"Employee Entitlement"

This may be more so venting than a question, but where do we draw the line for what employees are "entitled" to? I'm referring specifically to benefits. My issue is they don't seem to complain about wanting what they don't have, they want more of what I'm already giving them. I don't think employees realize that benefits are a gift. I'm not required to give paid time off, or anything like that, but I feel it's important to offer them to make the job more appealing for employee retention. It doesn't seem to matter how much I give them, they always feel like they're entitled to more. I give them a paid 30 minute lunch break every day. Occasionally they don't take lunch because they forgot it at home, weren't hungry, or for whatever reason, and they expect me to pay them for an extra 30 minutes of work. I already paid them for that lunch break whether or not they take it.

Or paid time off. Doesn't matter how much I give, unless I give them 365 days of paid time off, they're never happy. I used to not give any vacation time. Never had any complaining. Now that I give them 2 weeks of paid time off, they all complain it's not enough. Guy comes and tells me he's taking a 6 business day vacation mid July. He's already used 6 days of time off, so he only gets 4 more. He comes up to me later and says "I'm getting paid for that whole time I'm gone, right?". I told him he can use the rest of this years vaca time, but currently it's only 4 days. He starts complaining saying he's been here for over a year (like that's a big deal) and that I owe him more than that.

I like to think I treat these guys pretty well. Flexible schedule, for the most part they can pick what they work on during the day, I buy them lunch once a week, I stock the fridge with cold water and pop for them to take, they're allowed to use the shop for personal projects etc. But they still just want more more more. I appreciate these guys are in here every day working hard to make ME money, but I feel they have zero appreciation for the benefits I give them. Am I off track here?

Are you hiring?- j/k I hate Illinois

It sounds like you treat them pretty well. A lot of places don't give out more than 2 weeks of vaca unless you've been there 5 years. You give paid lunches, 2 weeks of vaca, weekly lunch, free drinks. Anyone that complains should be told to quit being a whiney bitch or hit the curb.

benefits are a gift. I'm not required to give paid time off, or anything like that

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If my boss ever told me that, the next thing he would have to decide is whether he wanted me to work another 2 weeks before he never saw me again.
Employment is a contract for which the terms are ongoing and negotiable. There are no gifts in business.


Yes, employees can be crotchety, grumpy fucks that always think the boss is screwing them. But I can't say I immediately think of them as such, the way you started off.

ETA: In general your benefits don't sound like the worst, but they aren't all that impressive. Having 2 weeks of vacation after 1 year of work isn't bad and yea, that guy is not out of line for asking if he can take more time off, but he is a bit nuts for thinking he'd get extra paid days.

Time for a employee handbook with all the rules of employment spelled out. Anytime there is a question tell them to look in the book. Then stick to it, a special deal for one is a special deal for all.

A lot of places are running into that.. we have too. It all comes down to how much they're worth to the company/you. Human nature is greedy; they'll always want more. Even if you gave them four weeks they'd want five. I'd say your benefits seem pretty legit. Our company goes... 3 personal days after 90 days. 8 paid days after one year. 13 paid days after two years, and then 18 paid days after 5 years. And that's as high as it goes. And we don't get a paid lunch. We rarely get pop or anything like that, and no personal projects. (The owner is funny about that stuff)

My operators complain about the lunch break the most. But you sound pretty decent.

Yeah you're not required to pay any benefits, but it helps to have employees.

Regarding the lunch break, I got mad about that issue when I was 16 years old working for the city road crew in the summer. Some days we would be swamped and no time to take a break. So, I put down "no lunch, 8.5 hours" on the time card. Check comes and I got paid for 8 hours. Their theory was that the state law required them to give a 30 minute break and they were not required to pay for the time. It was my choice to skip lunch, so it was my choice not to be paid.

You can be sure I never skipped a lunch break again.

Econdron said:

Or paid time off. Doesn't matter how much I give, unless I give them 365 days of paid time off, they're never happy...

