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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 687
A
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A wage can't be cut. But a persons bounus can. You can pay a daily/weakly/hourly bounus and then cut the bounus for things like being late, neglectfull damage, missing tools, customer complaints, slow production, & callbacks.

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Joined: Feb 2006
Posts: 138
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Sounds good. Allow $100.00 budget for each service guy every quarter, take away $50.00 for each call back.

No call backs and the guy earns $100.00 on a separate check or a $100 reimbursement for tools required for the job?

Enough to make it worth the effort but not enuff to break the bank.

Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 745
E
Member
Originally Posted by WireNuts29

Another thing would be as stated in the original post, a wirenut falling off is poor workmanship. If you send the same employee to trouble shoot his own work, and he reports back to you(the boss) that his work was the reason for the call back, said employee is too honest, and too stupid. if said employee finds loose wire connection and fixes it, I'd hope he could cover his own ass, and "find" another problem. Thats just my honest 2cents


That's a mighty dishonest two cents........

Are you kidding me? You actually condone theft in the effort to CYA? So you are encouraging people to lie to their employer about their mistake? That's nothing short of theft. This equates to either stealing from the company or stealing from the customer by charging them for the callback. Either way, I'd fire anyone on the spot for that line of thinking. I am surprised that any member here would think like that. I must say that I am disappointed to say the least.


---Ed---

"But the guy at Home Depot said it would work."
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 1,158
Member
My employee gets me call backs at times he is honest if he made the mistake and i try to have call backs covered in my overhead costs.

Joined: Jan 2005
Posts: 5,445
Likes: 2
Cat Servant
Member
A recent commercial kitchen job resulted in a poor relationship between the 'hood guy' and I. Amazingly enough, after the inspection, the hood lights stopped working.

I found the wires had been disconnected .... presumably in spite, by the other guy. Everyone believed me when I said this had happened.

Why? Simply because I have never been shy about accepting my mistakes. Loose wire nut, oversight, whatever .... no effort is spent to create some fancy excuse.

No credibility = no faith = no business.

Joined: Jul 2007
Posts: 85
W
Member
Ed,
If you are telling me that you personally have never covered up a mistake. I cannot believe that. I never said to go on a call back , and change a service to cover up a wire nut falling off, or the like. The point I was making was if you have a problem with technician A, getting callbacks. Why would you send the same technician to fix it.

Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 745
E
Member
OK, that makes more sense. Sorry for jumping off half-cocked, but since I am now an employer, callbacks are a sensitive subject with me. It's been really bad lately with my technicians. Work has been mighty slow for the past few months, so I almost think that they are intentionally "making mistakes" to ensure more service work. Phone company people used to do that years ago and they got away with it. Fix one thing but break another.

Yes, I probably did fudge the cause for a callback once or twice or....... when I was working for a contractor. I also got my pay check docked when I admitted fault. I tend to think that I made it up on other jobs where I made them a ton of extra profit, but that's still not how it should be done.

I am a firm believer that we should send a different tech. out for callbacks, but we have two problems with that. One is geographics. We need to send the nearest technician on callbacks and since we try to work regions, there's a good chance that the callback will be handled by the original technician.

The second problem: The technicians work together on a daily basis, so they tend to cover each other. Unless they just don't get along, they come up with some miraculous reason why the callback wasn't the technician's responsibility.

"He replaced the defective wire nut on the hot side, but the one on the neutral failed after the fact". We know that's probably not the truth, but hard to argue







---Ed---

"But the guy at Home Depot said it would work."
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 947
T
twh Offline
Member
Originally Posted by EV607797
I tend to think that I made it up on other jobs where I made them a ton of extra profit

I agree with that.

When an employee finds a way to cut a few thousand off a job, does he get a bonus cheque?

When an employee brings scrap copper back, does he get a bonus cheque?

When an employee picks up material before his paid start time, does he get a bonus cheque? How about cleaning out your truck?

If an employee starts early or works late, does he get a bonus cheque?

If you don't share in the profits, and expect to share the losses, who will work for you, or, are you describing those people, already?

To be clear, I just spent two hours of my own time going over job specs to charge out extras, and I don't expect to be paid at all. However, my employer doesn't expect it to be free and has already made it up to me. We work together to make money.

What incentives do you provide? Are they reasonable?

Joined: Nov 2006
Posts: 30
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REW Offline
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Originally Posted by twh
Originally Posted by EV607797
I tend to think that I made it up on other jobs where I made them a ton of extra profit

I agree with that.

When an employee finds a way to cut a few thousand off a job, does he get a bonus cheque?

When an employee brings scrap copper back, does he get a bonus cheque?

When an employee picks up material before his paid start time, does he get a bonus cheque? How about cleaning out your truck?

If an employee starts early or works late, does he get a bonus cheque?

If you don't share in the profits, and expect to share the losses, who will work for you, or, are you describing those people, already?

To be clear, I just spent two hours of my own time going over job specs to charge out extras, and I don't expect to be paid at all. However, my employer doesn't expect it to be free and has already made it up to me. We work together to make money.

What incentives do you provide? Are they reasonable?


While I do treat my employees with respect and dignity, "extra" money for doing the normal requirements is not in my business plan. We have incentives for going above and beyond the required workload.

1. share in the copper $$? Didn't I pay for it the first time? I've been on jobs where the GF ordered extra wire just to have scrap. Wouldn't you be a little loose on the footage if you know that you will get $3.50 a pound for any "extra" wire, even though it cost the contractor $8 a foot? All scrap comes back to the shop!

2. An employee should be paid for every minute that they work, and should work for every minute that they are paid. Who do you think loses out most of the time?

3. It is part of the requirements when issued a truck to keep it clean inside and out. It is especially beneficial to an employee of a construction based company to have a vehicle because it is very expensive (at least $6-$8/hr)for a contractor to have a vehicle sitting at a jobsite for 8 hours a day to basically be a taxi for an employee. I can have material delivered to that jobsite every single day of the week, so a truck is not particuarly necessary. In a service based business, it is a little different if they take after hours calls.

4. ...share in the losses? You must be joking! I've had jobs that lost money, not one employee ever stepped up and asked to share in my pain. And of course it was never their fault. I always bid them wrong. Yes, although the employee failed at his job, it is ultimately my responsibility to make the job profitable, so I wouldn't actually expect the employees to share in any losses.

It is great to have an incentive plan, but the things you described seem to fall in the normal everyday activities of electricians, and would not be a basis for giving money away.


Rich
Joined: Mar 2004
Posts: 947
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twh Offline
Member
REW, I've worked for several contractors and the one I'm working for now gets more out of his men. I want to explain the difference between this one and the previous ones.

I know that when the customer has the money, it is out of my reach. If my employer and I work together, we can get the money into his hands. I get paid better and treated better with this employer than any other employer.

I don't share in the profits or copper, nor in the losses. He doesn't get mean about call-backs or "underbid" jobs, because we both know which direction we are going.

Compare that to the employer who cut everyone's pay and fired anyone who objected (me). The guys who were left started taking scrap copper home. I know it for a fact, because I was invited to the profit-sharing barbecue.

If your employees think that you are too hard, they will give themselves an incentive bonus. When that happens, you will lose big.

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