Employee Retention and new applicants

[TimToad]

My workplace is a mess. I get complaints from the owners passed onto my boss a couple times a year. I tell them I run the flatbed, roll to roll, while also running cutter/weeding/laminating all day... I barelly have a minute to sit. Whenever I do have a break... I clean and this place is spotless. They tell me to take an hour every Friday and clean... Then every single Friday, without hesitation... I get told This this and this has to go out. I've learned to tell them "I can do that, but it means no cleaning for the whole week.. again. The place is a mess, I know you understand, but I don't want the owners to think it's a pigstye.

The owners actually commented to me once about how it looked... I just looked at them, showed them my stack of 50+ signs needing to go to shipping that I didnt even have time to do... showed them how flatbed + printer + laminator + cutter were all 4 being ran, and I was jumping from station to station, they laughed and said they know, and they were joking. I think they understand it gets hectic.. hopefully!

So.. if theyre standing around doing nothing, I can see you being upset about the cleanliness. Sometimes we have no choice though! I hate it being like this as much as you guys do. I just did about 15 8 FT banners by myself... printing, cutting, heming, wind slitting, grometting, all while printing about 200 signs on the flatbed, and doing 5-6 roll to roll/cutting jobs that had to be done today. Theres double sided tape paper everywhere, pieces of banner all over... I want to pull my hair out just thinking about cleaning it. Everytime I get a 5 minute break I do what I can, but some days theres just too much work! I can't wait until they finally hire someone else to split my duties so I get a chance to clean.

In the winter when it's slower... It's spotless. But in the summer... anytime I get caught up on prints, I get sent out on installs. And I'm not just being lazy either! They offer to send someone up to help me clean while I work, but I refuse... I don't want other co-workers cleaning up after my mess, so I do my best when possible.

Just putting that out there so you guys don't just think we're all slobs

I would never think anyone is a slob unless I saw the circumstances they worked or lived under.

We're a busy small shop but not doing anywhere near the production levels you are if that's a typical day for you.

Our hours are 8-5, our employee comes in at her leisure between 8:30-9:00 every day, takes an hour or more for lunch every day and promptly leaves at exactly 5pm each day regardless of work load, whether or not she sees my wife and I juggling half a dozen jobs at a time, or hears that we are staying late and working on most weekends. There is a real shortage of personnel in our area with ANY sign experience, so you kind of do the best with what you have. It's 5:45 and I'm about to leave and this is an average departure time for us.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

If I read this correctly, the quick jump in labor costs is a problem for us too. I can only raise my prices so much, we are getting a lot of push back over it too. Construction has sucked up much of the laborers here.

Wages have stayed flat for a long time after the recession of 2008. Inflation has been so low for such a long time that we're beyond due for an increase. Now that we're hitting the bottom of the barrel of the labor pool, employment costs are starting to go up, couple that with rising interest rates, increase in home buying again, employment is full, economy is good... all a recipe for price increases across the board. No more 1% inflation.. it's about to start going up and we haven't had this in about a decade. If you worries about raising your rates.. try not to be too much, we're all going to have the excuse... kind of like when gas went nuts and everyone rose prices because of "fuel surcharges"

 

[equippaint]

Maybe suggest hiring a teenager after school that can work in the afternoons cleaning up and sweeping and taking trash out everyday. Wouldn't cost a whole lot and would make people feel happier in a clean shop. I hate when there is trash everywhere.

Have to watch OSHA regulations for kids under 18 as well as labor laws for hours that students can work. Otherwise its great.

 

[equippaint]

I would never think anyone is a slob unless I saw the circumstances they worked or lived under.

We're a busy small shop but not doing anywhere near the production levels you are if that's a typical day for you.

Our hours are 8-5, our employee comes in at her leisure between 8:30-9:00 every day, takes an hour or more for lunch every day and promptly leaves at exactly 5pm each day regardless of work load, whether or not she sees my wife and I juggling half a dozen jobs at a time, or hears that we are staying late and working on most weekends. There is a real shortage of personnel in our area with ANY sign experience, so you kind of do the best with what you have. It's 5:45 and I'm about to leave and this is an average departure time for us.

Get rid of them. You're better off hiring someone with no experience with a good attitude. With no disrespect to anyone here, the basics of this trade are not hard to teach or master. Design, wraps, running printers etc is different but basic crap is simple. My sign helper here is one of our sandblasters and speaks very little english. He can laminate, weed, apply, run the laminator, shear, brake etc. His previous job was roofing. Don't be scared.