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What about the extra day every four years?

Dennis

Sounds like you need a sign similar to this:




Rex

Worth remembering this is the stuff that keeps your people working for you not your competition, here in Europe you would be falling massively short of the paid leave, through out the eu its a 4 week minimum a year 6 weeks is common over here. That said no one pays you to have lunch here, there is rules about breaks and every x hours theres a legal requirment for a paid 15 minute break and all but the worst of places do normally do tea - coffee, though soft drinks are not something i have ever encountered over here as a perk. Few of the bigger places will have a sponsored cantean too, but you still won't be paid to eat!!

I think it boils down to being prepared to pay the benefits when starting out. In actual fact, the employees earn their own benefits, and as a result, their hourly wage is lower because you have to tack on 30% in benefits. There is no gifting involved. If you are not prepared for this, and make the mistake of actually paying them all they earn (less their share of the real overhead), then you have a problem.

JNieman said:

If my boss ever told me that, the next thing he would have to decide is whether he wanted me to work another 2 weeks before he never saw me again.
Employment is a contract for which the terms are ongoing and negotiable. There are no gifts in business.


Yes, employees can be crotchety, grumpy fucks that always think the boss is screwing them. But I can't say I immediately think of them as such, the way you started off.

ETA: In general your benefits don't sound like the worst, but they aren't all that impressive. Having 2 weeks of vacation after 1 year of work isn't bad and yea, that guy is not out of line for asking if he can take more time off, but he is a bit nuts for thinking he'd get extra paid days.

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Don't worry, I never would have hired you to start with.

ewlsey said:

Regarding the lunch break, I got mad about that issue when I was 16 years old working for the city road crew in the summer. Some days we would be swamped and no time to take a break. So, I put down "no lunch, 8.5 hours" on the time card. Check comes and I got paid for 8 hours. Their theory was that the state law required them to give a 30 minute break and they were not required to pay for the time. It was my choice to skip lunch, so it was my choice not to be paid.

You can be sure I never skipped a lunch break again.

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Yes, but I pay them for lunch every day. If they come in at 9am and leave at 5pm, they get paid for 8 hours no matter what. I'm having issues with people working 8 hours for example and wanting to get paid for 8.5 hours because they didn't take a lunch break, not the other way around like you say.

Lots of good points here. I actually do have a very comprehensive employee handbook they are all required to read and sign their first day. Strictly sticking to it I guess is my problem. The handbook actually states that they accrue vacation day every week, and they are only allowed to take an advance on their vacation time UP TO 8 hours in the negative. This guy I told you about is actually about -7 hours right now, so technically when July comes around, he'll only have like 2.5 hours to use. So I'm breaking the handbook rules right there by giving him the rest of his time. We didn't talk about it for very long, but I think his point was he wanted to go even deeper in the negative and he would make it up eventually. I just saw that as he wanted to draw from NEXT year's vacation time, and I'm not OK with that.

I do understand your points about benefits not really being a gift, as I could pay more in the hourly wages if I didn't offer benefits at all. It sure feels a lot more like a gift to me when they start asking for more. This whole employee thing is just a big game. I bet they would all vote to drop all benefits and increase their hourly wage if I gave them the option. But next time they took a day off and didn't get paid for it, they would be looking for employment elsewhere. Same amount of money for me in the long run, guess it's all about the perspective NOW to each employee.

HuFlungDung said:

I think it boils down to being prepared to pay the benefits when starting out. In actual fact, the employees earn their own benefits, and as a result, their hourly wage is lower because you have to tack on 30% in benefits. There is no gifting involved. If you are not prepared for this, and make the mistake of actually paying them all they earn (less their share of the real overhead), then you have a problem.

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Eggzachary...Ask the employee wanting more vacation "You can have as many vacation
days as you want, for every week extra vacation, I drop your hourly pay
by $2 to cover it, so how many do you want ?"

