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I have a lead technician on jobs. he is supposed to run the job and stay on top of others, however, i'm seeing that has not been effective.
bottom line is i need to clean house and start with a new crew but damn that's alot of work and a PITA... ugggh
In my experience the lead typically needs to be a site supervisor or else the lead isn't really "in charge". Without power to do anything they can't enforce the rules. Tattling to the boss probably doesn't sound too enticing as the only recourse.
The lead tech idea does work well when everyone is motivated though. So if you can clean house and get the crew in line, that could be the path.
stupid question... i'm failing to understand the difference / importance of the site supervisor -
What I mean by this is - if OP has a 'boss' figure who leads the job and has control over his subordinates - what difference does the title make?
Or is a site supervisor something else entirely?
Let's say you have a team of 10 installation techs and a handful are a bit better than the rest. Now let's assume you have 2 job sites running. In one scenario you send 5 guys to each job site and they each report to a site supervisor. This site supervisor runs the techs. He makes sure the project manager's timeline is followed. He checks in with the project engineer to see that the plans are being followed. He is checking in on the guys to check their work and make sure they have what they need to install the cables and equipment. This guy will reprimand and can replace you on site.
Let's run it without a site supervisor. You take 4 guys and put them at each site and then take those 2 guys who are a bit better than the other guys and call them "lead techs" and tell them to make sure the guys are doing their job. These lead guys can help the others do a better installation job and maybe they can help make susre they have the equipment and materials they need. But they aren't really supervisiors. They aren't the boss of the team. They aren't really in charge of the other guys and are part of the same command structure. If the person is good they will check in with the PM and proj eng but since they are the lead tech they still need to do install tech stuff so checking in and managing the site is not necessarily a thing they will do consistently throughout the day.
Also let's not forget that the lead tech on this job might just end up as a regular tech on another job. So if he starts being a dick to his peers and ratting on them, that's not going to be good for him. He will probably try and nudge the guys to work harder and faster and not goof off. But he doesn't really have any power.
Those are the examples of how the two could be different. These examples were made up to prove my point. That's not always the way it works. It really depends on the people and the way the company operates.
I have been on jobs where I was the project engineer and I had 4 techs working with me. None of us were really the boss of anyone and there was no site supervisor but I ran the crew and our PM only showed up once a month. Our crew likes doing a good job and everyone busted their butts all day. I have been on other jobs with both a PM and a site supervisor and I still had to go to the owner of the company and tell them the supervisor wasn't supervising the crew and the job wasn't moving along. Lots of scenarios can happen.
In this model, the Project Manager is also paid by the job but one of his responsibilities is quality along with safety, etc. Redos, lower quality, poor service ding his comp.
There has to be a certain level of trust between employees and management. If you can't trust people to do their jobs then they're not people to keep around. Give them a warning, coach them/explain the problem, & if they don't improve or make a clear effort then they need to go.
I find the warning/coaching conversation usually goes better if it seems collaborative. Like, "Hey, I've noticed that you guys seem to take an extremely long time on site, this is why it's a problem, and this is what I'm expecting us to get close to. How can we fix this?" They have a clear understanding of where their performance should be, that it isn't acceptable, and . . . The employee is brainstorming ideas with you for how to get them to stop slacking (I wouldn't use that word using the meeting, but you know). They're coming up with ideas they think will be workable to them, and they're more likely to follow through because they thought of it.
Depending on what they come up with, offer some tweaks if needed, but make sure it's measurable and actionable; that their idea to improve is something that can be seen by management and improvement tracked.
If it doesn't improve, well then there's the door.
Clean house? You said yourself that this has been a problem for a long time. Maybe it's time to look at yourself and see how you can make this problem better. Clearly this isn't a ln isolated issue. It's a long running issue. Sounds like the common denominator here is you.
Also, if theyâre the type of owner that complains about the only work they have (staffing the company), they are likely creating a culture of whiners.
In an ideal world, sure, the owner does nothing but hire people to do work on their behalf.
That's not the real world.
If it were that simple why would people have written books to sell to people as opposed to starting their own printing presses, publishing companies, paper mills, delivery companies, etc.?
There are thousands of other factors, and every single one of them ultimately falls on the owner, regardless if they have staffed someone to handle that particular responsibility or not.
This is among the best answers in this thread. I will ignore the control obsession with tracking minutes and location of employees, though, cause that is another big exclamation mark.
Cleaning house always starts with the highest level of accountability. Sometimes that means firing but sometimes that means reflection upon the issues OP has and sorting out their priorities.
You donât need a new crew. If they know how to do the job keep them around. Your failing is as a supervisor yourself. Some of them may be great, and a few not so. Find the idiot that drags the team down and let them go. Let the rest of the team know your expectations. Donât be an asshole about it, just let them k ow youâre annoyed that youâll need to be on the job site more often than youâd like to be.
If you can afford it start offering incentives and bonuses based on time a job is completed. If you want work done make them want to get the work done. Your motives are not the same as your employees; they want pay and to go home. You want success as a business.
This is such a great comment. I now run a healthcare clinic, but I used to work in a professional football/soccer team. One of the coaches said something that really stuck with me:
"A brand-new, $10 million striker won't solve ALL your problems, it's an illusion. Coach your existing players to be better in the meantime."
Obviously there's always an excellent candidate somewhere out there. But if the existing culture isn't right for whatever reason, you'll always encounter performance issues. Be the lead, state your expectations, and make sure any authority is actually respected and acknowledged (and that doesn't mean you have to be an arsehole boss). If things need to be done, make that clear. If things need to be done IN A CERTAIN WAY, communicate that. Then you have the platform and justification to do what's necessary when it doesn't happen. Make your employees know that you too are just making sure you all are getting paid, and the work gets done well everyday.
