Employees Are The Worst

[Gino]

There seems to be a trend to you, your business and your methods. You have the most problems with customers not paying and collecting than any other 100 people on this site combined. You have problems with quality control as you're always complaining about it. Now, you're telling us, you've had problems with employees over the last 12 years. I would venture to suggest, you don't know what you're doing.

For most people, they offer their employees the world, if they are worth anything. You pay, next to nothing, but think you're offering them the world, cause you don't know any better. You don't bother to do any reference checks on anyone or evidently any talent or basic knowledge, either. You are in your own way. Like mentioned, hire a shop foreman to clear out the dead wood, but pay him extremely well, otherwise you might be the first person he fires.

 

[WrapYourCar]

Easiest solution... downsize your staff.. take the jobs you want to take. Delay the others or reject them if they cant be done in time... Keep 1 or 2 skilled workers pay them well.. make sure they are happy.

 

[ams]

So it seems that a major issue is the wages I am hiring at. But if I fire everyone and hire at $20/hr it's going to kill my bank account because it takes 4 - 6 months to train someone enough where I can trust them on their own. During training I am losing money.

By the way for the 20 work orders isn't a lot. I am a much smaller shop than many of you. When I complete 3, 5 more come in, when I complete 5, 3 more come in.
So it's up and down, but 20 has me backed up because I am doing 90% of the work myself and have been working weekends to stay afloat.
3 or 4 years ago, $300 was a large job to me. Now I've grown so much that, that is little now. So I am growing, but not near the growth of the big dogs yet.

 

[GaSouthpaw]

I don't think (or I hope, anyway) anyone is suggesting that you start these people off at $20 an hour if they have to be trained.
The ones who don't, though- and can come in and immediately contribute to your business? Yeah, they get the higher pay.
I'd think it would also depend on your location. If the wages you're offering for entry level are competitive with other production fields, then you (theoretically) will get "better" applicants than if your entry level wage is comparable to a fast food restaurant.

 

[Gino]

So it seems that a major issue is the wages I am hiring at. But if I fire everyone and hire at $20/hr it's going to kill my bank account because it takes 4 - 6 months to train someone enough where I can trust them on their own. During training I am losing money.

By the way for the 20 work orders isn't a lot. I am a much smaller shop than many of you. When I complete 3, 5 more come in, when I complete 5, 3 more come in.
So it's up and down, but 20 has me backed up because I am doing 90% of the work myself and have been working weekends to stay afloat.
3 or 4 years ago, $300 was a large job to me. Now I've grown so much that, that is little now. So I am growing, but not near the growth of the big dogs yet.

Ya generally hire someone on at $12 - $15 an hour, but we give them a dollar raise an hour each month if they are capable of making us money, otherwise they just stay where they're at and eventually are gone within a month or two. Only the good ones stay on, unless you become super automated with good equipment.

As for big guys vs small guys....... it's all exactly the same. The only thing that differs is how many commas are in front of the decimal point. Otherwise, their problems are just larger than yours, but they're all the same problems, unless you're flying under the radar.

 

[Johnny Best]

I feel for ya buddy, behind on rent, in debt of $33,000, worst employees and last week or two you were hating customers. Hows your heart, do you smoke and drink? You could have a stroke and then you would have major problems.
You need to get out a hole your in. My suggestion would be to get rid of the shovel and stop digging. Sure there's money is to be made in this industry but your mind and body are not up to it. As others have suggested, downsize.
Do you think your present employees would visit you in the hospital or they would want a wage for the time it takes?

 

[jfiscus]

I read most of the replies here and agree with them, but it seems that your biggest hurdle is low-paid unskilled laborers working in a job where you should instead have well-paid highly skilled workers. Our installers are professional installers, certified, etc. Their pay starts out in the low 20s and can get REAL nice. The art dept makes similar pay; production managers make high teens; and weeders/production make 10-15.

 

[rossmosh]

Go on Indeed and put a post for a shop foreman. See what comes up. Tell the candidates to come by after hours to do an interview and a few simple tests to make sure they're competent. If you find a good one, hire them and fire your worst employee. If leadership/mistakes is really what kills you, this should solve that problem. You'll have more time to take on jobs because you will have a better work flow and not spend time fixing things all the time.

I still think your pricing is as much of a problem as your mistakes are. Bumping your prices 5% would likely help quite a bit.

 

[David Wright]

So it's up and down, but 20 has me backed up because I am doing 90% of the work myself and have been working weekends to stay afloat.

I can't get past this, if you are doing 90% of the work, tell me why most of them are even there?

 

[mfatty500]

It may be true more often then not, but it sure reads like you are including all in that comment.

