, then their out on their dead a**! and, your absolutely right about the condition of our economy. one good thing about it, perhaps the only good thing, is we can afford to be very, very picky about our people. as an employer, you dont have to put up with a bunch of nonsense.

on the positive side, i give paid days off for a "completed job well done", free tickets to sporting events for cost- cutting, good decision-making, and good final inspections.
we have a company bar-b-que every year, on July 4th, for employees and their families, free of charge, of course.........and a family Christmas party every year, with "santa" and gifts for the kiddies, and i hand out bonus checks and employee gifts myself.


just a few suggestions....

gramps

Sparky,
cabal - A conspiratorial group of plotters or intriguers
**********"Say it ain't so, Joe"!**********

Tsolanto,
In good economic times a good job is hard to find. Given the current economic woes even a hard job is good to find.
The fact that you were caught unaware by your foreman's behavoir leads me to believe that you don't have the time to be on site too often. It sounds as if you need a good sotto capo out there to keep the family in order. You sound like a decent guy to work for, perhaps too decent. Leadership must always be by example. Tom has to go ASAP or do a complete 180, which is very doubtful. He will screw up the attitude of even your good employees. By keeping him on any longer than truly necessary also reflects on your leadership as viewed by the other employees.

Unfortunately, my experience has led me to conclude that, indeed, the Pareto Principle holds true for the workforce - 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work. It is difficult to reward this 20% without alienating the remaining 80%. Incentives programs are difficult to administer and if not well thought out can many times create dissenion in the ranks(the 80% share in the benefit produced by the 20% --- now the 20% are PO'ed). Beware of any program that may be perceived as "a carrot on a stick" by your employees. The goals have to be truly attainable at least half the time and the rewards should be as immediate as possible --- "gratificus instantainae". Year end bonuses seem a lifetime away, especially to younger workers(remember?).

Earned extra time off is a very powerful motivator, just don't compromise safety and quality in the process. A day or so off every few months won't bankrupt you if all your jobs are coming in on schedule. Set goals and deadlines. Let them motivate each other and learn to work as a team. Tools, tee shirts, a monthly lunch/breakfast etc. are inexpensive rewards. I don't know how you would work this with T&M jobs, but the example is just for the sake of getting the thought processes started. Include your employees in the process of instituting this plan and choosing rewards. Put them in your shoes. You'll probably learn some very interesting things...

Good luck,

Len

edits: These forums all need built in spell checking...

[This message has been edited by Len_B (edited 02-11-2003).]


[This message has been edited by Len_B (edited 02-11-2003).]

gramps...are you looking for another electrician.

Hey Gramps,
What part of the country are you in! More bosses should be like you. Instead you get bosses that don't give their employees a pat on the back let alone a bonus for your hard work.

lighthouse, actually, if this weather ever breaks, i'll prolly need all the help i can get. ..i have 2 fair sized commercial jobs that should have already been started, but because of the weather, the GC is behind, the concrete guys are behind, etc. i know whats gonna happen, when we finally can start these jobs, its gonna be "balls to the wall", 7 days a week, to get 'em done on time. never fails...
right now, we are doing a lot of shop work, cleaning and making repairs to service trucks and equipment, (like replacing cords on the threaders, bandsaws, and drills), and doing some in-shop training for the younger guys. several years ago, i build a large pegboard training panel, with a wide variety of wiring devices mounted on it,devices that are used in industrial apps. as well as residential and commercial devices. i even have an allen-bradley PLC-5 setup for training the motor control guys. this "rube Goldberg" apparatus intrigues most of the young guys, and even some of the older ones, ....and, right now, we are spending a lot of time with it, doing wiring arrangements, troubleshooting scenarios, etc.
if only the weather would warm up a little........


gramps

Len, I couldn't agree with you more about the need for spell checking. As a suggestion to anyone who cares, I compose my larger postings in MS Word, which does check spelling. Then cut and paste the corrected text into the reply box when posting.

Sorry for getting off on a tangent.

pearlfish,

I know. I always tell myself to do that - but all my posts are going to be short ones - right up until I start typing...

Len_B(igmouth, like a bass)

gramps...are any of the projects around the philadelphia/new jersey area. have pipe bender will travel...

Bosses are all too ready to criticise, but do they ever pass on a few of the extra $$$ when a job comes in early, and under budget?
There are many "management" courses out there, but few "leadership" courses.
There is also a tendency to try to fit the man to the job, rather than exploiting a man's natural skills, or by helping/training him to adapt.
Finally, too often I've seen a boss expect you to be responsible for anything that goes wrong, but he is not willing to provide the means for it, be flexible in his policies to see it done, or allow you to use your initiative in the least. How many of today's poorly performing companies are "dealing" with their poor performance by awarding the CEO a bonus for firing shipping clerks?

sorry lighthouse...i'm in the "frozen tundra" of ohio...pretty long commute for you, but thanks for the offer....

gramps

Tsolanto:
Luckily for me, the four guys I have now are good. One is 16 yrs, 1 is 12 yrs, 1 is 10 yrs, 1 is <2 yrs.(Young guy out of local VoTech School)

As to incentives: 45 hr week, 5 days. OT as needed. Holidays, off w/pay. Sick days & vacation. (Flexible w/sick days)

Bonus a Christmas, $$ dependent on the "goodness" of the year. Cash "bonus" from scrap proceeds. Pat on the back is standard, quality of work is A+, the only way we do it.

We do primarily comm; resi for the comm people. Steady customers who expect quality work, immediate emergency response 24-7.

"No complaints" from the workforce here.

