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Tiered Pay Structures - what works what doesn't

It's federally illegal to fire someone for discussing their wages. Just an FYI.
Wrong, although a very bad idea IMO it is most certainly legal in Michigan.
Dad did it more than once and the high paid lawyers approved it.
One tried to sue. It went nowhere.
Perhaps others have had different real life experiences in the court system and not just reading things on the net.

Myself I see no need to hide mine or any employees wages from all those on the team but Dad was different.
People will always talk. Someone in the front office sees every single check written.
There are no secrets and I have no understanding of why to try.

If a shop owner do your employees know what you make per year? If not, why?
Bob
 
Yearly bonuses.
.

not this guy. never going there, think its bad business. its too detached, both as an incentive to join and as reward for something and it becomes an expectation rather than a reward which is the intended purpose.

Everyone here is on a 3 month trial, its statute. My point was if you've made a mistake in putting someone in the top tier, pull off the bandaid quickly. Its a downside of the tier thing vs starting everyone at bottom or middle and letting them earn their way up....but that way doesn't work to the get A listers

You can come up with other incentives ...

Can you? I'm all ears. These guys, well, people in general, respond to financial incentives/sanctions. imo the hourly worker is a lot more mobile and acts as such, underscoring this. The basis of management is you get the behaviour you measure and reward....and while "employee of the month" stuff has a role, its a bit of fluff compared to cold hard cash every two weeks.

Skills, productivity and versatility (as I will define the context of each) are measurable. I just thought there needed to a subjective aspect to it as well. Is the culture/team better for having this person around or not?

I don't mean to sound like I'm arguing, just trying to explain my ideas and discuss it...I'm really not sure the best route hence the thread
 
So they can't fire you for discussing wages. But they can fire you because "It's just not working out" as long as they don't mention to you that the "not working out" part is you discussing wages.

imo it would be impossible to stop, but its also a moot point. If it was such a buyers market that I could afford get rid of good talent over a coffee break conversation, well, I wouldn't have any of the current concerns. But its not a buyers market and I don't have a line of high quality skilled labour out to the sidewalk.

There's also doing whats right and how the rest of team reacts to a firing. I hardly fire by consensus, but I would say there is usually a strong level of support because they think the guy deserves it and are frustrated by that - whether its quality of work, attendance, productivity or off side behaviour. We also make some effort to correct things before there's a firing. Start firing for what they see as a triviality or something that is legal and you will develop a lot of resentment, productivity will go down, level of caring about the place/their job will go down, best guys (most mobile) will start leaving etc.
 
I don't know about the tiers... I think it's some hokey BS, but... Couple jobs ago they had that, Engineer 1-2-3-4, etc.

I did want to comment about discussing wages. Just stupid, don't you learn that in your first year at ANY job?? :o I am pretty sure I am the top paid guy on "the floor" at my job being the programmer/lead guy, but I would never say what I make to the other guys, and I am never going to ask them what they make. Far as I am concerned, we all made out own bargains for wages so it is what it is. Sure, I would probably be butt-hurt if I found out someone was making more than me (and vice-versa), so that's why you don't discuss it...
 
One of the best setups I ever saw, was called "employee ownership". Nothing will motivate a guy better than that. Where the company is majority employee owned, and everybody gets stock in it as part of their pay. Usually just goes right into the retirement.
 
I don't know about the tiers... I think it's some hokey BS, but... Couple jobs ago they had that, Engineer 1-2-3-4, etc.

I did want to comment about discussing wages. Just stupid, don't you learn that in your first year at ANY job?? :o I am pretty sure I am the top paid guy on "the floor" at my job being the programmer/lead guy, but I would never say what I make to the other guys, and I am never going to ask them what they make. Far as I am concerned, we all made out own bargains for wages so it is what it is. Sure, I would probably be butt-hurt if I found out someone was making more than me (and vice-versa), so that's why you don't discuss it...