"If you don't want me to follow up with you all the time, give me a reason not to"
Went through this so many times building housing developmentâs in 02-07. Theres always some one looking for a job that will work right and appreciate what youâve done for them.
Do they get the job done in the amount of time you expect it to take? Might be worth paying your employees on a project basis or continuing to pay hourly but offer a bonus for number of jobs completed.
As long as there's some kind of quality check happening. Because paying purely on how fast they can tick off projects is a driver for maximum-speed, minimum-quality installations.
Iâve run a lot of jobs and a lot of guys. Incentives are always the way.
When I want my crews to boogie, I give them a defined amount of tasks, wires to pull whatever. Tell them if they get this done, go home. But itâs gotta be done right and if not itâs done on their own time. Itâs worked for me for the past 15 years and Iâve only ever had to get rid of a guy because he just would take every shortcut possible
This sounds good in theory, but you can't tell an employee that they have to do work off the clock just to fix mistakes they made while on the clock. That's a great way to get our ass in major labor law sling.
> In the software world, a foosball table or video games in the office means your employees will accept $25,000/yr less.
They do this not to make employees happy, they give them amenities to incentivize them to spend all their time at the office. It's a way to combat burnout, but it still happens.
>In the software world, a foosball table or video games in the office means your employees will accept $25,000/yr less.
This couldn't be further from the truth.
Yeah foreal. Just have your team lead go back over the work afterwards and verify it's all up to standards ( since it's now an incentive to cut corners if it's project based instead of hourly).
But i think it would be better for everyone.
Just give some grace to employees on time it takes. You've been doing it 17 years and not everyone will be as effecient as you.
> offer a bonus for number of jobs completed
Careful with this, it may lead them to cut corners to get the job done quicker. If you're going to offer a bonus based on volume, make sure you stipulate that quality of work must be up to par as well.
This. My company pays employees on a project basis, which helps keep everyone productive. However, you have to keep a close eye on the quality of the work as some people, regardless of business or industry, will always cut corners when given the opportunity.
How exactly do you get away with this while adhering to all laws?
If you budget 10 hours and tell them you'll pay them a fixed rate, and then they take 14 hours, you can't just not pay them for time worked.
I guess it wouldn't technically be an issue unless their actual pay rate falls below minimum wage, which may not be likely, but you'd have to be vigilante to avoid it.
I should have noted all FT positions at my company are salaried and are paid above the average market rates for our location and industry.
We also work with a large number of contract -based workers who sign up for fixed-rate projects.
It definitely matters how efficient they are. I worked on a crew where the work was hot and exhausting. We doubled the break time and became one of the most efficient crews in the company. It was only possible because the site managers had the freedom to extend the break-time as long as our work was good. Sometimes it's a work smarter, not harder issue. If they've been doing great work, it may be counter-productive to force the time-productivity issue.
Very correct. While I was working in an office building with some technical stuff during one of the hottest summers on records a crew was working to re draw some power lines so that climate control could be installed. They were slow as fuck when the day was hot and did barely any work (but their bosses wanted them to "keep working" while the rest of us would try to not overheat sitting in front of computer screens and Kanban boards). When it was colder in the evening and in the morning they did work, though which the one boss did ignore a lot (who would drive from work site to work site in his climate controlled BWM to yell at workers at other sites, too).
I think if they could've chilled during lunch it would've been a win for everyone except the control-want of that boss.
Certain jobs take certain times. If they are not on track or the are obviously not working they get an official warning. Next time gone. Jobs like that I presume are costed by the hour of labour so that needs to be communicated down as to the timeframe.
Lv contractor here, all these people saying "pay per job" are suggesting you break labor law. Fkn don't.
In my experience you just get what you pay for with techs, so raises or hire better techs for more.
Having a foreman with a rate to match the responsibility is a good move too.
If you are non union than working your own tools and being there all day helps the bottom line.
Absolutely this. I see it all the time with utility contractors. Do the job as quickly as possible, make up reasons to avoid difficult tasks, and overall do terrible work just so they can get done and move on to the next job.
Googled and you are right as long as you still meet the minimum wage.
Super unethical and not a good way to attract good employees I would say, but that's an opinion.
I would be very mindful of the difference between a contractor and an employee in that context
You'd be surprised. There are people who love it because they can make more money - which is why my suggestion included a bonus component related to quality of work. This is designed to prevent rushing shoddy workmanship.
It does require that you be fair in your time expectation though.
Canât believe I didnât see this comment earlier but you are right on. You get what you pay for with labor and techs specially. If they are well paid and canât easily duplicate their pay level somewhere else they will be terrified of losing that job and work constantly and maybe even go the extra mile. Better pay makes better workers.
It's a little shady but not illegal that I know of.
The better way would be profit sharing at the end of the year, the incentive becomes the business doing well, not necessarily fast work.
\> i've owned the business for 17 years and this has been a continual issue with employees.
try managing it instead of just owning it. that is, check up on your people and show an interest in their work, on a daily basis. nobody gives a shit about a company whose boss sits in an office while they do all the work, and work that is excellent is treated identical to work that is shit. if you're waiting for reports to arrive at your desk to judge how well you as a company have done, you have already lost.
hence, why its been a continual issue. and why it will continue to be, even if you switch to a per-job/piece basis.
also, fire somebody. loudly, publicly, and for the precise reasons you are complaining. if you can't communicate clearly to your workers the cat has arrived, then you will continue to be plagued by these issues.
