Employee Retention and new applicants

[TimToad]

Sure, there are always extenuating circumstances and outliers, but Walmart is an objectively bad company to work for. They prioritize upper management and shareholders over the vast majority of their workforce, who can go suck an egg for the most part. They treat their employees like an expendable resource, so the employees they DO get are pretty terrible, because they have no incentive to care. "The company pays me squat, they don't give me enough hours to qualify for benefits, they treat me like garbage, and I'm likely to get canned at any moment for the dumbest reasons. Guess I'll just do the bare minimum, not stick my neck out, and stay out of sight." Not the type of employee you want to have.

Meanwhile, go to some place like Costco or Aldi and the employees there are (generally) pretty stellar in comparison to other stores.

I definitely get what you're saying, and Walmart is vastly different than any sign company out there (or any other type of company, for that matter) due to the sheer size, but the point still stands. If you treat your employees more like a Costco than a Walmart, you're going to have better employees in the long run. AND you'll get a reputation for being a good employer and people will actively seek out employment with you.

Excellent real world comparison. Let's also not forget the strategic community destroying approach to how WalMart chooses where to locate, works over the local government to receive favorable tax abatements, undercuts the pricing in order to starve the nearby small, local business community, hammers its vendors on their wholesale prices, etc.

 

[TimToad]

I worked for a company once that took a serious dip during the last recession. The verge of going out of business type dip. The owner of the company paid employees out of his personal bank account for a time, until things got better. He didn't just take less money from the company, he actually used his own personal finances to make sure that his employees got paid. My understanding is that nobody knew about it until much later (this was all before my time there), so it's entirely possible the employees at ikarasu's company had no idea how bad business was.

Even with all that generosity, the company still wasn't a great place to work (at least for me, a lot of people seemed to like it there), I ended up leaving after a while.

Another excellent point.

Most owners, ourselves included don't share every financial detail about the company with the entire staff. We're trying to project confidence and stability in order to keep the place one that people WANT to stay at. Revealing hard times, or difficulties can create a horrible fear factor. We have favorable terms and accounts with all of our primary suppliers, a great relationship with our credit union and like the old deodorant commercial "Never let 'em see you sweat". On payday, its just another work day and unlike many places I've worked at where it was always a nervous day, or we were too frequently asked to hold off on cashing our checks, or checks would be postdated by a few days to float things a little, our employees KNOW that they could leave here on any payday, go to our credit union and cash their check with no doubts.

 

[ColorCrest]

Most owners, ourselves included don't share every financial detail about the company with the entire staff.

Has anyone recently shared a chart such as this with their employees or seen a similar chart as an employee? It used to be fairly common many years ago especially when communicating profit sharing plans.

 

[ikarasu]

Our company does proffit sharing. We don't see a chart though. They are open to how much they make - we get to see all the invoices as we handle orders, etc. They don't directly say we made xx profit this year... But they're open enough to tell you how much they make on every job, etc. I'm sure if you asked they'd tell you. No fancy graphs though!

 

[TimToad]

Has anyone recently shared a chart such as this with their employees or seen a similar chart as an employee? It used to be fairly common many years ago especially when communicating profit sharing plans.

I think that generalized pie chart is a bit different than opening up the quarterly profit and loss statements and giving everyone a copy. Which is what I meant.

You made me think of a former employer though. This is a husband and wife graphic design/landscape design firm with about 25 employees in one of the bigger cities in the Pacific Northwest where i lived for 15 years. I lasted about 1.5 years and absolutely loved the job and co-workers, but hated the owners like most did. They were the cheapest, tightest, most critical of others, but very lax about their own shortcomings of anyone I've ever worked for.

They would take lavish vacations, lived in an unbelievable home, lived a very conspicuously affluent lifestyle, but fought every COLA, every benefit, etc. It was like pulling teeth to get a raise out of them and we did some very high profile, award winning design projects with six figure budgets.

They devised this private pension plan that had the most complex and long vesting period I've ever seen. They knew a certain number of employees would grow weary of their routine and leave before being vested and all that cash would go back into the pool for them and the long term employees.

My wife owned her own restaurant at the time and they asked her to produce a couple veggie and appetizer trays for our annual picnic. She of course brought these huge platters and really outdid herself. The next week at work, other employees told me about them wrapping up all the leftovers from the platters and picnic and serving them to other friends the next day at their house. So a few weeks go by and my wife gets me to ask the office manager about the invoice for the platter, which was way under what she would or should have charged strangers. The same day, a thank you card for the nice "gift" to the picnic arrived in our mailbox. It was cheeky stuff like that all the time. That same picnic, they arrived in a fully restored, classic Mercedes Benz convertible and bragged it up the entire time. This was the same week they denied my co-worker a COLA for the tenth straight year.