On top of that there are a lot of guys who flat out aren't honest about their own abilities, got into that mess many a time at the place I worked with that had the tiered system. Due to a lot of union like baloney with seniority and bumping people during lay-offs, everyone had to know where the other guy was ranked. You could actually bump someone that was in a different department, most people didn't bump into the high skilled departments as you were given a year to get up to speed, or busted down. I am getting flashbacks of working for a large company, which I never liked.
 
McGyver said:
Can you? I'm all ears. These guys, well, people in general, respond to financial incentives/sanctions. imo the hourly worker is a lot more mobile and acts as such, underscoring this.

Sure, I get lots of incentives that aren't just a lump of money (though they all cost money)... Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my yearly bonus, but I am one of the few who appreciates it as a BONUS, and NOT something that is expected. This past year, due to COVID hitting people hard, they gave us half of our bonus early, just to help with things.

Incentives that I get that aren't a bonus:

Gym membership paid (or I can use the corporate gym, which is world class, state of the art, and includes things like BJJ classes, a smoothie bar, etc, but it's about a 40 minute drive from me, so I let them pay for a gym closer to me).

Lunch every day (I know this isn't super practical for a small shop, but maybe lunch on Fridays, or keep some snacks and sodas around for when the guys skip breakfast?).

Fresh coffee available at all times, 6 days a week (no custodians here on Sundays to brew it, but you can make your own if you like). Air Conditioning (I'd never work in a shop without it).

A bit of flexibility in my schedule... Got a doctor's appointment in the morning? No worries, come in an hour late, leave an hour late (I also get that this isn't always practical for a smaller shop without a lot of coverage, but it goes a LONG way to increasing employee happiness/productivity, IMO)

2 paid 15 minute breaks to go for a quick walk (we're a project Blue Zones heart healthy workplace, so we're encouraged to do some quick cardio on our breaks)... I don't take both breaks every day... Heck, some days I don't take any... But knowing that they're there, and it's ok if I just walk away for 10 minutes to breathe is good for the mental health.

Every summer they put on an event for employees and the family. We're big, so they go crazy, rent out a private beach and provide catering, water toys (hobie cats, rafts, floats, etc), and a bucket of sand toys for the kids.... But it doesn't have to be crazy.. Have a BBQ at the shop and let everyone bring their kids in and show them what they do when they leave the family for 8-10hrs a day. Make up some tops or fidget spinners to pass out to the kids. Maybe give everyone a shop branded hat or t-shirt. It doesn't have to be excessive to show appreciation. Maybe hand every employee an envelope with a crisp Benjamin in it while they're there.

If you get any company discounts at your local tooling vendor or shop supply place, pass that down to the employees... I bet most of 'em do some wrenching or machining in their spare time, let them buy tools and supplies through you at cost. I get to use the company discount for rental cars and personal travel if I so choose. Heck, I can book personal trips through the company travel agency.

Give 'em a work boot allowance, maybe $200 every 2 years? I've got a pair of Red Wings the company bought me when I was an apprentice, haven't needed to replace them in 8ish years. Give 'em a safety glasses allowance while you're at it. I get $200 every 2 years to get new prescription safety glasses if I need to. So far I've only had to buy 1 pair in 10 years.

If you're in an area where there's restaurants and such around, and your guys go out for their lunch break, speak to the management of the restaurants and see if you can wrangle a 10% discount for your guys, it never hurts to ask. I get 10-25% discounts at all SORTS of places just by showing my badge. They like getting the extra business. Heck, the golf course near us gives us $20 rounds in the summer time, because they're hurting for business (all the snow birds go back North in the summer)... They still charge $50-80 for a tee time to everyone else, but they get tons of extra business from us at that $20 price, and we all go buy their overpriced beers and hot dogs, so it's a win for everyone.