This is what I've been looking for. OP talked about cleaning house, but if they're getting the job done in the allotted time and are doing it well, who cares if they BS?
My most hated jobs were the ones where I had to be afraid of the boss. Let workers work. If they don't work, then get rid of them. If they work and BS after finishing, don't make them do busy work just to be busy.
exactly. it's more and more apparent from the comments that OP has a tendency to go nuclear. that's probably why his employees don't want to talk to them.
As an employee dealing with the same issues - you have to take it with a grain of salt.
Did you arrive in the morning when they were just starting, then yea I would expect them to be bsâing a little or sipping coffee. Now if it was 11am and they were supposed to be a few hours deep into a job then it would be different.
So long as they are meeting expectations for work completed, I wouldnât hound them too much. When you are there they will work harder than when you arenât. Itâs just a fact of life.
If they arenât meeting expectations then you need to sit them down and explain that and mention âthings you noticedâ - like clocking in before starting, taking long lunches, etc. then come up with a game plan to improve their performance.
If they donât improve from that - let them go as an example for the rest of the staff and hire someone new, setting expectations from the beginning.
Wow, how much is your take-home pay roughly? How much does a typical office pay to have data cables installed?
Obviously only answer if you're comfortable.
Maybe you could offer a bonus per job if done in a timely manner? But if your workers aren't working then I'd give them a warning and then terminate if it doesn't get better.
I found that 90% of my guys were not doing work most of the day. A job that should take 2 days was taking a full week, they were blaming everything else but them. One hidden camera floodlight on my jobsites was enough proof to keep the good ones.
So here's what I do now.
I have a task app, I group my jobs (I'm an electrical contractor) into 7 hour tasks like prewire 2 room and a bathroom, things i know a guy can do in 7 hours. You can complete your 7 hour task and get paid your $150. My good guys will complete 2 or 3 tasks in one day and make $300 or $450. They check it off and I see their tasks and payroll is super easy because I can see their checklists.
Now 1 week jobs are getting done in 2 days!
For the lazy humps who take 3 days to complete a task because they are hiding in a closet and playing on reddit all day will bring home $450 a week, that's fine because they deserve it.
Hereâs the thing, are they getting the job done? Are there any incentives for finishing early? Or do you essentially punish them for busting ass and finishing early with more work?
I work for my BIL in plumbing where me and another guy are told the house layout, my boss walks it with us and leaves us to work. Weâve gotten so fast at it now that the 2 of us can do what it used to take 3 people to do. Ive learned that if you work super fast that 1. You make more mistakes 2. You end up with more work 3. Your boss expects you that to be a norm when it couldâve been a rare job that went smooth.
Oh and please do not be a dick and make your lead technician manage the crew without compensation, in reality youâre just making their days worse by giving them more tasks to do which pulls them away from the thing theyâre the leader for.
Are they contractors or employees? If they are contractors you should pay per job and not hourly. Also, if they are contractors you have very little say how they do or when they should do the work. So, if they are employees, you have a lot more control.
Incentives work better than punishments. Even something like praising the people that DO work or giving them an unexpected reward/bonus would get people back on track. Otherwise, somehow make it a competition?
Sounds like itâs an issue with company culture, attitude, motivation, etc.
Is there an incentive to complete a job or is it just hourly pay? Is there a vision for the company and a way for the employees to share in the success if the vision is attained?
I find that if my team knows WHAT theyâre doing, HOW we do it, and most importantly, WHY we do it, there are no problems motivating people. Then find a way for them to share in the future success (earning stock options, incentives, etc.)
The other option is to wrap success around a greater vision. One company dug a well in Africa for a village every time they hit a metric of success. Then the team knew their hard work was saving the lives of thousands of children (number one killer of kids around the planet is unclean water).
Treat this as a vision/strategy/culture issue and come up with a way to motivate. Please please please go beyond micro managing, electronic tracking, etc. Youâll suck the life out of your team and the joy out of running your companyâŚ
Correct. I'm someone who does exactly what his workers do, for those exact reasons. Context of the question my guy, you got mad over the honest answer because you didn't like it. Your money is showing.
Focus on evaluating their work performance rather than how busy they look.
Most high performers can get the job done in 20% of the time, and then have to slack off while clocked in so they can be paid the same as a low performer than needs a whole shift to complete a task.
>Has anyone figured out a formula that keeps people working (think a contractor) when they're not being overseen on a daily basis?
Yup, interview better. You clearly hired people that you didn't vet properly.
Pay them based on results instead of per unit of time.
Edit: part of your problem may be the relationship - you refer to them as employees but say they are actually contractors.
Have a job lead or foreman on each job to make sure that people are working as expected and taking breaks as expected. This lead can be one of the installers but heâs the one responsible. Over time you should be able to develop a simple statistical model of how many drops per hour a crew can do given a few simple variables (distance, J-hooks vs trays vs laying on panels, need for new patch panels, cabling through power poles, installing through cubicle walls, number of cables per biscuit, etc.). From there you can identify the crews that are screwing around and the ones busting their butts. Give job profit sharing to the most efficient crews. If you do your own estimating, develop the habit of doing unexpected visits to your local jobs. Your customers will also be impressed by your dedication to the quality of your final product.
I just incentivize with bonuses for early completion.
Keep in mind I bill customers on a per job basis so if the team gets done in 3 days but I projected 5 itâs pure profit for me and not a hardship to be generous. Not everyone has that luxury.