They would make slide shows of these outrageously expensive vacations and then make all of us sit through watching them on our lunch breaks, instead of leaving the building to wipe the stink of them off of us.

The moral of the story is that everybody who owns their own business deserves a return on investment and to make a good, reasonable profit without cheating anyone, but watch how the optics over how much you enjoy that profit at the expense of the employees.

 

[ColorCrest]

To entertain the OP's plethora of questions…

So what does your company do to keep your best employees?

When an employee understands and believes they’re being paid fairly and treated fairly and feel their job is secure, all should be well. When they have the opportunity to see where the money goes, such as during a profit sharing meeting or announcement, it will provide them perspective of where they stand.

Are there incentives you have come up with, bonuses, extra paid days off in addition to raises?

Profit sharing.

Is it always just about the money for them?

Of course not, so do yourself a favor and learn what those issues are and do your best to address them.

We seem over and over to have a hard time keep certain positions filled ( installer, painter) these people seem flighty moody and the ones that have the easiest time just walking away. then to later find out they just left due to the money, and maybe less effort needed at the new job.

Your expectations are too high (too long) of these positions for most people working for someone other than themselves.

While others stay ( plastic dept., fabricators, designers-Art dept.) but we maybe hear the whispers of I haven't had a raise in so so amount of time, but never said directly to us.

Because it wasn’t on your calendar, you apparently have missed providing them their expected performance review.

Grudges held when new equipment or other items are purchased, to help control inventory or expand our install capabilities.

You haven’t communicated and proven the benefit of those expenditures to the company at large.

How long do you go between raises?

1 year because the company shows growth.

There does get to be a point where you have almost capped out an employees pay and wont be able to sell that in the next sign, or am I wrong in my thinking there?

Yes, you are wrong in your thinking.

And what is with some of the new crowd applying?? You mention a Drivers license IS required for an installer and they don't have one and apply. Need electrical experience, worked at BK , GED , and has never done anything requiring effort, applies for installer. Has had 11 jobs in 8 years.... what makes me think you will stay in the job I give you?

Burger King and the general education system has a different definition of “effort” than you.

*sigh* I just don't get it

It will come to you.

 

[AKwrapguy]

So what does your company do to keep your best employees? Are there incentives you have come up with, bonuses, extra paid days off in addition to raises? Is it always just about the money for them?

We seem over and over to have a hard time keep certain positions filled ( installer, painter) these people seem flighty moody and the ones that have the easiest time just walking away. then to later find out they just left due to the money, and maybe less effort needed at the new job.

While others stay ( plastic dept., fabricators, designers-Art dept.) but we maybe hear the whispers of I haven't had a raise in so so amount of time, but never said directly to us.

Grudges held when new equipment or other items are purchased, to help control inventory or expand our install capabilities.

How long do you go between raises? There does get to be a point where you have almost capped out an employees pay and wont be able to sell that in the next sign, or am I wrong in my thinking there?


And what is with some of the new crowd applying?? You mention a Drivers license IS required for an installer and they don't have one and apply.

Need electrical experience, worked at BK , GED , and has never done anything requiring effort, applies for installer.

Has had 11 jobs in 8 years.... what makes me think you will stay in the job I give you?


*sigh* I just don't get it

Not sure if you posted it on here or not of if anyone else has asked but, how big is you shop, what is your main focus in business? Whats you biggest profit center? Since you seem to be concerned about Installers/Painters, do you think that there is something in those departments that might be lacking/missing? Has it always been that way or is this a recent issue?

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

It is very relevant. Motivation is always something people should be aware of because it affects things down the road and how you should plan for it. If you get too snowed and think that Costco cares so much about you because they are just good people than you may never see the layoffs coming or a massive shift in corporate philosophy with a new board. It happens all of the time.

Outside of career employees, the vast majority of retail employees aren't going to care. Retail generally has an incredibly high turnover. Most employees care about when they're getting paid and how much. Not saying it's right, that's just the way it is, mostly because of the fact that retail companies generally don't try to hard to retain employees.

I don't disagree with you, for the record. It should matter, but it doesn't.

 

[TaraW]

Not sure if you posted it on here or not of if anyone else has asked but, how big is you shop, what is your main focus in business? Whats you biggest profit center? Since you seem to be concerned about Installers/Painters, do you think that there is something in those departments that might be lacking/missing? Has it always been that way or is this a recent issue?