No not all, but a lot of them that I have come across

 

[BingoBrewster]

I have a 21 year old working part time for me. Lovely guy and honest, works hard, but I end up tearing my hair out as he takes 3-4 times as long as I would to the same job, and mucks up about half of his jobs because his mind is elsewhere

But I learned a valuable lesson. When he first came to see me, we had little more than an informal chat. BIG mistake!

It turned out, he has vertigo and shakes if he has to go more than 2 steps up a ladder. I had to explain the difference between stone and wood bits, and explain how an electric drill works. I even had to show him (repeatedly) how to wash a car. These are all things I just assumed everyone knew at the age of 21. I was stripping engines at 12. Big mistake making assumptions.

The next time, I will prepare a proper interview and make no assumptions.

He gets 6€ an hour plus tax and social sec. It does not sound much, but it is slightly above average for this area, and I was not expecting any kind of specialist knowledge, just a basic skill set.

 

[JJGraphics]

I still think your pricing is as much of a problem as your mistakes are. Bumping your prices 5% would likely help quite a bit.

It's possible his costs are out of wack because of so many mistakes/inefficiency. I would think that cleaning up mistakes and working on efficiency (through training/new hires/whatever) should come first. If, after cleaning up the base level crap, he still needs more revenue, then raising prices is the logical step.

Raising prices without taking out the trash may only mask the problems that clearly need to get resolved.

If you can't afford the $20 an hour people right now, then look for a plan B - better training, positive reinforcement (vs. writing people up) and if profitability goes up, give people some bonuses (Even $50 shows that you see them trying to get better.)

 

[WildWestDesigns]

No not all, but a lot of them that I have come across

All generations have their layabouts. I've known some older generations that said that they were layabouts during their "younger years". Some weren't. Some grew out of it, some never did.

Your experience may be indicative of the "pool" in which you are getting those people from. I don't know.

I think it's natural for some of this way of thinking from an older generation to the younger. Not just in terms of work ethic, but even within other cultural differences between one generation to the next.

I'm just leary of pigeon holing a specific person based on the perceived generation that they are apart of. They may indeed be that way, but wait until they show that, versus just thinking that way right off the bat. Otherwise, don't waste the time with a chance to find out. Just bring in the next applicant.

I had to explain the difference between stone and wood bits, and explain how an electric drill works. I even had to show him (repeatedly) how to wash a car. These are all things I just assumed everyone knew at the age of 21. I was stripping engines at 12. Big mistake making assumptions.

I know people in their 60s that don't know the difference between wood and stone bits. I know someone that is almost 50 that has never washed a car outside of using a car wash. I'm not surprised one bit about the above.

 

[equippaint]

We all have employee "issues" no matter what people are paying. If you really want to improve your position make sure you can constructively evaluate yourself as an employee just as you do anyone else. We've all been caught up with blaming employees (and customers) for things that were ultimately our problems rather than sitting back and really determining what we ourselves did wrong to let the situation occur. Once you can determine and correct your role in the problem, move forward with your action plan for the other employee.
On the issue of pay, if an employee has bad work ethic or a bad attitude, there is no hourly rate or big enough raise that will ever change them. We've all heard someone say I don't get paid enough to do this. Reality is there's not enough money in the world to get that type of person to work. If youre paying under market thats fine but you have to quickly move the keepers up the scale. Many good people will start off low so they can prove themselves with the unsaid expectation of being bumped up as soon as they do.

 

[CVS]

Now I see why so many sign shops stay small and have little to no employees. I've had the worst luck of employees. I've had 12 - 14 employees totally, currently have 4 not including myself.

They screw up nearly every job, they aren't friendly, they don't care about their work, they have no sense of quality control, they want a paycheck but don't want to work, they want to go home early, if I give them written warnings it continues to go downhill or they get upset, etc.

Last year I was so fed up, I tried to sell my company to get away from it. But if I went on a firing spree, it would only hurt me because we are sitting on 20+ work orders right now, 5 of which are large jobs (over $2,000) so I have to keep up with supply and demand.

There is also really poor resumes coming in all the time. My employees have lost me so much money and having to redo jobs that I am 3 1/2 months behind in rent, over $19,000 on the company credit card, my total debt is $33,000. I've been cutting everyones hours back by 10 hours a week, this week will be 18 hours cut and they seem to be happy and don't mind it.

How do you guys handle it? Do you have great employees? if so how did you get them?

Here is what we did a few years ago in our screen printing shop to try to to prevent preventable errors. We offer a $1.00/hour bonus paid out quarterly. If they screw a job up, the cost of materials or time to fix it comes out of that bonus. If they are careful, they get all of it. If they aren't they will see a reduction in it and they know why. This way, we feel that we have the ability to penalize them should they do something stupid and they get rewarded for not screwing up.