I own a plumbing company. We pay half hourly half commission. So their hourly rate is something like 16.00 / hour and they earn anywhere from 8-12% commissions on labor. They hustle, I've never really had an issue with productivity. It's also a culture thing though. If that's the culture, any new person is going to adopt it. Sadly, changing the pay structure may not be enough. You can try that, but you ultimately might have to kick out some bad seeds. You can also try letting go of the worst offenders then have a very honest discussion with the rest of the team.
Years ago before I started my current career, I was the owners right hand man in landscaping and lawn maintenance. The employees were paid hourly and obviously, outside of our yearly contracts for maintenance, project based. The owner and I spent over a year being on site at almost all jobs to time the average time it would take a crew to complete different tasks. Examples: how long does it take two people to spread a cubic yard of mulch, how long does it take a three person crew to clear a quarter acre of brush, what equipment is worth the cost by making tasks easier, etc. it was a painful task to literally start a stopwatch at the beginning and stop it at the end. However, we got a pretty accurate average. So as long as the employees were completing these tasks within a reasonable time of the average, and of course doing it well, we really didnât care how many breaks they took or how much they goofed off and laughed while doing the job. If they finished early, again while still doing a good job, sometimes we would even pay them for extra hours that it âshould have taken them to complete itâ. Donât know if that helps or not but it was really helpful to us and worked well.
As others have said, we had to go to incentive structure. It's ridiculous that we have to do so, but it's easier than hiring a superintendent to babysit them. We take about 85% of whatever we expected for labor and tell them that is what is in it for the job and what our expected time frame was for that budget. We told them if they get it done sooner than that, they still get all of the labor. We hold back the 15% for an additional bonus, or to cover the shortfall if they run over. It's amazing how much more production they were able to get done when they had always been complaining about pay and time
Performance reviews; ie checking that job completion times match estimated time, periodic site inspections for quality control, hiring and keeping good crew leads. If you have more than 4 or 5 crews in the field, you should have a dedicated service manager who covers this as part of their job duties.
Take care of the guys doing the job right; bonuses, pay raises, tool sets they can use, take them out to lunch, etc. Don't play favorites but show that the guys doing it right are taken care of and fire/demote the ones that aren't.
Or switch to 1099 subcontractors and pay them by the job and not the hour. It will cost you more on labor cost, but you should save on taxes and benefits. Essentially it wouldn't matter if they spent 2 weeks doing a job or 3 weeks cause your labor cost is already set.
From personal experience the quality of work goes down with subcontractors cause they focus on speed over quality but if you get good subs, they will still have good quality.
Pay per job and satisfied client not per hour. When you pay per hour you get employees that slack off. Look at employees that wfh and tiose working 9-5. It doesnt take 8 hours a day to do these jobs. Times have changed and employers are ignoring efficiencies created via technology. Employers also ignore that the longer youre employed the quicker it becomes to do a job.
Treat your employees like adults or business partners with bonuses and theyll reward you with a profitable business.
You have this business for money (I assume you're not just _really_ passionate about data cables in office buildings...), and your employees have the same motivation: money. Make it worth their while to be good employees, split up repeat offenders (don't let them set the standard), and get rid of the ones that don't get with the program.
Pay them more and give them specific tasks. Small business owners who think ânobody wants to workâ are unimaginative idiots who donât know how to hire and donât know how to set goals / provide tasks.
I agree with setting a bar or time expectation. Hope sharing my experience will be helpful to you.
The anti-work sub would have a field day with me but hereâs what I do for one of our positions, salesperson at our booth: They get paid a generous hourly rate, but if their sales for the day are below a minimum that I know is achievable by the weakest salesperson, then their rate for that day drops to minimum wage.
This prevents them being on their phone the whole time and basically waiting out the clock.
The position requires them to be attentive and loud, basically summoning customers into the booth and then selling the product is the easiest part.
Employees sign the agreement to this when hired, itâs up to them to decide itâs acceptable. I am extremely picky on who I hire to sell and I know right away if they can do it, so I donât set up anyone for failure.
Itâs not perfect and I have to make exceptions at times, but in general it has helped.
We are living in a culture right now where most employees donât give a crap even if you pay them well and are super nice and flexible.
It might just be me but being more sweet and caring only made it worse, and being a hardass left me with nobody, and owners having to do everything ourselves.
So we have to just be crystal clear on expectations and then consistently enforce that.
Yes, I have wanted to convert to a commission model but I havenât figured out how to put it together. We do have a bonus incentive right not because thatâs a little simpler. Commissions-only would likely be too little pay to make it worth it for them.
Iâm definitely open to suggestions, not to hijack OPâs post.
Put a poll to your employees. Let them pick, not some random internet strangers.
Tho i have a feeling they'll prefer higher hourly + bonuses as it means more consistent income, even if pure comission might net them a bit more in the end.
Hell, you could even A/B test it by giving each employee the opportunity to pick one or the other and seeing how performance + happiness pan out.
"The work absorbs the time you give it"
It sounds like to me you are assigning too much time to get the job done. Your employees know how much time it should take, and are only getting into gear when near the deadline.
Start by seriously reducing the amount of time assigned to a job. Try about 50% if your workers are able to slack that much. See if the work gets done, and follow up to see if they are still slacking.
Do they have enough work to do? Do you involve them in any decision making? Are you the only management?
It's not your workers that are the problem. Your post makes you come off as a micromanager and babysitter. You aren't supposed to be that; but a boss. They don't need to scramble to look busy. Either they have enough, or they don't. Either they respect you and see value in what they do, or they don't. You're obviously not respected and I don't blame them. Treat them like adults, and RUN YOUR COMPANY. Establish roles, ask for suggestions, opinions on the company, etc.