At this moment we have 19 employees total, to include front office, shop, Art dept. and outside crew. And that is about our normal average. Our main focus is and has always been our custom/local sign work. The biggest profit center is service/repair work, but that can be slow this time of year. Daylight savings time hits and we are swamped with service calls!

Installers and painters like I said earlier are always kind of flighty, they are either happy or just not.

Painters its not always a money thing like with installers they can be a peculiar breed, in that they like the solitude, they are very VERY detail oriented, and just like things the way they like it, and that's that. But they can also get to a point where either they get bored or something little will set them off and they are gone.

Installers on the other hand, a good one, can get very money hungry and be very arrogant about the skills they have. If company a will pay him $16 an hr and company b will pay $17 an hr they tend to jump ship., and sometimes for a way smaller pay gap than that. I think at times its a burn out too, they just get tired of the job. There's really not much movement in a position like that. I mean other than pay where do you go? Its not like an office position, I mean like me for example, I started as a front desk secretary, then moved into helping one of the project managers, then became a project manager, now I'm shop foreman (I wear way more hats than that but that's another story).

So I guess the overall answer is, it has always been that way.

 

[AKwrapguy]

At this moment we have 19 employees total, to include front office, shop, Art dept. and outside crew. And that is about our normal average. Our main focus is and has always been our custom/local sign work. The biggest profit center is service/repair work, but that can be slow this time of year. Daylight savings time hits and we are swamped with service calls!

Installers and painters like I said earlier are always kind of flighty, they are either happy or just not.

Painters its not always a money thing like with installers they can be a peculiar breed, in that they like the solitude, they are very VERY detail oriented, and just like things the way they like it, and that's that. But they can also get to a point where either they get bored or something little will set them off and they are gone.

Installers on the other hand, a good one, can get very money hungry and be very arrogant about the skills they have. If company a will pay him $16 an hr and company b will pay $17 an hr they tend to jump ship., and sometimes for a way smaller pay gap than that. I think at times its a burn out too, they just get tired of the job. There's really not much movement in a position like that. I mean other than pay where do you go? Its not like an office position, I mean like me for example, I started as a front desk secretary, then moved into helping one of the project managers, then became a project manager, now I'm shop foreman (I wear way more hats than that but that's another story).

So I guess the overall answer is, it has always been that way.

So no upward mobility, pay caps, and stagnate working conditions for installers.....Ya I can see why they would leave don't you?

 

[TaraW]

So no upward mobility, pay caps, and stagnate working conditions for installers.....Ya I can see why they would leave don't you?

I never said there was a pay cap, I was giving an example of pay. As for upward mobility, where would you see an installer move up to?? Not trying to seem bitchy about it, but if that's what you are hired as that's the job you do. Not to say they never do anything else, they do also work in the shop when needed if our install/service schedule is low and we have also sent them to classes to become certified service techs for some of the LED message center manufacturers. But when you apply for an installer / service tech isn't that what you plan on doing as your job?

And how does being an installer at one company and going to another company doing the exact same job change the job/working conditions?

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

I never said there was a pay cap, I was giving an example of pay. As for upward mobility, where would you see an installer move up to?? Not trying to seem *****y about it, but if that's what you are hired as that's the job you do. Not to say they never do anything else, they do also work in the shop when needed if our install/service schedule is low and we have also sent them to classes to become certified service techs for some of the LED message center manufacturers. But when you apply for an installer / service tech isn't that what you plan on doing as your job?

And how does being an installer at one company and going to another company doing the exact same job change the job/working conditions?

You're not wrong. Unless you're expanding your skill set while you're installing (which is kind of hard when you're never in the shop) there really isn't anywhere else to go. Lead installer/installation supervisor/installation manager or QC is just about the only places I can see an installer moving to. Most installers (at least the ones that enjoy it and aren't just doing it for money alone) also like to work with their hands (at least a little), and being stuck behind a computer and not actually producing anything might not be ideal for a lot of them.

 

[Bigdawg]

I don't think you're being *****y about it, but if you have a job with no chance of personal improvement, there is incentive to look elsewhere. Yes, an installer should expect to install. But. You mentioned people don't come to you for a raise, but you hear rumours that they are looking for one. That alone should let you know that people aren't feeling appreciated for what they are doing. If there isn't a path to improve your position (financially or otherwise) within the company, and that company doesn't seem inclined to give raises, the environment is ripe for employees to wonder if this is their "life job" or just another stepping stone in finding a better job. I've worked making less than I was worth or could have earned elsewhere simply because I knew there was room to grow and I liked the environment.