 

[Gino]

That's neat and all, but if we hire someone to do something, we actually expect them to perform in order to receive their earned pay. Having a rewards systems in place or holding their hands or griping about them...... that's non-productive. Now you hafta charge more for your rewards. If not, you're making them [the customers] pay for mistakes made on your company time, because you can't find competent people. Hey, it that works for you, fine and dandy. I'd rather just get the work they promised to do out of them and pay for it. Now, I don't need to dance around and waste time figuring all these side bar deals.

Now, if we have a nice project going through and someone or some people can make things easier on me, by taking some of the heat off of me, so I can do other things, they get a bonus. Everyone here knows that by performing certain things better, will result in a bonus. However, I take that outta my pay, not the customer's.

Everything that goes through your shop should have a cost factor applied to it for error/problems/ downtime/ mistakes/whatever. This cost helps when or if something goes wrong. If nothing goes wrong, it builds towards the next something or other that might go wrong. This sh!t factor is always calculated in, unless I'm doing a project, solo.

 

[Stella_FB700]

Let me guess, these are younger people in their 20's & 30's, that generation has no respect or ethics at all.

I am 26 - i don't like that comment AT ALL. You don't know me. Work doesn't end at 8hrs a day for me. - thats called commitment.

Hire people who are used to working production/labour work.
Or any individuals with art experience.

 

[TimToad]

Currently I hire at $12.00 / hour (our state minimum wage is $7.25) so I should get something decent, except my lead installer who is also our welder and engineer is $13/hr.

I am in the process of restructuring, since the first of the year I've been making a ton of changes. The smaller jobs are anywhere from $300 - $1,000 that we currently have, one is a monument sign with a digital reader board which I believe the quote was $28,000? Also been talking to Food Lion, they want a Pylon sign, so we would design, permit, blueprint specs, have it manufactured and then we install it ourselves, so probably a $15,000 or so job.

We get on average 2 large jobs a month, our normally jobs are around $500, not including the standard banners and all.

Here are a few reasons I am in debt. #1. Once I got a little behind in rent, the landlord has been destroying me with large late fees $240 / month. I had gotten an American Express business card and had free interest for a year, things went well for almost the whole year. Then the installers screwed up a ton of jobs and cost me a few thousand dollars. Then high interest hit and it keeps going up. I've been paying more on rent and supplier bills and hardly anything on credit cards.
My receptionist handles making quotes and doing invoices and payments, she messes up a lot and I've lost a ton on jobs, even had many upset customers because she didn't invoice correctly. I write all quotes, but when she types it in the system, it often gets screwed up.

There are many more reasons why I am in debt, but it's not because of charging too little, it's due to the huge royal mistakes of the employees.

Wages should be commensurate with the skills and experience and based on your shop overhead, not a rate set by politically motivated representatives in bed with industry think tanks. Does the state tell you what to charge? No, then they shouldn't guide you on what to pay either.

Telling us the average invoice amount doesn't really tell us whether or not you're charging enough according to your overhead requirements. It sounds to me like the gross revenue may not be there to justify that many employees and especially a full time receptionist/office manager who is costing you business due to incompetence or worse.

A good rule of thumb stating point is the thirds rule that was mentioned earlier. That captures your COGs, labor and leaves enough profit to cover the occasional mistake. Chronic mistakes are solely on you for not properly training and monitoring the work flow. Signcraft magazine gives you an overhead calculator form with every subscription. I'd add that having that magazine in the shop for inspiration and motivation is a great tool. "Hey, look at these awesome looking signs in this trade magazine. We all could earn more if we could emulate the quality of work in here." The magazine also includes a pricing guide that is helpful but not to followed to the tee. Each issue has design/cost exercises also. You and your staff should be regularly comparing what others in your region charge to make sure you're shop rate is accurate.

Another filter to apply to test whether an employee is losing you money is to multiply the total in compensation costs by 3-4x to determine if they are regularly producing that much work. If you're paying somebody $30,000 per year including their pay, benefits, your FICA taxes on them, insurance, etc. they should be producing $90,000-120,000 per year at a minimum. That will be hard to put an exact calculation to if all your employees work on everything like in most shops, but not impossible.

Based on your stated pay rates, your shop should be grossing anywhere from $425,000-$500,000 per year or more. If you aren't, you need to re-examine your pricing, your role and whether or not you can do without at least one employee and take over their tasks yourself.

Everything starts with the quotes. Unless you don't type well, or have good communication skills, why would you trust an incompetent receptionist to type up the most critical document pertaining to your business survival? After that, the accurate and timely presentation of invoices is the second most important task to be handled. Our office manager is the woman I've spent the last 38 years as my spouse with and who handles a lot of production also, but she doesn't know the nomenclature of our business like a 37 year veteran of the craft like me does, so I type all of the quotes for larger projects.

 

[ikarasu]

I am 26 - i don't like that comment AT ALL. You don't know me. Work doesn't end at 8hrs a day for me. - thats called commitment.

