Here’s what I’ve decided to do for Sasquatch. (My employee not Oregonian @Sasquatch)
For every Google review he gets named in he gets 1.5 hours of paid time off. For any other reviews he gets 1 hour. He just got his first Google shoutout.
If we knock out 3 houses and do 45-60 five arounds he gets ROWies or results oriented wages which equates to an extra $25/day. If we do 4 houses, 60-80 five arounds OR break $1300/day he gets ROWies which equates to $100/day.
Any closed and paid jobs from a five-around he gets another 1.5 hours of paid time off.
It’s new, heard it in a book, so I’m not sure how well it’s going to work, but I’m testing it. With us only working full days on Monday and Tuesday and essentially half days Wednesday-Saturday I’m assuming this job is a millennials dream.
My question is: How do you guys think this is going to bite me in the tail? What are the drawbacks?
The drawbacks? Well, for starters, if he’s a go-getter (he seems to be the way you speak of him) and smart with all the extra money you’re paying him, you’ll soon have a new competitor!!! Or you pay him well enough to not want to leave.
I don’t have any employees yet and likely won’t for some time but I have worked for dozens of employers and I’ve learned from every single one, good or bad. I am all about incentivizing employees and keeping them happy. The best boss I ever had would spare no expense to make the job as easy and efficient as possible. He took care of his guys and we made him LOADS of money.
I like the idea your testing out. I am a millennial also. But my helpers seem to want to work 11am-3pm. Four or five days a week. It’s hard to stay on schedule.
Hmm I hadn’t even thought of that but you have a very good point. Tracking all of those individual incentives could be hard to do.
@squidskc Maybe instead of PTO you could just do a flat rate for reviews. Then, if you still want to offer PTO, you could just let him accrue it on a rate per hours worked. Like 2 hours/week. Then he would get a full day of PTO for every month he works for you. Of course, you could adjust the rates to your satisfaction.
Here’s the view from my recent afternoon office. I’ve been coming here most afternoons the past couple weeks since it’s maybe a mile from the Missouri River in Parkville, one of my strongholds if you will. The MO River has been flooded into Parkville Town Proper for nearly a month. I’ve been coming here to do estimates and send emails, hike a half hour back out.
If employees help make it possible to hike in a half hour from the long way around 3 days a week, I don’t mind paying them.
@Infinity you can absolutely come work for me, but you’re probably making more now.
@Sharpe, I have a little sheet I made where the employee initials right next to the benchmarks achieved for the day and the schedule is printed right on it. I just screen grab it from Markate and drag in into google doc. We both sign it before we go home. My accountant’s payroll person does the rest. PTO tracking is pretty standard for payroll these days. He’ll get paid when he gets back to school for a week or two I’m assuming. 1.5 hours PTO is $22.50 + taxes on an average of $400 per review.
Or $100 extra dollars from $1200-$1600 revenue over 4 jobs. Everything is basically set up so every time he gets $22.5, I get $400. I’m assuming he’ll be happy. I’ll be happy. He’ll get a 40 check most weeks for 25 hours. I’ll get a bunch of time off. This is my assumption anyway.
You have no idea how bad I wanted to name my company “The Cleaning Cowboy” just so I’d have an excuse to wear my cowboy hat everyday. That is awesome!!!
Getting paid time off will eventually mean he isn’t at work when you need him. Send like the bonuses would be confusing to keep track of in payroll. Paid time off means you will be paying workers comp, FICA etc on someone not even there.
I’ve got a couple legal ways around that according to the CPA. Also, he has three options: A severance if he wants a fat check when school starts or I need to know two weeks ahead when he wants off or a combo of both.
But ultimately, if he wants to take a a day off… with what I want out of the trade. I’m cool with it. I’ll pay it and deduct it legally, but also creatively.
I’ve had some trouble getting employees to buy in to these incentives for some reason. Basically they way I set it up is $10 each for every named review they get. We have a review app on the phone for each crew so all they have to do is ask the client to leave a review when they are finished up with the job. It takes all of 5 minutes to do. Assuming x number of people won’t leave a review they could still easily make an extra $100-$200 a week doing this. However, most of our people never ask the client to leave a review, which I don’t understand at all. Sounds like you won’t have that issue with your guy though.