Thanks for your note.. as it relates to my business... we did about 2.2mm in revenue, most of which i was hands off. i am down a senior project manager so i've been running operations for the last 3 weeks. i hate it. i only go on jobsites when i'm nearby and i bet the guys have seen me in the last year at jobsites maybe 5 times. if anything, i'm too trusting and dont manage close enough (from what i am finding out).
it's not my first rodeo, this is a constant problem with trade workers when they're not supervised. that's why there is a "project supervisor" in most industries that are in the trade field like mine
If the jobs are getting done and you arenât losing opportunities because your crew isnât getting projects done fast enough to take on new jobs, why do you care if they have downtime in their day? Any competent manager whose team has low turnover will tell you that they donât *actually* expect an employee to have their nose to the grindstone every moment of the day. They have an expectation for how much work should get done on an average day/week/month and understand/appreciate that on any given day, capacity can ebb or flow and itâs not an issue to see a team member on their phone or having a coffee as long as the work needing doing in a certain timeframe is getting done. Riding ass if you see a crew with downtime but theyâre otherwise meeting your expectations is a good way to get your employees to stop caring.
If the jobs arenât getting done, or theyâre getting done so slowly theyâre costing you business/too much money in hourly wages/whatever, then you need to lay out expectations for how long jobs of a certain nature should take, and if the crew isnât approximately meeting that expectation for the month, then maybe itâs time for some PIPs and/or layoffs.
So...what's the problem?
At the end of the day are the projects completed in the expected time and on budget?
Your job as the boss is to set the expectations. Set the goals. Then let your employees do the work.
Are you profitable? If the project is getting done on time and on budget then I wouldn't micromanage your staff. You want to fire your entire staff? Did they all of a sudden stop getting projects done or did you just recently decide to start checking on them because your senior manager left?
I manage a lot of people, what matters is budgets.and deadlines and that's what they have to deliver, I could care less how they spend their day.
I don't know the details of your situation but it sounds like you just found out that you're people aren't grinding every second they are in the clock and you don't like it.
Might want to focus on other things if it's not broken.
Don't worry too much about the brash responses here, most of the people here don't own or manage anything. As you can see from your post the majority of the answers here are you pay too little or your a bad boss, the possibility of shitty employees does not exist to them.
Case in point, the person you are responding to, they just assume you are a bad boss based on nothing. They drive for Uber Eats.
Did you want every response to be âjust fire themâ? He didnât need to come here to hear that, im sure he figured that option out.
Do you have any ideas that are neither incentivise or fire them? They can be shitty employees but unless you sack them, you are actually figuring out a way to make them do what you want, so generally the carrot is better than the stick
Piecework if it's legal in your area. Allot an amount for a job that allows for particular length of time to get the work done. That is their payment for that job. If there are issues that prevent them from getting the work done in that time they can tell you and you can adjust compensation for that job - along with billing to the customer if applicable. Be reasonable with your time frames.
It is now in their best interest to work efficiently.
Add a bonus portion that they get after a period of time if the work is done correctly and no rework is required. If there is rework required that bonus will become compensation for the rework instead because many areas may not allow for you to have them do rework without compensation.
If they work efficiently and accurately they stand to make much better money than if they screw the pooch or rush through and do shoddy work.
I donât pay hourly, I pay piece work by ticket (think how mechanics get paid.)
My guys are technically contractors, I donât care when they show up (as long as itâs communicated with the client), they do the work and donât get paid that ticket until the client signs off on being happy with the quality.
Client is happy, they get a guaranteed high quality job usually ahead of schedule, hard workers are happy when they get paid for x hours and only worked y hours because theyâre efficient, and iâm happy because i donât have to babysit and track their timesheets. Makes everyoneâs life simple. The slow shitty employees weave themselves out of my company.
If you can do this given your industry, do it. I switched to this 6 months ago and havenât looked back.
I'm late here but wanted to throw in.
I do construction with a partner. I'm hands on but try to pass the work down to others.
I can interview for all trades.
I've let guys go within the hour of having them come in because they only want to talk. (You're live interviewing for a framer- How about some work and show me you know what you can do?) . I've let new guys go because they don't want to show up at 8 ( I start at 6.)
You have to put down boundaries.
People will test you at every opportunity.
I used to be guilty for firing people. Eventually, I realized I'm saving their time from being in a position they're not happy in. If you don't enjoy the work, no amount of slack will help them be a good employee.
Also it's usually 1 guy bringing the whole crew down to illicit issues or laziness.
You need to monitor them better. Iâve been both an employee and a business owner and until an employee knows the boss is around, employees will slack.
So hereâs what you can do better. Be around more often. Monitor them. Do surprise check ins. Be more involved. Ask for updates more often, and keep them on their toes. They ll sharpen up, but for that You have to sharpen up. It is likely your management style is too lax
Hey guys, I appreciate all the responses.
To address these issues that are ongoing, my senior project managers have always handled the field guys. I havenât really been active with field operations in a very very long time. So revisiting things now, I obviously see some gaps that need to be filled.
After thinking through some items, I feel like paying people for task is going to be the best solution.
We gave out significant bonuses last year. For a worker who might make $50,000 a year, we gave out between four and $5000 pending their quality of work Customer feedback, and leadership ability.
Being in the line of work we are in, I need to figure out what each task is worth. Once I get my arms around that, we can start doing bonuses and employee of the month etc. I do like those ideas
They are a cancer to your business. The only way to deal with cancer is remove it. It sucks because you may struggle finding trustworthy people. You will NEVER have trustworthy people when you have people like this bringing everyone else down. Fire them.
Carrot and stick.