 

[Texas_Signmaker]

Roofers can make good sign people...if you get one that's sober. The guy I had work for me was a roofer and picked up installing and vinyl application almost instantly.

 

[ams]

If you expect them to do the same job that you do, do you pay them the same wage that you make? Weren't you also complaining a few months ago that you couldn't find anyone to work in your shop but were only paying $12-$15 an hour?

I currently hire at $16/hr of course they don't have sign experience.

 

[Emd2kick]

Never let an employee dictate your actions. Did you start the business to support them? At the end of the day every person in your building is replaceable, except you. It’s important to be fair, respectful, and objective. But remember it’s not the 80’s, there are plenty of good people that would appreciate the work.
I have the same group of employees I started the company with (added several more over the years as well), and I have an open door policy. If you think you deserve more money, tell me...I’ve agreed and given more, and I’ve also explained why I cannot.

 

[ikarasu]

Well since he's in Canada it would probably be something like full benefits, yearly cost of living increase, and I don't know what the exchange rate would be so like what $10 us dollars an hour...that's like $50 Canadian loonie's an hour?

Hey now, our money's not that bad!

Starting here for sign industry is 15. I started at 17 because of having level 2 fa... Jumped up a couple bucks since. The shop I'm at isn't the highest paying.. I was offered a job by a former employee for $24 an hour, turned it down since I'm happy where I am. Some employees realize it's not all about money! ;P

My company does pay for healthcare though... They pay 70% .I end up paying about $75 a month and get unlimited prescription drugs... Private hospital rooms, free ambulances/all healthcare... $2000 a year dental.... Free eye glasses...etc. it's standard that all companies pay a portion of healthcare for employees.over here, so it does cost more than an employee's hourly salary.


That being said I live in Vancouver area. Our gas just hit $1.62 per liter... That's $6.40 cad a gallon . That's about $5 usd a gallon, give or take a few cents. A 3 bedroom condo is about $600,000... You can't buy a house with land for under 800, and a house with 2+ bedrooms is about a million.

So cost of living is insane here. Gas jumped 30% in the past 6 months, which means all groceries and everything jumped... The townhouse I just paid $550,000 for 8 months ago is now valued at 720k... And I'm about 40 minutes from Vancouver, living in a suburb!

Cost of everything is raising by a lot here. So you can see why I advocate for a minimum of cost of living. If you don't get a col increase here, I'd expect within 1-2 years a lot of employees would move onto another shop, not because they want to... But because they need to in order to have a livable wage.

 

[ikarasu]

Maybe suggest hiring a teenager after school that can work in the afternoons cleaning up and sweeping and taking trash out everyday. Wouldn't cost a whole lot and would make people feel happier in a clean shop. I hate when there is trash everywhere.

I don't like having people clean up after me. Every job I've worked at there was always one guy who'd never do his share, and of course he was the one who made a mess. I feel like if I made the mess, even if it's just normal stuff... I should be the one to clean it up.

For the most part I keep it pretty clean .there's just always a ton of scrap I haven't decided to keep or throw out... Lots of Coro offcuts,etc. Plus I have my own Mez area, no one ever comes upstairs unless it's to give me more work, so it doesn't bug anyone. Its just never as clean as I'd like... We just did 100 ReMax Coro house shaped signs... So our cnc guy cut them all using a router bit instead of drag knife for some reason, and brought them up with a million little fist pfist pafrticles on them. My floor looks half white from all the dust... I want to vacuum it so much, but I'm going on vacation so they're pushing through as much work as possible since I'm the only digital operator, so I'm more busy than usual and haven't even had a 5 minute downtime to vacuum I actually plan on going in 15 mins earlier than usual tomorrow just so I can, I don't like dragging the dust all over when I walk

 

[TaraW]

If it's you installers that are leaving it could be a few different things and it's hard to say with out more info or being there. It could be that they're too busy, not enough resources to do the job (bad work area, equipment, etc...) it could be the person in charge of that dept. The installers might feel that the person is charge is unapproachable or difficult to deal with. It could also be that they just aren't getting paid enough.

You say that they want raises but no one ever says anything to you... why should they. If they are doing a good job reward them with a bonus or a small raise. Why wait for it to become a problem? Do you ever do any type of employee review?

There could be several different things that could be the issue not just one. Maybe ask them see what they say.