Hire people who are used to working production/labour work.
Or any individuals with art experience.

I just turned 30, and I'm one of the hardest workers at my place... I've been there 1 year, and know more than the people who have stuck around for 15 years.

I got moved to a new position... and got 2 days training on how to operate a wide format printer, laminator, and cutter.I spent many, many hours after work reading tutorials, watching videos... learning to be more efficient. To this day, I still do that (Though now it's partially because I'm buying my own printer, and want to learn the best ways! but I still do it, and apply the knowledge to work.

I worked for a year, without a pay raise. I went from weeding/application, pretty much doubled my work load. I didn't complain, or become lazy. I knew I was way underpaid for what I was doing... but I was learning, and liked the company.

Point being... It's not a generational thing. One of the hardest workers I know was 18, just got out of school, he came to work with us for a year before going to college. The kid never took a break, or a lunch... was eager to learn, and took on many roles that werent part of his job.

It's about the person, not their age. At low wages... Guess what kind of person you're going to be seeing more of?

No one is saying raise it to $20 an hour. Word your ads better... are you going to pay $12 for no experience? And $18-20 or whatever for good experience? List your wages as "$12-18, based on experience". Tell everyone they will start at $12... then after 1-2 month period, you will have a conversation about their pay scale, and see where they fall on it. That way even if they are new, they have a month or two to work their asses off and learn.

Now them are just made up numbers. No one is saying you have to offer $18-20. It all depends on the position, and responsibility. Obviously you're not going to pay someone who weeds and does grunt work the same as your engineer, or vinyl wrapper. Call around to some local sign companies (Hopefully you've made friends with them) and ask them about what their wages are. Not just 1 or 2, but as many as you can. You want to be in the median of that... not the top of the line, but also not the bottom of the barrel. If you're the bottom... the good people will come to you for training, and once they know everything... they'll move on for a better opportunity. It's all about finding the sweet spot.

 

[equippaint]

"That's neat and all, but if we hire someone to do something, we actually expect them to perform in order to receive their earned pay. Having a rewards systems in place or holding their hands or griping about them...... that's non-productive. Now you hafta charge more for your rewards. If not, you're making them [the customers] pay for mistakes made on your company time, because you can't find competent people. Hey, it that works for you, fine and dandy. I'd rather just get the work they promised to do out of them and pay for it. Now, I don't need to dance around and waste time figuring all these side bar deals."

I agree that people should show up to work and produce but that's a very simplistic view considering that it just doesnt happen like that. You don't have to charge for your rewards, the idea is for them to lower your costs when properly implemented. It makes everyone responsible as a group for each others mistakes, somewhat of a self policing environment. Accidents and mistakes cost companies a lot of money. The $1 an hour idea is framed as a bonus but its really making the employees pay for their mistakes. More or less, Ill pay you $16/hr and will subtract any screw ups, up to $1/hr per person over a quarter no matter who caused the problem. I think its genius.

 

[TimToad]

So it seems that a major issue is the wages I am hiring at. But if I fire everyone and hire at $20/hr it's going to kill my bank account because it takes 4 - 6 months to train someone enough where I can trust them on their own. During training I am losing money.

By the way for the 20 work orders isn't a lot. I am a much smaller shop than many of you. When I complete 3, 5 more come in, when I complete 5, 3 more come in.
So it's up and down, but 20 has me backed up because I am doing 90% of the work myself and have been working weekends to stay afloat.
3 or 4 years ago, $300 was a large job to me. Now I've grown so much that, that is little now. So I am growing, but not near the growth of the big dogs yet.

I don't think you're listening very well. For $20 per hour, you should be getting fully experienced help that after a few weeks can work independently with a high degree of error free work and high production output. For somewhere between the $12-20 being stated you and others, you should at least be getting folks with some level of experience, art talent, good work history, reliability, etc.

Our shop is smaller than yours. We only have myself, my wife (less than 3 years of experience) and one employee who has 15 years of experience who averages 30 hours per week. We do between $250-300k per year gross and have raised both revenue and profit each of our first three years since buying a faltering business that was a low cost leader in our area. The business is 10 years old and our goal this year is to grow enough to bring on at least another production employee by next year.

We've raised our shop rate accordingly and the quality speaks for itself.

Our error rate is very low and we all wear multiple hats every single day. The shop buys lunch for everyone a couple times a week. We and our employee hang out at the same craft brewery a few times a week after work and he almost always gets a pint bought by us when we're together. Bonuses are given when earned and we're generous above the average pay grade for our area. My wife works a few weekend days per month at a high end olive oil producer's tasting room and she gets a discount on fancy olive oil and other gourmet products like fancy sea salts, etc. Our employee likes spicy stuff like us and she just gave him about $40 worth of Ghost Pepper and Srirracha Sea Salts for doing a good job last week.