paying for lunch

[dmk395]

Do you keep your employees on the clock through lunch or do you take them off the clock. I keep paying them, but its definately not cheap, although my employees are happy. What does everyone else do?

[AndrewLawn]

hey,I don't have employees,so I really don't need to worry about that too much:) Can I ask you a question though?Why don't you just pay your employees a flat salary.Say "hey,mow these 10 lawns and I'll give you a hundred bucks"...rather than saying "hey,mow these 10 lawns and I'll give you 12 bucks and hour,and you can goof off the whole time".In other words,my question is how do you keep your employees from goofing off and costing you money?Anyone else is welcome to add any input that you feel is necessary.Also,anyone who has done it both ways(salary and hourly)which way works better?There's pros and cons to both of them.

[lawnboy82]

way i do it is i expect 8+ hrs of work from them. so if we take a 1/2 hr lunch break then the hours would be from 9 am until 5:30 pm which is a normal day. however for us lunch is normally about 10 - 15 minutes.

[lawnboykb]

If you like your guys and they are working hard then pay for the lunch.....just make sure that you factor it in to your daily costs.
Nothing like happy employees

[kris]

1/2 hour lunch break ...no pay

[Ssouth]

We normally eat in between stops. If we do stop for lunch I normally pay and keep my one employee on the clock. Just having one employee this doesn't cost me very much. If I had several employees I believe they would get 30 mins off the clock and each would be responsible for his/her own lunch.

[Southern Lawns]

a 1/2 hour without pay, I take it off at the end of the days hours. If it's a longer lunch it's because I have calls to make or people to stop and see and to make it simple they go back on the clock after 30 minutes regardless.

[smburgess]

30 minutes off th clock. I've never ever had a new employee be surprised that they're off the clock for lunch.

[eggy]

I pay for the lunch break and sometimes lunch itself, we only take a half hour so hey no biggy to me,just get the recipt! its worth it to make them happy and feel appreciated!