Lack of work or being to busy for the installers at the moment ( can change with the wind) I don't think is a problem....Service...well that's another story, but that always slows down during spring and summer. A comment was made by the departing installer he is getting to old for this (in his early 30's BTW) my other installer is mid 40's. But I also know for him Money is playing a big part. As it was why he left us for an out of state Sign company about 9 months ago, but then found out things aren't always greener and asked to come back.

I actually happen to be the person in charge of the shop and outside crews, do they not like me maybe, but I am not here for them to like I am here to lead and supervise them. Am I a "B" to work for? I personally don't think so. I have been with the company going on 9 years and have worked my way up to this position so I have a good working relationship with them. BUT I also will stand my ground. I do not scream and yell, unless provoked to do so, which has happened in the past once or twice. I still have a lot to learn in this position and I'm sure there are things I still do wrong and probably will here and there. I'm not perfect and don't claim to be.

I do think reviews for employees are important, and I think that may be one thing lacking , as that is done by those above me, and is not done as often as it should be, and so I do agree they shouldn't have to say anything to us, if these reviews were done on the regular the whispers would go away. Well in theory anyway.

We do different things, like cookouts here and there, I always cook a corned beef and cabbage lunch at the office for St. Patty's day every year since I started here. We have our Christmas party usually at the home of our owners, so its laid back and family friendly. Christmas bonuses are given.

I guess sometimes there's no set in stone answer, if someone is gonna leave they are just gonna go.

As for people who apply it just makes me shake my head,

Thanks for all the replies, and ideas, much appreciated!

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

That keeping pace with the other companies in the area is a double edged sword. Our nearest and most aggressive competitor opened seven years ago and their shop rate was $50 per hour. Two years later it rose to $65 and stayed there for the next five years until they ran themselves into so much trouble on so many fronts, it was a fire sale just to dump the company. We don't know what the new owner is charging, but its not much more than the old rate.

We took over our company 4 years ago as of yesterday. The old owners also had been stuck at $65 per hour for five years out of fear of losing even more work to the others down the street, who were actively poaching their clients, using inferior materials, not laminating prints, doing electrical signs and installations without permits or licensing, etc. The old owner here had the same first name as the previous owner of the competitor. its a small town and customers frequently mistake theirs and our shops because we're two blocks away from each other. Whenever a customer would mistakenly go in there, they would say "Rick, is retired and we took over the business". Having employed a few and being friends with five of their previous employees including our current employee, we've heard the depths of how far they went to poach our clients even beyond those accidentally walking in. Its a real testament to our approach, integrity and hard work that we've survived and thrived even at higher rates where they have now failed.

On May 2nd, 2014, our rate jumped to $70 per hour after running some overhead calculators and some customers balked, but most new customers never knew the difference unless they called the other places in town for comparison prices. We've since inched it up to $80 per hour and while the others in our area pay on average $12-17 per hour for production/design workers, we're up at $20+ and do most of the heavy lifting around here. Our employee handles part of the design work, some of the printing, weeding, mounting, etc. but little else.

It is, that's true, but in order to attract and retain valuable employees, you need to be able to at least play close to what other people are paying. Added benefits help, but if the shop down the road is paying $3 an hour more, that's a hard choice for an employee to make. Free pizza on Fridays or an extra $120 a week? Maybe not that hard.

I guess you haven't seen the channel letter bending machines?

That's why I said "fairly well" instead of completely. Heck, if you've got the money you can drive a pallet of material up to a printer and not touch it again until it's done. Most shops aren't at that level of automation and won't be for a while (or ever).

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

We really try on all those fronts, but most of the folks we hire, avoid responsibility, self-motivation, accountability and accepting even the most candy coated input like those things are a disease. It's a paycheck to most and the most common modus operandi we see is how to do just enough to keep the job without breaking a sweat.

We pass out cash bonuses from time to time, wine when given some by our vineyard clients, cut folks loose early every so often on Fridays with pay, buy breakfast burritos and lunch once or twice per week. We introduce them as our "co-workers" or "colleagues", then they turn around and describe us to others as simply "the boss".

We keep our workplace really clean and its nearly all done by my wife and I. We might see an occasional trash can emptied but almost never proactively or without being asked to do so. Our equipment is in great shape, we never hesitate to update something and we are on excellent terms with all of our suppliers so if something is needed, it gets here without hand wringing about money or *****ing about the bills.

We play music of everyone's choosing all day and make every effort to allow a lot of latitude on breaks, lunches, appointments, days off.