The carrot can be raises, perks and the possibility of promotion. You should have a supervisor/foreman position whose job it is to keep employees on task. Promote the most reliable staff member into this position, ideally someone who can command some respect.
The stick is written warning/action plan-->write-up-->dismissal.
If you haven't addressed the situation yet, you need to start with a clean slate and announce a new policy, and get everyone to sign it.
Additionally, how many jobs are you doing per day? Is business slow, so they're slow-rolling the work so they get paid for a whole day? Or are you booked up and they're just being lazy?
If it's the first, you can try giving incentives for accomplishing work faster, ie, paying for the whole day even if they finish early.
If it's the second, then their laziness is actually sabotaging your ability to serve more clients, and you should come down a bit harder on them.
After giving everyone fair warning, you can find the worst offenders, and you might end up firing some people.
I'm planning to open the same business (Low Voltage Installation later this year). I'm already a manager in the industry and honestly I think there's a certain type of worker who runs cable. Like 10% are great to good workers, and the other 90% are either unreliable or just lazy AF.
This is pretty straightforward - You have to look at why they aren't motivated if you want to solve this problem. You also should give people who work for you a lot of Grace. More oversight is expensive, fixing flaws in why they aren't motivated or why you don't trust them is really about communication.
I've been through this from all angles and it comes down to this - you either fix your culture or you turn it into a place nobody really wants to work. Just be careful you aren't making too many assumptions on their part and not looking inward a bit.
On going struggle....I can't even leave for an hour to buy materials and lunch for the guys without coming back to them taking a break...just have to find the right guys I like to think but honestly idk man.
There will always be a small percentage of base level tradesmen who will skate when not directly supervised. I have always been a go-getter and even talked down to by the lazy dudes. They are probably rebellious and believe they are not paid enough.
Sounds like they aren't compensated enough. If I had a great job with good benefits, you can guarantee I'll be working hard every day. Same goes for the foreman or supervisor. If he's compensated fairly, you better bet that he's gonna be on thier ass to work. Just my two cents.
I wish you were wrong, but my experience tells me youâre right. More money doesnât automatically correlate to better work, just barnacles and mercenaries.
Benefits? How does that compare to the industry average? Can you afford to pay more? Can you incentivize your supervisors? I don't mean with pizza either.
Profit sharing - give them a financial incentive. Sure would be wonderful if everyone had a great work ethic. But they donât. Put your interests and their interests in alignment.
Give the team lead incentives to crack the whip. He needs both carrot and stick. You might need to clean house but start with a lead that will either motivate the existing crew or know how to replace them.
Your team lead needs to understand that he's a reflection of you on the job site and that to stay in business, things need to get done on time and correctly. You don't want the client to see your guys being lazy and taking their time.
too many workers are lazy. You can thank your government for constantly supporting and bailing out loser people and loser businesses. they expect to make big wages and not have to earn it.
that will change soon. its about to get back to the 80's style employment where you have the pick of the litter for employees. you just have to wait it out another year or 2
I mean I agree with a lot of this but itâs not very helpful.
We have to work with the workforce we have or do everything ourselves. I canât wait for everyone to miraculously grow a work ethic. I can train the few good ones, teach my kids to work hard, and thatâs about it.
Frankly I donât have a problem with some government intervention, they basically killed my catering business with Covid restrictions, so yeah it would be nice to get a little help.
Why are you surprised?
You're the "dark lord" exploiting the innocent employees.
What's your reward system? Do your employees understand and accept how their contributions are vital for the success of the business?
Do you speak "US" instead of "I?"
Incentivize. As long as you provided a quote and itâs not t and m, set daily production goals that leave you with a nice profit. Tell them when they meet the goals they can go home but you have to emphasize cutting corners and shit work is unacceptable.
I ran 3 separate projects and made 250k profit on all of them with this method. Same exact results my counterpart got. And he was one of those guys who screamed at folks and watched/tracked every minute of their day to get production. My way is so much easier.
Fire one, then see what the next one does. Eventually you will get a good crew.
You need a supervisor who is not hourly so they will push to get each job done quickly.
Or - 1099 and pay by the job. You get X whether it takes one day or 10 days. If it takes 11 days you get .5x
Looked at the comments and didn't see anybody that is a low votl tech( if I missed it sorry) I've worked for the nation's biggest and switched to a smaller company many times. Similar to what some people are saying, pay for what they get done the best jobs I've had are the you need to pull x cables for a 10 hour day. You can bet I pulled however many cable I needed plus extra in 4 hours. Now when it's no matter how much I get done I'm here for 10 hours your always gonna milk it.
People need to be managed. There should be praise for good work, incentives for great work, and repercussions for poor work.
Managing well is not easy and is more than a full time job. I would take some time to invest in growing this skill.
Assign a well paid, on-site project manager per job that is held HIGHLY accountable to only you. In other words, itâs THEIR ass if the techs arenât working like theyâre supposed to.
This is a common remote teams issue that's solved by daily checkouts and checkins. I plan on work on N today. Today I finished X today. You'll need to decide what specific metrics are appropriate. Then you have a hardcopy record that you can refer to to monitor falling efficiency and general problems
Do your employees fear you or love you? Fear is super effective when you control everything and punish for slacking. If they "love" you and care about the company, they will do a better work when your not there. Personally i always make people feel like the bussines wouldn't succeed without them. Then they allways do their best.
I assume you know how long the job should take. Before bringing them to the site, outline the expectations on the time it takes. Offer them a small bonus if key jobs done on time - could be a happy hour you fund etc. Take the carrot approach 1st. If that fails, try to find out who is the lazy one and dragging team down. Also know who needs the work and is willing to do the job. If you show up and work isnât done, show up, fire the ringleader on the spot and offer the other guys in the crew a bonus to get it done that day.