PS: LIGHTHOUSE, are you in "South Jersey" area?? I have a guy down that way who may need a hand, if yu're interested.

John

gramps....thanks anyway,yea that's just a little far for me too.

HotLine1.john.i'm allways interested in making a buck if the money is right.i live in philadelphia.but i keep my boat in south jersey. lets see work and fish the same day.avery day.maybe fun

Here in Florida we have to "sort" through at least 10 new employees to get one qualified electrican. Most applicants come from the "north" relocating to our warm climate. They want 3 to 4 dollars an hour than our adverage journeymen's pay. If you can talk them into taking the reduced wages most can not do what they say they can, and we end up letting them go. Just in my area alone there was 20 ads in todays want ad section. We have several strong apprentice programs but not enough to go around. 95% of the contractors in my area are non-union. So if anyone knows good quality electricans that need a job tell them to come to warm sunny Tampa (home of the superbowl champs).

Try to piece rate set up for those workers who are familiar with the work of a job. For example an apartment complex- The crew gets a set price to rough in, install the service and feeders, or finish it per apartment unit. Once they agree to this, your labor per unit is set. Make it attractive enough for them to beat their regular pay per week if they do at least 2 more units/week than you planned for. Let them know that any mistakes of the work are theis to fix at NO cost to you unless it's your mistake. Any inspection failures are treated the same way. For repeative work this ccan be very good for you and them.
One crew I used for a year made an average of 4200/wk split 3 ways just to rough in the units. They gave me 24 units/week. After the first two weeks the only fixes were caused by other trades or a foreman's layout error.
Normally these apprentices got 12.00/hr for a 50 hr week. or 660.00 gross hourly vs 1400.00/wk on piece rate On hourly I got an average of 15 units/wk
This worked for me quite well until I ran out of work they could do.

Its a shame that many of todays workforce feel that their employer owes them more just a paycheck. A slow economy may help fix this as jobs become more and more scarce and the people with the money regain control.

I'm considering offering my Helper a set price for his work on the next cottage.

If we kick butt, we both make more per hour.

Whatcha think?

I've had the priviledge/burden of being employed by a company which relied heavily on incentives. We had 'sales objectives' to meet which had almost nothing to do with our actual business - we just happened to be the first contract of its kind in the market we were in, hence an almost automatic 2nd place win. However, the prize was pretty cool - everyone in our office got a CD player (component type for a stereo) when they were just coming out on the market, 1st place got a TV (yes, every one of them in the office got one). OK, so that's out of the average small business owner's league but it was kind of fun.

Next, we were subjected/introduced to "Peak Performer Awards" wherein our fellow employees would nominate us for work done above and beyond the call of duty (not just for doing what was minimally required, but beyond that). One could accrue 'PPA' points that equaled a dollar which could then be spent on the catalog of items that was provided. I have a long list of items, as does everyone else because we were such great players, that I gained from the program. Also, each nomination went into a drawing for a $1,000 travel certificate, which was cool since I won that, too.

Also, one Christmas each of us got a coat with the company logo on it. Another time, we got a long sleeved T-shirt with the company logo on it. Another time, a duffel bag with the company logo on it. Another, Cross pen & pencil set with the company logo on them. It got to be a running joke that a technical company was competing with JC Penney with their apparel awards.

And the piece de resistance was the hope for a spot at the annual "Vice President's Club" which only the top 10% of the company went to - a 3 day trip to some resort (which included the mandatory business meeting/pep talk).

More rewarding than any of the 'material' programs and which actually was more compelling was our local manager's approach in calling us 'the A Team', the 'hit the ground, we knew you were the right people to make this happen' approach. We jumped through hoops for him, as he did for us when necessary, too.

I have been taught, and learned it myself, that when you can find someone who buys into your company's mission and makes it his/her mission, you have someone who will help push your company ahead. If your mission doesn't reflect something they can buy in to, take a look at improving it with the concepts of quality work & deliverables, safe conditions during and after installation, fair treatment & respect for employees as well as customers, and stability resulting from good practices, reasonable prices, reliable service, customer satisfaction, training opportunities and the like.

nesparky,
It looks like your system ended up working you out of projects and your "employees" out of a "job". Lets hope they didn't spend the money as they made it. If I made more than twice my normal income for a year, I would be in good shape for time off. Actually I have had the last year off and was not in good shape to begin with.

When I was running my business I wanted to get into a position to use a piecework pay system with employees, but never did. Most of my work was industrial and just did not lend itself to that. It would have been nice that instead of being their boss I would have been their customer and they would not have had jobs but their own business. That would have been the way I see it even though on paper I would have still been an employer and had the responsibility that entails.

That system works well for getting a job done. If there is no work for the future it does not matter what system is used to pay an employee. The guys that did those aptartments do not know how to run conduit. It would be unfair to them to piece rate them on other than residential work. They are very good with Romex, good enough with MC/AC type cable, but no good with conduit.
They learned to do residential work and just stayed there. When I offered to train them to run conduit on a commercial job, they quickly found another large apartment job. I still have contact with them, and will call them if I get another 100+ unit apartment job. Most of those type of jobs are not happening in this area. Smaller residential work is too low balled to be profitable without a getting a lot of change orders.
You can only keep the employees who make you money. Also you can only keep employees when you have work they can do. Training is necessary in this trade and is a cost that has to be paid some how. If things go like we hope, we would get every bid we make, and make a good profit on every job.
The one thing every construction type has to remember is that the day we start a new job we are working ourselves out of a job. When we complete a job we are gone from the day to day operation of that place. Hopefully we have new jobs lined up. If not or those employees cannot do them, layoffs happen.