We frequently compliment a good effort and show appreciation for the slightest uptick in self-motivation.

Quick question: do you have an operations or production manager? Maybe a production supervisor?

I hate to say it, but most people will behave exactly as you describe when given autonomy. Very few people are self motivated or proactive. When you find an employee like that, give them a title and a little extra money, then let them be the responsible, proactive, motivator for the rest of the shop.

 

[unclebun]

You should give raises every year.

Inflation is a couple percent every year... So if you don't give a raise, every year your employee is making less. Every company I've worked at gave 4-5% every year... Its not much, maybe 25-50 cents an hour .Then every few years... The good people usually asked for a bigger raise, sometimes I've got $1, others I've got as much as $4 because I took on more responsibility.

But... You should give a small bump every year to keep up with inflation / cost of living. Then pay based on skill... If someone is on their phone an hour a day, give them bare minimum raise, while someone who works their *** off gets double the bare minimum.

It'll incentivize employees to work harder and not good off, and will likelly keep even the average employees around due to the small increases .


In the past 20 years working... I think there was one year I didn't get at least a 25 cent an hour raise though, due to a recession. I think most places in Canada are like that... Not sure up in America.

Can't give a raise every year unless you also increase prices....or if everyone's productivity goes up

 

[DerbyCitySignGuy]

Can't give a raise every year unless you also increase prices....or if everyone's productivity goes up

If your margins are that tight or you're not getting enough work, you might need to look at your model.

 

[TimToad]

If I read this correctly, the quick jump in labor costs is a problem for us too. I can only raise my prices so much, we are getting a lot of push back over it too. Construction has sucked up much of the laborers here.

It is a dilemma and one shops with multiple nearby competitors not knowledgeable about how to price their work either knowingly or not has to deal with. We emphasize our higher quality, great service and full accountability and hope folks will appreciate that the extra cost comes with added benefits. We've tried to do our price increases in a logical, even handed fashion by implementing them at the start of a new year and gradually so folks can see that we're in line with nearly everything else they buy.

 

[TimToad]

Get rid of them. You're better off hiring someone with no experience with a good attitude. With no disrespect to anyone here, the basics of this trade are not hard to teach or master. Design, wraps, running printers etc is different but basic crap is simple. My sign helper here is one of our sandblasters and speaks very little english. He can laminate, weed, apply, run the laminator, shear, brake etc. His previous job was roofing. Don't be scared.

I'm a nearly 40 year sign/graphic design veteran with a reputation for really good design. We're a small, three to four person shop and I don't want to be here 70 hours a week chained to my computer doing all the design work so we have to have someone with better than average design skills regardless of how much else they help with. Our employee is friendly and does fine on the majority of her assigned tasks, but is just typical of the type of employee most of us have encountered.

 

[TimToad]

Quick question: do you have an operations or production manager? Maybe a production supervisor?

I hate to say it, but most people will behave exactly as you describe when given autonomy. Very few people are self motivated or proactive. When you find an employee like that, give them a title and a little extra money, then let them be the responsible, proactive, motivator for the rest of the shop.

We're a three person shop consisting of myself, my wife and the one employee. We work in a 2,500 square foot shop and do about $275k gross per year. Our goal is to expand and add a fourth, but would only do so if the revenues supported it. I don't find hierarchical based titles to be very useful in such a small organization like ours. We emphasize the team work approach and eventually we will find employees who also embrace it.

 

[equippaint]

I'm a nearly 40 year sign/graphic design veteran with a reputation for really good design. We're a small, three to four person shop and I don't want to be here 70 hours a week chained to my computer doing all the design work so we have to have someone with better than average design skills regardless of how much else they help with. Our employee is friendly and does fine on the majority of her assigned tasks, but is just typical of the type of employee most of us have encountered.

We get people like this also and have come to live with it to a certain extent but I think I know exactly what you are saying. It makes you very conflicted because they do their job well but don't care any more than that. Its so much easier if they care but are mediocre or just suck at everything with a bad attitude to boot. If you settle, you may never come across the right person though.

 

[AKwrapguy]

I always cook a corned beef and cabbage lunch at the office for St. Patty's day every year since I started here.

This.... this is the problem.

 

[TaraW]

This.... this is the problem.

Why is this a problem??? Everybody loves it, the place smells great while its cooking and we even provide Cupcakes for desert!! Usually something festive like Andes Candies mint cupcakes, or Baileys Irish Cream Cupcakes! Yummy!!