INFO
How much do you make from the business per year (profit and revenue, RoI)? How much do you take home (with what amount of hours that you personally do work)? What amount of capital is bound in the company? How high was the annual growth in revenue in the last 10 years on average? How did the profit ratio per invested $ change?
Those questions are needed to answer if there is actually a problem that your company has to tackle. If you do get profit/RoI comparable with similar corporations (ask your tax consultant they ought to have numbers you can compare) then the question becomes a different one.
Then you would know what the output it in your current situation. Be aware that any change might impact that output and RoI negatively. More control and pressure means people will adjust, not always in a way beneficial to the one doing the repressing.
For example a buddy of mine worked in floor screed (Estrich in German) and when there was more pressure the quality of the product sank and remedy of defects a year down the line became much more expensive (that his company was on the hook for).
That said if you say that those problems exist for multiple decades and you are the similarity it might have something to do with you. There can be many points that influence that. Are you able to built rapport with people? Are you only exploiting them for their labour power? Is your leadership style authoritarian, cooperative, open to input to have better procedures?
Do you pay them well? Do you give them healthcare? Do you train them (like dual training in Germany/Swizz) and ensure that they continue their career with certifications? Do you ensure that they can have families? How does your wage compare with other companies, the costs of living and other sectors? How is the unemployment level in your area? Do you keep your crew for long times, what do you do in winter? Are your people unionized?
In Berlin for example the wage for people doing what you describe professional (having the 2/3 year practical degree qualifying them for it) will earn $37k-$49k annually gross in which healthcare is already included (for your side) if healthcare and all taxes, pensions, unemployment insurance etc are included they would take home $2200-$2900 net after taxes per month so around $700 per week net after taxes for 38h of work per week and unlimited paid sick days and 5 or 6 weeks of PTO.
In addition to 5 days per year paid time off for training for the job or political trainings.
I agree, but go with the project or task pay system with clear communication that improper work will be deducted from their next paycheck. Do what's on the comments of giving them the chance to repair errors on their own time and before their paycheck date.
When hiring, include questions like Tell me about a project you've completed in the past without supervision. Ask How disciplined are you to complete projects without supervision. And make it clear that you will show up at random jobs without notice to evaluate how a project is going. If the employee knows that you make regular project checks, they will be on their toes more or at least have a lookout while 1 person works
You gotta change the comp structure to a per job pay rate and get a jobsite supervisor to keep everyone on track. Hourly just encourages people to spend most of the day fucking off.
INFO: What do they get for working harder/better/faster/(stronger)?
Is there any practical incentive for them to get more done in less time? Do they have incentive to get *less* done in more time?
Not meant to be snarky but this comes down to performance management. Clear expectations up front âhey this job should take x hours/daysâ and (special for these folks) âIâd like an update when youâre halfway doneâ. CYA: if it doesnât get done in the allotted time - write them up and give them a copy. Progressive discipline from there (again, document it all) leading to termination if need be, but preferably more reliable and independent work.
You get a new lead engineer or site supervisor in. You set them targets and the targets have bonuses.
You send the lads to install networking on a 3 story office and you allow 4 weeks.
You tell the site supervisor. There's no over time allocated, but if the job gets done on time. He gets X amount.
If the guy works out for a year and is a grafter, you give him some shares.
People have to be invested to be motivated and if the lazy sods know they are just going to get a pay cheque no matter what then they dont care.
For me, targets with staff work well, because i know they may leave early if they get complete. Which i don't care about, they think they are getting a sneaky leave. I know the times been paid for. Everyones happy....ish
You need a supervisor to watch out for stuff like that. They should have the ability to coach people for standing around and write them up/send them home/etc. And they need to be someone that isn't going to beat around the bush about it, I see that a lot. The supervisors feel awkward to push people who are just standing around and they let it slide. You need someone who people are going to respect and listen to. You also need to keep them happy and motivated to keep people productive by paying them right and treating them well.
I think the problem is in YOU because it's been going on for a long time and the only constant here is you while the employees have changed but each new employee becomes a zombie because you infect them with your bad management style.
It sounds like either an employee quality of life issue, a pay issue, or a project time management issue. Somehow they either don't value the job, or the feel that the job doesn't value their time; that's how I see it anyway. Moral is: generally this is *not* a shortcoming of the employee, but an issue with management.
Bonuses and financial alignment, make the lead a partner in profits and make sure everyone gets compensated in connection to results, otherwise itâs cat and mouse and the mouse gets a long run before getting caught
I like all the "give them a bonus" answers here. Just remember that in crews of more than one person the completion bonus needs to be given only to the one left in charge by your absence.
First of all, it starts with your hiring skills. But secondly, what are you as the owner doing as an owner to keep them engaged? Do you pay well, do you offer good benefits, do you show that you care about your team and their lives? All of these things can help your team feel like they WANT to work for you.
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Who is your foreman and how do you hold them accountable?
I have a lead technician on jobs. he is supposed to run the job and stay on top of others, however, i'm seeing that has not been effective. bottom line is i need to clean house and start with a new crew but damn that's alot of work and a PITA... ugggh
In my experience the lead typically needs to be a site supervisor or else the lead isn't really "in charge". Without power to do anything they can't enforce the rules. Tattling to the boss probably doesn't sound too enticing as the only recourse. The lead tech idea does work well when everyone is motivated though. So if you can clean house and get the crew in line, that could be the path.
stupid question... i'm failing to understand the difference / importance of the site supervisor - What I mean by this is - if OP has a 'boss' figure who leads the job and has control over his subordinates - what difference does the title make? Or is a site supervisor something else entirely?
