Paying spray techs?-Salary or hourly???

[loser135]

Just wondering about compensation packages for employees. Finally grown my business enough to keep two applicators for next year and am pondering how to pay them. Hourly wages now seem to produce slower results and a very relaxed pace and occasional milking the clock. I'm afraid that if we go with some sort of salary package, they'll just race through the lawns to get back to the shop faster. I guess I have to trust them but I am thinking about how to motivate them: Salary + bonus/incentive, etc. (?) Any thoughts would be greatly apprieciated. Thanks!

[turf hokie]

I am in the predicament of hiring my first full time spray tech in the spring and have seen the pains of both salary and hourly. I am considering an hourly with a performance bonus at the end of each month. I think some posts have been made along these lines in the past. I will have to look.

[Az Gardener]

Check your state regulations it may be illegal to pay someone salary for labor tasks. In Az it is, salaried employees must spend the majority of their time in a supervisory capacity and have at least 3 employees to supervise. I would suggest 10-99 them and lease them your equipment for use. Then they can also reap some tax benefits if they are inclined to do so. They would also be responsible for warranty work and your equipment. Would likely cost you a bit more but theoretically take some burden off you enabling you to sell more. Should also create some motivated employees. Check with your lawyer and CPA of course.

[Ric]

payup

Since these are out side employee, Straight Commission is the best way to pay them. Give them a route to build and back charge them any lost customers as well as a perk for selling new customers. Part of their responsibility should be accounting for materials and other costs. The best way to keep a good employee is to let them make money. The best way for a employee to keep his job, is to make money for the company.

[teeca]

i'm with ric!
pay them on commssion only, and in the winter you can either pay them a salary or lay them off. some people on here don't like the commision idea, because of the fear that they will fly thru the apps, this is true, however an employee that is making great money and wants to work, will soon learn after a few FREE service calls, it SUCKS not to get paid! you could also charge that employee back for the service call, though you would not be able to leagly take it out of his pay check.

as for the 10-99 of the employee.. that is a fine line. there are several things that need to happen. 1) you need to at the least lease him the equipment. 2) he will have to have his OWN liability insurance 3) he will also need his OWN commercial auto policy (VERY VERY EXPENSIVE) 4) have an employee that will want to do ALL this for YOU, after all if he has to do all this, he might as well go in business for himself. and even if you did all this if he breaks your equipment, he can still just quit and you will have to sue him.

[Ric]

i'm with ric!
pay them on commssion only, and in the winter you can either pay them a salary or lay them off. some people on here don't like the commision idea, because of the fear that they will fly thru the apps, this is true, however an employee that is making great money and wants to work, will soon learn after a few FREE service calls, it SUCKS not to get paid! you could also charge that employee back for the service call, though you would not be able to leagly take it out of his pay check.

as for the 10-99 of the employee.. that is a fine line. there are several things that need to happen. 1) you need to at the least lease him the equipment. 2) he will have to have his OWN liability insurance 3) he will also need his OWN commercial auto policy (VERY VERY EXPENSIVE) 4) have an employee that will want to do ALL this for YOU, after all if he has to do all this, he might as well go in business for himself. and even if you did all this if he breaks your equipment, he can still just quit and you will have to sue him.


teeca

Read my whole post about pay. I am basically saying Set them up like it was their business. Charge Backs, Expenses Etc Etc. But keep close records on them. Too easy to steal. Watch Chem Costs especially close. Some of the Big Boys actually have GPS tracking and Know where their trucks are every minute of the day. They will actually keep records from the GPS.

[teeca]

i just feel that if i went to work for a company and they wanted me to work for an avg. of $15hr, and i needed to do ALL that work and pay out ALL that money, i would do it myself. another question is how much is the company charging for an app to pay an employee that needs all this extra stuff? heck if you paid him $20hr that would not only f*** company, but the employee also. and if you leased him the equipment, he would have controled interest in that, so if he did other apps on the side and used his own products, what real recourse would you have? tell the judge that it's your equipment and you rent it to him? i guess i've heard a lot worse in court before (like not knowing that the coffee in the cup is HOT and will burn you)

[josh mcguire]

Paying com. only is a recipe for disaster. I kjnow that there are plenty of people out there who do it that way but when you pay like that the quality goes way down. The best way to pay is hourly w/ a bonus plan that takes into consideration production, customer service, customer retention, and new sales. If you wan't to suceed in this business and continue to grow that is what needs to be done. We did it that way for 25 years and never regreted it.

[teeca]

i spent 15 years in the auto business, 10 years as the service manager and 6 years in the lawn business and paying these LOADS by the hour is just plain wasted money. sure you will get the roadrunners, but you will have a better chance of finding a motivated person when there production directly effects their pay check. if you pay them by the hour, milking the clock starts and overtime kicks in and you start paying for 1.5 times their pay. if you do pay by the hour and offer bounes' whats the difference? they get 40 hrs pay rush thru jobs, get the bounes' + overtime. they could do this in 1 month before the service calls start comming in. truth is there is a way to BEAT any system that you put in. i used to have mechanics that did 'side jobs' every night at home when they were paid by the hour, put them on commission making $28 hr and heard them talking to people on the phone telling them to just bring it to him at work (he no longer did work at home, made more doing it at the shop then he was at home) and the shop went from a $75k per month to $85k + and just kept growing and i say it was because their attitude got MUCH better, and after 1yr i was pumping out over $120k per month. now i know they were'nt doing $10k a month at home, but their attitude made the differance. i guess the best answer is to find an individule with the same goals as you, and treat them like a part of your business, and not a liability or number and you can go far.

