A few ideas or examples on how salary pay should work

[Hugger1974]

Hello All, I am new here... stumbled across the forum researching pay ideas.

Real quick about the company. It is 12 years old and 30 employees. Right now 5 of the employees are salary based employees, the balance are hourly.

For salary, I am struggling with the new out of school younger people who don't understand it and how you don't get paid for over 40 hours... that is built into their rate (higher rate then if it was hourly). Also they forget the extra paid days off around the holidays they receive.

I need some examples on how salary employees should work. Here is what I am doing right now but I am willing to change it:

- All time taken off over 4 hours is charged vacation, under 4 hours I cover. So it someone leaves 3 hours early I pay it. If they leave 5 hours early they use vacation. I do however do this case by case and exceptional employees I just pay regardless. I used this as a guideline to get started.

- How should sick or personal days work? If you get a call an hour before you are to come in asking if you can have the day off because the roads are getting bad (snow) how do you handle that?

Basically to make a long story short my older employees understand and I have no issues. I am having extreme difficulty with young out of school kids. I am tempted to go back to hourly however I hate worrying about time clock with employees that travel a little, have deadlines, projects.

If anyone has tips, links, please share. I am working on a review with a cumbersome employee now.

Thanks!

[Runum]

From my experience, the more specific you make the rules, the tougher it is to enforce. There are certain creative types of people always looking for the loophole. Both sides should be willing to give a little and built up goodwill should work in there somewhere. These are viewpoints from an old school guy though.

Your mileage may vary.

[Hugger1974]

From my experience, the more specific you make the rules, the tougher it is to enforce. There are certain creative types of people always looking for the loophole. Both sides should be willing to give a little and built up goodwill should work in there somewhere. These are viewpoints from an old school guy though.

Your mileage may vary.

Yes I agree 100%. I never had worry about this until hiring people under 25. I am trying to find ways to lay it down to them. I hate having rules but sometimes I don't know how to stay on top of it. Again it is really only one person now and I am trying to be prepared for a million questions when I try to explain it to him. He will be getting a poor to medium review.

[Runum]

Yes I agree 100%. I never had worry about this until hiring people under 25. I am trying to find ways to lay it down to them. I hate having rules but sometimes I don't know how to stay on top of it. Again it is really only one person now and I am trying to be prepared for a million questions when I try to explain it to him. He will be getting a poor to medium review.

Why spend any more energy on him then? I don't think the policy changes will make him into a stellar employee, do you?

[Hugger1974]

Why spend any more energy on him then? I don't think the policy changes will make him into a stellar employee, do you?

Unfortunately you are correct. I am having trouble admitting that... seems the longer in business the harder this gets, not easier.

[Runum]

Forgot to welcome you to SBF. Welcome.

How long has he been with you? What capacity? How easy to replace?

[Hugger1974]

Forgot to welcome you to SBF. Welcome.

How long has he been with you? What capacity? How easy to replace?

Thanks for the welcome!

He interned with us for 6 months and has now been with us for right about a year. He has become some what a friend which makes it tough. But also very hard to talk too, very defensive. Your typical young kid attitude it seems.

Would be hard to replace is the problem, drafting and mechanical engineering.. we are a manufacturer. He has flashes of brilliance and does decent on projects but he pouts on projects he doesn't like. Also treats his manager poorly (not me) because he doesn't agree/like how he manages.

I plan ti review, go over all of this and see if I can straighten him up. I wanted to explain the salary better. He is keeping track and turning in his time like he is hourly.

I also have a new salary employee I am working on bringing on so I was trying to come up with details to prevent this in future.

Thanks for all the info!

[Fulcrum]

You need to remove bad attitudes before they spread throughout the company. It shouldn't matter to him whether he is on a high profile project or cleaning the bathroom (everyone gets a turn including management), he's getting paid either way.

I would simply explain that he has effectively hit an earnings ceiling until his attitude changes and he can put 100% effort in on all projects.

Out of curiosity, do you require your engineers to spend some time on the floor learning the manufacturing process?

[Runum]

Did you see hints of this during his internship? Of course, it sounds like immaturity, but you know that.

To me, You state your companies expectations of the employee in exchange for an agreed to payment(salary or hourly). If there are exceptions they are evaluated on a case by case basis. Most employers require 8 hour of work the day before or after a holiday. Otherwise, missed hours may be made up at another time if agreed on. Performance metrics are specified and reviewed annually, more often if needed. Individual growth plans may be required if the employer deems needed based on the metrics. If the growth plan(remediation plan) is not agreed to and followed then the two parties agree to part ways.

[Freelancier]

I am having extreme difficulty with young out of school kids.
Then you're not being clear with them. Set the expectations. Review the expectations with them if they forget. Enforce the expectations. Fire the ones who become too much of a pain to manage.

You're the boss. It's your company. You can be fair AND firm, but you're forgetting the "firm" part and bending over backwards to be more than fair.

Something to consider, stop giving vacation days and do vacation hours. More to track, but fewer questions to answer. They need to leave early, that's fine, they mark the remaining hours as vacation hours. Done deal.

[CCAdamson]

Performance issues aside lets got back to the original question. What type of business are you in? What are your salaried employees doing? Do they beat the smell test for being paid salary? When hiring exempt employees out of school, what type of degree do they have? If they are engineers then they should understand and expect being paid a salary. If they are welders then they may not get it.

You said something very concerning to me, you said you don't charge everyone for vacation if they are an "exceptional" employee. Having this many employees and an inconsistency like that WILL lead to other problems. I'll disagree here with Runums statement, I think in situations like that you can have clear rules that people must follow.

As far as calling off goes, you don't have to have an attendance policy per say but your employees need to understand that 1-3 call offs a year may be ok but more than that is not acceptable (or what ever you decide on). If you are charging vacation for employees who come late or leave early then just clearly define it and be CONSISTENT!

[Runum]

Sorry, I think I was not clear. I do believe you have to have clear rules for attendance and work expectations. I do not believe you can make rules that will cover every exception. If you try to make all those rules, it will become more of a headache to keep track of and enforce. I do agree with consistency.

[CCAdamson]

That I do agree with.

[tallen]

Do you have a contract / employment agreement that you use when hiring salaried employees? A detailed written job description that spells out the expectations? An employee handbook that lays out all of your company's policies for both hourly and salaried employees? If not, you probably should think about developing (and adhering to) these documents.

Another approach in dealing with the immature salaried employee might just be to ask them if they would like to switch to being employed on an hourly basis (lower rate of pay, have to punch in and out, etc...) --- in other words tell them the "perks" they would loose if they were hourly, then explain the trade-offs that go with being salaried.

FWIW, my experience as a salaried employee is as a professional, where it doesn't really matter that much about what hours I keep in the office, what personal days I might take, etc..., so long as I accomplish the outcomes that are expected of the job.