Chip in toward health insurance or a 401k, these are intangibles that most people forget about, but they mean A LOT to the average employee like me. If you can't afford insurance, look into what it would cost you as an employer to have an HSA/FSA for the guys. A quick google says it costs you $5 per employee to outsource an FSA, but you avoid the 7.5% payroll tax on anything the guys put into their FSA, so it might be a net win for the employer, and I bet the employees would appreciate it.

Just some ideas of things that I enjoy at my current employer that aren't just "throw more money at me".
 
McGuyver made some good points: there should be subjective criteria to go along with the objective. OTOH, business owners too easily fall into the trap of assuming their employees are as invested in the business as they are. Most are not, it's just a job, very transactional. Transactional guys can be brought around, but it takes a lot of transparency and honesty on the part of the owner, and too often it's in short supply.
 
I don't know about the tiers... I think it's some hokey BS, but... Couple jobs ago they had that, Engineer 1-2-3-4, etc.

I did want to comment about discussing wages. Just stupid, don't you learn that in your first year at ANY job?? :o I am pretty sure I am the top paid guy on "the floor" at my job being the programmer/lead guy, but I would never say what I make to the other guys, and I am never going to ask them what they make. Far as I am concerned, we all made out own bargains for wages so it is what it is. Sure, I would probably be butt-hurt if I found out someone was making more than me (and vice-versa), so that's why you don't discuss it...

Nope. Every job I had before my career, was at exactly the same hourly wage as the rest of the folks working there.
When I Joined the Military, my job was part of the public record, and if you wanted, you can still look up what I made when I got out of Basic Training, in 1983. You can look up what I made when I was retired out in 2012, and have a pretty good idea what my pension looks like, if you care to.
What you won't see, is what I put aside for my own needs as retirement savings, or what I earned in several home sales, and that like. Though, if you know the right realtor, and chase my info down, you can see what I bought and sold for at each place, in the records.

I worked for and with a couple folks who excelled at selling themselves to upper management. Best thing about them, was that their promotions came with postings away, as they were, collectively, some of the most frikken toxic pricks I have ever had to work with or around.

YMMV, but I've never seen it as a good thing, that you have a group of guys expected to do essentially the same set of skills at the same schedule, and you see the need to pay each one differently based on ethereal 'feel good' or otherwise indefinable characteristics.

As one of the old farts liked to say, when he started out, his chance of promotion, was based on Time In, and Favoritism. Then they got rid of the Time In component!
 
I worked and managed for many years in a company that had an incentive pay structure based on five factors - quality, productivity, safety, dependability and ideas & cooperation. Future pay increases were based on the scores received.

It worked very well when managers were impartial and graded people with a set of clear and transparent metrics. The trust is broken the second a manager introduces bias to favor a friend or disadvantage someone they dislike. You either need to grade everyone yourself or be willing to hold your managers absolutely accountable for the integrity of their measurements. Communication of the scores and the measurements behind them must be crystal clear.

Categories like “attitude” are too subjective to measure well and too emotionally charged to communicate easily.

After 30 years of managing, I came to place value on only three things:

#1 Product knowledge
#2 Customer knowledge and intimacy
#3 Operational knowledge

People who were not competent, could not play well together or refused to work hard simply had to leave.
 
Workin' Stiff is on temporary vacation for a while.

I deleted a similar comment from someone a week ago.
It very well may have been from this guy, IDK.

I Shirley don't see how that was warranted?


--------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox
 
Workin' Stiff is on temporary vacation for a while.

I deleted a similar comment from someone a week ago.
It very well may have been from this guy, IDK.

I Shirley don't see how that was warranted?


--------------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

I think it was the same guy. Prompt response from the PM team, I never saw either post except quotes of it. Made me wonder if I had him on ignore even though I haven't ever used the feature.

Pro-tip: don't quote crap like that.
 
I think it was the same guy. Prompt response from the PM team, I never saw either post except quotes of it. Made me wonder if I had him on ignore even though I haven't ever used the feature.

Pro-tip: don't quote crap like that.

If you don't quote it, the poster can alter or remove it and make the person reporting it look like the nuisance.
 








 
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