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What are desirable employment contract "perks" to you?

El Mustachio

Hot Rolled
Joined
Jul 28, 2010
Location
Eastern Washington, USA
In 20 years of machining and engineering I've never worked under a contract with my employer, but signs on the horizon say that may change before long. If given the chance to negotiate some "perks" into your employment, what would you push for.

Things that have frustrated me in past jobs were lack of continued education / training, reluctance to invest in new tech, using old CAD/CAM off subscription or support, having to absorb unrelated positions / duties as time goes on without $$ changes, etc.

If given the chance, what type of things would you want to add to an employment contract:
personal tooling / software budget, guaranteed time & travel for trainings or trade shows, custom work schedule, ???

Thanks.

EDIT:
So it looks like I need to clarify. Yes, I do mean perks for the employee. Yes, I know salary means no OT. I've been salary for 10+ years, I've missed the OT some but it's all panned out in my case. This is new territory for me as well. For reasons of their own, a few employers have decided they'd like me to work for them instead of where I'm at. Besides pay, they're looking for ideas that would make working for them more attractive. So far I'm happy where I'm at, but I don't think the position will be around forever. What I'm asking is, if a company has decided they want you bad enough, outside of base pay what might you press for?
 
In 20 years of machining and engineering I've never worked under a contract with my employer, but signs on the horizon say that may change before long. If given the chance to negotiate some "perks" into your employment, what would you push for.

Things that have frustrated me in past jobs were lack of continued education / training, reluctance to invest in new tech, using old CAD/CAM off subscription or support, having to absorb unrelated positions / duties as time goes on without $$ changes, etc.

If given the chance, what type of things would you want to add to an employment contract:
personal tooling / software budget, guaranteed time & travel for trainings or trade shows, custom work schedule, ???

Thanks.
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only employment contracts i have heard of were you were guaranteed job for 1 to 4 years but you could not leave job early without loosing your retirement benefit. it has benefits but it has many bad things about it.
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thus worker in China offered 10 or 20% more pay at a another job BUT he may loose many $1000's if he leaves his former contract job early. only reason for contract is for employer to keep people from leaving suddenly.
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unusual in America to have companies trying to out bid or pay and take employees from each other companies.
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also at end of contract you technically loose your job often everybody in company looses job and contracts are redone or renewed maybe. thus when everybody has to compete with each other for new job contract often pay could be lowered. it is supply and demand thing.
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similar to going into small Chinese store and price on a item to buy may say $100. and you offer $30. and store owner says $90. and back and forth talk about price. you can leave store and maybe price is lower when you come back or maybe price is higher as store owner figures you could not find any where else cheaper.
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very much a supply and demand thing
 
You seem to believe the employment contract is to benefit the employee. The contract is to protect the employer.
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usually there is penalty if you leave job contract early. often explained as employer takes time to train you and expects you to stick around for awhile.
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if you would loose retirement benefit of say $5000/ per year employed you would think twice about leaving for another job that pays only $0.10/hr more
 
How about as few perks as possible and as much pay as possible? I wonder if employees realize that they pay for their own perks, through lower wages up front? I see this all the time, particularly in union shops, it seems that they can negotiate a ton of benefits, but the basic wages remain low. Employers really love to gamble on benefits that may not cost them what the face value of the perk pretends to be.....like add one paid sick day per month, but can only ever claim 2 weeks of sick leave before the disability insurance scheme kicks in. So after you've got 14 sick days collected, your perk is worthless: they don't bump up your pay because your sick bank is full!
 
Now that I own my own shop, one of the perks is that I'm free to work any of the 120 hours in the week I want.