Econdron said:

It doesn't seem to matter how much I give them, they always feel like they're entitled to more.

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And that's your problem right there, you're trying to be too nice a guy. It is human nature to want more right after you were given something. You're not a charity.

Here's what you do -

Find out what other businesses like yours are doing for their employees and adjust yours to that norm. You can actually hire someone that will do that for you. I have always said that it is not good to pay someone too little but it is also not good for paying them too much. You need to get ahold of your shop and run it as a business. As it is now, you have the inmates running the asylum and you're the one letting them do it. Remember, if no one else is treating their employees any better then where will your people go if they consider leaving.

You are not their dad, brother, buddy, pal, friend, shipmate etc., you are a businessman and you need to put that first and they are your employees there to make you money. The only way you give them more is if they are measurably and consistently making you more.

BTW, don't pay them for lunch. I have never heard of anybody doing that. It's silly.

Well, that cuts both ways. They're not charities either. They want more, of course they want more. You want more. Everybody wants more. They want as much as they can get, you want to pay them as little as you can. They may be in your shop to make you money, but they don't exist to make you money. They aren't your Dad, buddy, friend,shipmate. They need to put themselves first, just like you do.

Ancient Wisdom:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?

regards,

Jon P.

Consider who and when this all started. During WWII, wage controls meant that business's couldn't offer more pay to come work for them. So they started offering "benefits", medical, dental and so on. Once started there was no going back. Now it's to the point that the government is requiring business's to offer medical insurance and other benies.

Business's are not social welfare organizations. They exit to benefit the owner(s). All this other is just fluff. If a business finds that to hire the kind of people they want that they have to offer all this other stuff, then so be it. Its a cost of doing business. But is should not be a requirement on the part of the business.

Period.

Tom

I've not seen a policy that employees stay clocked in during lunch before. From the employee's standpoint, they normally do 7.5 hours of work and get paid, say, $120. If they need to work through lunch, they're doing 8 hours of work for the same pay. I would consider upping their hourly rate and making lunch unpaid. This also would eliminate the (small) risk that one of your employees gets in an accident during lunch hour and you have deep pockets and he's on the clock.

As far as vacation time and other benefits, they're not gifts, they're part of the compensation package. If I'm deciding between two jobs that pay the same wage, but one has more vacation time, that's the better-paying job. You need to decide the best way to structure that compensation package so that X dollars of cost to you has the most value to your employees. For example, the 3 or 4% safe-harbor 401(k) match might cost you $2500 in cash; I would rather have the 401(k) match than the cash, but other people will have different priorities.

Same thing with vacation time, but that's easier to deal with if you have a flexible policy for unpaid time off (many companies don't like you taking unpaid time off). People are funny though and have loss aversion. You feel worse losing something you have than gaining the same thing.

Lastly, consider the effect of whatever decision you make on your overtime wage bill. If you pay someone $15 per hour with 2 week paid vacation, that's the same as paying them $15.60/hr and them taking 2 week unpaid vacation. But when you're paying them overtime, it's costing you an extra 90 cents an hour.

Ive never had a paid day off in my life. Either companies I worked for didnt offer them, or I was working for myself. Tell your employees if they are so desperate for extra money, you're going to start a second shift, and they can pick up extra hours. I routinely work 80+ hour weeks, and have done that for the last 16 years. A small company can't survive as a defacto day care center. You need driven, intelligent people working for you.

I will bet that the guys looking for more are same ones you wouldn't offer more because they are doing a great job. The ones you wouldn't miss if they walked.

Sounds like you are doing a pretty good job on what you offer them especially if you pay a decent wage. I would for sure like the perk of being able to use equipment for a project.

employees are socialists, owners are capitalists.

That's just the way of the world. Set the rules, you are the owner!

My reply to the employee's supplication for additional paid time off would be , "let me check how much time you have accrued" .

Ahh leave it to facts and numbers. ;-)