[josh mcguire]

Well I disagree but I guess it comes down to the quality of your personel and the quality of managment. When we sold to scotts we had close to 30,000 customers and almost 100 employes we paid them by the hour plus bonus and we ran close to 20% profit Before you listen to anyone out here find out who they are and what they know

[loser135]

WOW!!! Thanks for all the quick replies and great input. I'll try and digest it all. Some thoughts:

I'm not sure about the legalities of salary in my state but I know several of the "big boys" in Nashville have that system and it seems to work for them. Good idea to check and make sure it works for me.

I firured there were some other posts pertaining to this discussion but I wasn't sure what keywords to search by.

One extra factor for me to consider, I just spent some major $$$ on Lawn Assistant software and took the plunge even further with the mapping assistant/GPS. That option has a tremendous amount of uses but one in particular in regards to this discussion: The tracking feature allows me to track exactly where my trucks have been all day and makes me aware of 2 hour lunch breaks and cross town trips to see girlfriends by hourly workers. 1 or 2 "bust"s should put a stop to that. Considering that, the hourly + incentive route may work.

I am concerned that a salary will lead to a tremendous increase in daily production. Along with that, I invision an equally tremendous decrease in quality as my associates race though the yards to get back to the shop. Maybe I should trust them a little more but I believe the speed would drastically increase. How much the quality would actually decrease, I can't say. Not willing to risk it though.

I do plan to be consitent on the following rounds to provide some accountabilty/responsibility. Also hoping that will generate a little competition for the least amount of problems. I totally agree that the best way for the employees to make more $$$ is to generate more $$$ for the company but getting them to understand that is a little tough.

Thanks again for all you thoughts & input. Keep talking!!!
Thanks!

[teeca]

i would just like to add that i spent 2 seasons with SCOTTS lawn service and that is were i found ALL the loads in the lawn care industrie (and they had a great pay system, you got paid awsome! salary+retension+company retension+new sales. i avg. $600wk take home in the summer). i can imagine that true-green has just as many + more (loads) since their daily quotas were twice that of scotts. i took another job after that (private company) and found that the guy i replaced was just as bad, but he was able to hide the fact that he was worthless (and they thought this guy was a GOD). this guy used to drive the truck along the sidewalks and spray lawns w/ the JD9 gun!! found this out from a customer that told me i was working to hard spraying their property the correct way. so what ever you decide, just remember that no matter how you comensate, their are lossers everywere!

[SodKing]

My last job I worked for someone I did very well. I was hourly with a 2% weekly production bonus and a 5% sales bonus. Usually my weekly bonus check was worth more than my hourly rate check. I started for them right out of college and within 3 months I was the highest paid applicator. My production wasn't high but I could sell the product very well in a rapidly expanding market. I was given a smaller route so I could concentrate on sales.

The combination of hourly and commission was, and is, a good combination. It keeps employees productive and gives them a bonus for increasing sales. Giving raises is also easy, just increase their %bonus'.

[somo1]

The one thing to consider is that you want to keep them employed during the winter. No matter how much they make during the busy season they won't save a dime to survive during the off season. Putting them on unemployment shouldn't be an option, once you've trained someone and their worth keeping the last thing you want is to put them on unemployment and let them find a job somewhere else. I pay a flat hourly rate plus bonuses, this teaches them that during the busy season the more they sell or produce the more $$ they make. And during the off season they will still be imployed.

[josh mcguire]

I agree 100 percent we kept all of our employees on year round the only way to survive and keep customer service up is to keep qualified employees on the payrol

[BurnzY]

Hey guys, new here, but I have to say, we have several large companies in the chemical lawn care business and there is a base salary of $500-525 with commision of 4-7 % upto your weekly monetary goal and then 8-10 % over your goal, I myself make $600 salary , 3% comm upto $4000 weekly and 10% over that, basically we make w/ comm over a grand a week for a 35-40 hour week.

[naughty62]

:p Get rid of dead weight,theres nothing like taking up the slackfor a couple a half-#%*@d guys.Do not hire your cousin, brother,two sisters and your kids freinds. If you can not afford a Insurance program , lookin into progams or options that will offer them coverage. A cheap program with outragous deductables is better than none.a young guy with 3 kids and stay home wife many times can qualify for state progams .Make the options available.I am less likely to fall in a hole and play your comp. ins.like a cheap pawn shop guitar.Sales and production bonuses are good . a crisp C note in my front pocket after a bust tail project has been completed is good.do not cut my over time because of new federal and state small business laws.Give me a delegated area of responsiblity that I can deem as my own.good safe equipment is nice.Atta boys are nice but I will take my praise in cash.(just my $.02 worth)

[Absolute Weed C]

Ok,,, not to sound cold hearted but, Our business is seasonal, pay a employee by the hour,, if he turns out to be worth his salt, then lay him off being job attached. This way he can siphon off your company's unemployment for the winter. Its really like being on salary anyway LOL... I have found salary employees slow down thier production because they know they get the same amount whether it takes 5 min or 1 hour to do the job. I always give my guys a healthy Xmas bonus so they tend to work thier buts off. Just my thoughts on the subject

[teeca]

laying a good employee off is not a good idea, it just gives him the oppertunity to find a job that doesn't lay off in the winter. i think that you will find that the laying off in the winter is going out the door, because employers have found that training a new employee is, in most cases more time consuming and cost more then just paying him year'round. (this opinion is for a trained and efficent lawn tech, not a lawn mower jocky. this could also go for a good landscape installer/maintence person) the larger companies will suck your people away from you, and not just the truegreen/scotts etc. i'm talking about a full service property maintence company.

[lawnservice]

Federal Labor Standards Act/

Regulation of U.S. Dept. of Labor [29CFR 778.114] entitled "Fixed Salary For Fluctuating Hours"


a MUST read for ALL employers. knowing this rule will help you to pay your employees fairly, legally and be able to keep them employed all year without breaking the bank