Or as many of them as possible sometimes for little or no pay. I had a boat load of alarms pop up a couple weeks ago on an CNC lathe, spent most of the available hours in a week reseating boards, cleaning connections, etc,etc till I finally fixed it. It had a hot job on it so I didn't set up the other CNC or do any of the manual machining I had to do, so I got to work the whole week for free.
 
i had a job at $27.70/hr but with no overtime work for years
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got job now at $22/hr but with 1.5x pay working over time and a lot of over time available if you want it.
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3rd year into new job i made $5000/more in a year compared to old job at higher per hour pay rate and 4th year will make at least $10,000 more at end of this year.
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i have seen people paid salary or fixed pay per week and they were expected to work 30 to 60 hours a week what ever it took to do job but no extra pay. the salary people might get technically more per week if non salary people worked no over time at 1.5x pay rate. but when over time was allowed at 150% pay it quickly added up and you could make much much more money
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i would be wary of any salary pay contract
 
employment contracts are very much a bad thing for people bad at math.
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a little like people who take out a loan for a house bigger than they should and they use up a extra $100,000 for extra big house and with interest final cost is $200,000. plus land taxes often at 4%/year final cost at 30 years can be close to $600,000 loss
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but if $100,000 in 401K and doubled every 10 years that $400,000 at end of 30 years and put in a lifetime annuity thats $1600. per month for the rest of your life extra retirement.
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employment contracts are often a bad thing for people who cannot calculate compound interest math and or factor in 150% over time pay
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reminds me of old indentured servant of 600 years ago. you got a ride on a ship to the new world in return you worked for employer for a 7 year contract to pay off the loan for the ship ride. it had its advantages but also had disadvantages like jail time if you got caught leaving early
 
Are you talking contract in terms of "will work xx years" or contract as in "you work until this job/project is done"?
I had to sign a 'contract' when I moved for job saying basically I had to repay the moving expenses if I left before the agreed upon time, but I don't think that is what you are talking about...
 
Negotiations for employment,perks or anything for that matter is near a fantasy in employment as a machinist working for an employer.
The only thing I ever experienced from employers was:
"It's MY WAY or the HIGHWAY!"
 
Something just came to mind as it does whenever I have to go to a Dentist.
What would it be like for us machinsts if our careers were based on the same work parameters as a Dentist?
Work 3 1/2 days a week.
Soft Rock background music.
Shop rates 500-1000 and hour.
There are no dimensional tolerances.
Nothing is guaranteed to actually work and function.
You have a 3 month lead time and customer back log.
A customer comes in with something broken and throw shop rate out the window and the charge requires the customer to get financing, that you will provide of course.
Oh, I almost forgot, we have 3 vacation homes, talk about trips to Europe and drive Ferraris.


I'll stop now.
 
Biggest source of dissatisfaction for most employees is a crappy boss. Good bosses balance giving direction with giving you freedom, are willing to work things out if something comes up in your life, and manage their way around the annoyances you've listed. I'd check that you're working for a company with a good product or service; and then find all you can about your direct supervisor -- and the one above that.

I'd also look at any non-compete agreement. If there's one at all, it should be very narrowly worded to a direct competitor where significant IP is a risk.
 
Something just came to mind as it does whenever I have to go to a Dentist.
What would it be like for us machinsts if our careers were based on the same work parameters as a Dentist?
Work 3 1/2 days a week.
Soft Rock background music.
Shop rates 500-1000 and hour.
There are no dimensional tolerances.
Nothing is guaranteed to actually work and function.
You have a 3 month lead time and customer back log.
A customer comes in with something broken and throw shop rate out the window and the charge requires the customer to get financing, that you will provide of course.
Oh, I almost forgot, we have 3 vacation homes, talk about trips to Europe and drive Ferraris.


I'll stop now.

and this is for a Dentist! ie, someone who flunked out of med school :D
 
Insurance, flex hours, 401K with match, pension, lunch on Fridays, etc...

In your dreams! :-)

By all rights we deserve way better than we get. Look back into the 40s 50s even the 60s. Machinists were a highly respected class of the workforce. Commonly referred to as engineers.
We have modern world market liberalismto thank for the collusion with China that killed industry for good in this country.
 








 
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