I suspect some of your company's issues are the way you view your installers. Reread your posts and how you describe them. It kind of sounds like they are the red-headed stepchildren that are only a necessary evil to get the work done. If that is how they are feeling, you will continue to have high turn-around. Because a new company provides a new environment - even if the pay is the same - would be enough reason for some to leave.

Just a thought.

 

[AKwrapguy]

I never said there was a pay cap, I was giving an example of pay. As for upward mobility, where would you see an installer move up to?? Not trying to seem *****y about it, but if that's what you are hired as that's the job you do. Not to say they never do anything else, they do also work in the shop when needed if our install/service schedule is low and we have also sent them to classes to become certified service techs for some of the LED message center manufacturers. But when you apply for an installer / service tech isn't that what you plan on doing as your job?

And how does being an installer at one company and going to another company doing the exact same job change the job/working conditions?

I would see an installer moving into design, sales, estimator, etc.. depending on what services you offer. What if you asked them if there was anything other position they were interested in? You have an open conversation with your employees about your expectations, their expectations, about the working conditions, what you guys might be missing, etc..

 

[henryp]

“Workers work hard enough to not be fired, and owners pay just enough so that workers won't quit.”

― Robert T. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad

 

[equippaint]

I would see an installer moving into design, sales, estimator, etc.. depending on what services you offer. What if you asked them if there was anything other position they were interested in? You have an open conversation with your employees about your expectations, their expectations, about the working conditions, what you guys might be missing, etc..

I dont really see going from installer to another position as being much more than a lateral move. Theres a certain amount of freedom that you're giving up too. Not to mention a lot of stress and pressure in estimating and sales positions.
There's typically not a bunch of upward mobility in most blue collar jobs, especially working in a small business.

 

[equippaint]

Installers and painters like I said earlier are always kind of flighty, they are either happy or just not.

Painters its not always a money thing like with installers they can be a peculiar breed, in that they like the solitude, they are very VERY detail oriented, and just like things the way they like it, and that's that. But they can also get to a point where either they get bored or something little will set them off and they are gone.

I've found it's not just limited to painters. Highly skilled and experienced tradesman often develop unique personalities and are not always content with status quo. Id venture to say that part stems from the frustration of working with people under their skill level and part from hitting a plateau in their skills and career. Once you master a trade and lose the challenge with it, then its just a job.

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

I've found it's not just limited to painters. Highly skilled and experienced tradesman often develop unique personalities and are not always content with status quo. Id venture to say that part stems from the frustration of working with people under their skill level and part from hitting a plateau in their skills and career. Once you master a trade and lose the challenge with it, then its just a job.

This is actually a pretty astute observation. I know several master tradesmen, most of whom either don't enjoy what they do anymore, or have moved on to other trades. I know a master plumber on his way to becoming a master electrician because plumbing got to be "too much like work". Haha!

 

[ikarasu]

I never said there was a pay cap, I was giving an example of pay. As for upward mobility, where would you see an installer move up to?? Not trying to seem *****y about it, but if that's what you are hired as that's the job you do. Not to say they never do anything else, they do also work in the shop when needed if our install/service schedule is low and we have also sent them to classes to become certified service techs for some of the LED message center manufacturers. But when you apply for an installer / service tech isn't that what you plan on doing as your job?

And how does being an installer at one company and going to another company doing the exact same job change the job/working conditions?

I love to do vehicle wraps. Some people hate bumpers and figuring out the best way to inset in places too deep to wrap, but I enjoy it.

I've done a total of zero full wraps for the company I work for. I've done plenty of bumpers, hoods, mirrors... Pretty much every piece individually, but our clientele never does a full color change... Its usually advertisements and partials, or stuff like cut vinyl.

Ive done a few full wraps for friends... But if I'm being honest, I'd rather do full wraps everyday than advertisements for companies I don't care about.... An install is an install, but I'd rather do something cool than paste advertisements everywhere.

I can move onto another company that specializes in color changes... And I'd be doing it for the right reasons, not just for money .But I enjoy other parts about this job, so I don't.

Just pointing out there are reasons for a new job, not just money... Even if you think installing is just installing.

Some people want something different... Whether it's different types of installs, or just a different atmosphere.

And another example... I started off as an installer... Now I run the whole digital department. I went from putting on the end product... To designing, printing/laminating cutting, and then putting on the whole product.

Another example is I started in a warehouse when I was 20. A year later became a lead hand... 3 years later became a manager .Couple years later I left for a completely different field because I wasn't enjoying it.

Point is... Theres always a ladder to climb, whether it's within your company, or a new company.