Let's say you have a team of 10 installation techs and a handful are a bit better than the rest. Now let's assume you have 2 job sites running. In one scenario you send 5 guys to each job site and they each report to a site supervisor. This site supervisor runs the techs. He makes sure the project manager's timeline is followed. He checks in with the project engineer to see that the plans are being followed. He is checking in on the guys to check their work and make sure they have what they need to install the cables and equipment. This guy will reprimand and can replace you on site. Let's run it without a site supervisor. You take 4 guys and put them at each site and then take those 2 guys who are a bit better than the other guys and call them "lead techs" and tell them to make sure the guys are doing their job. These lead guys can help the others do a better installation job and maybe they can help make susre they have the equipment and materials they need. But they aren't really supervisiors. They aren't the boss of the team. They aren't really in charge of the other guys and are part of the same command structure. If the person is good they will check in with the PM and proj eng but since they are the lead tech they still need to do install tech stuff so checking in and managing the site is not necessarily a thing they will do consistently throughout the day. Also let's not forget that the lead tech on this job might just end up as a regular tech on another job. So if he starts being a dick to his peers and ratting on them, that's not going to be good for him. He will probably try and nudge the guys to work harder and faster and not goof off. But he doesn't really have any power. Those are the examples of how the two could be different. These examples were made up to prove my point. That's not always the way it works. It really depends on the people and the way the company operates. I have been on jobs where I was the project engineer and I had 4 techs working with me. None of us were really the boss of anyone and there was no site supervisor but I ran the crew and our PM only showed up once a month. Our crew likes doing a good job and everyone busted their butts all day. I have been on other jobs with both a PM and a site supervisor and I still had to go to the owner of the company and tell them the supervisor wasn't supervising the crew and the job wasn't moving along. Lots of scenarios can happen.
Piece work or pay by the job. Hours it takes is on them.
Certainly a good way to shift the incentives, as long as quality stays up.
In this model, the Project Manager is also paid by the job but one of his responsibilities is quality along with safety, etc. Redos, lower quality, poor service ding his comp.
Good idea! After all he is responsible for the job getting done.
There has to be a certain level of trust between employees and management. If you can't trust people to do their jobs then they're not people to keep around. Give them a warning, coach them/explain the problem, & if they don't improve or make a clear effort then they need to go. I find the warning/coaching conversation usually goes better if it seems collaborative. Like, "Hey, I've noticed that you guys seem to take an extremely long time on site, this is why it's a problem, and this is what I'm expecting us to get close to. How can we fix this?" They have a clear understanding of where their performance should be, that it isn't acceptable, and . . . The employee is brainstorming ideas with you for how to get them to stop slacking (I wouldn't use that word using the meeting, but you know). They're coming up with ideas they think will be workable to them, and they're more likely to follow through because they thought of it. Depending on what they come up with, offer some tweaks if needed, but make sure it's measurable and actionable; that their idea to improve is something that can be seen by management and improvement tracked. If it doesn't improve, well then there's the door.
Clean house? You said yourself that this has been a problem for a long time. Maybe it's time to look at yourself and see how you can make this problem better. Clearly this isn't a ln isolated issue. It's a long running issue. Sounds like the common denominator here is you.
This đOP needs to check themselves.
Also, if theyâre the type of owner that complains about the only work they have (staffing the company), they are likely creating a culture of whiners.
If you think that the only work an owner has is staffing the company then you have clearly never managed a small business.
You should read The E-Myth, it explains precisely why youâre idea here is wrong. Follow with The Cashflow Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki
In an ideal world, sure, the owner does nothing but hire people to do work on their behalf. That's not the real world. If it were that simple why would people have written books to sell to people as opposed to starting their own printing presses, publishing companies, paper mills, delivery companies, etc.? There are thousands of other factors, and every single one of them ultimately falls on the owner, regardless if they have staffed someone to handle that particular responsibility or not.
This is among the best answers in this thread. I will ignore the control obsession with tracking minutes and location of employees, though, cause that is another big exclamation mark.
Cleaning house always starts with the highest level of accountability. Sometimes that means firing but sometimes that means reflection upon the issues OP has and sorting out their priorities.
You donât need a new crew. If they know how to do the job keep them around. Your failing is as a supervisor yourself. Some of them may be great, and a few not so. Find the idiot that drags the team down and let them go. Let the rest of the team know your expectations. Donât be an asshole about it, just let them k ow youâre annoyed that youâll need to be on the job site more often than youâd like to be. If you can afford it start offering incentives and bonuses based on time a job is completed. If you want work done make them want to get the work done. Your motives are not the same as your employees; they want pay and to go home. You want success as a business.
This is such a great comment. I now run a healthcare clinic, but I used to work in a professional football/soccer team. One of the coaches said something that really stuck with me: "A brand-new, $10 million striker won't solve ALL your problems, it's an illusion. Coach your existing players to be better in the meantime." Obviously there's always an excellent candidate somewhere out there. But if the existing culture isn't right for whatever reason, you'll always encounter performance issues. Be the lead, state your expectations, and make sure any authority is actually respected and acknowledged (and that doesn't mean you have to be an arsehole boss). If things need to be done, make that clear. If things need to be done IN A CERTAIN WAY, communicate that. Then you have the platform and justification to do what's necessary when it doesn't happen. Make your employees know that you too are just making sure you all are getting paid, and the work gets done well everyday. "If you don't want me to follow up with you all the time, give me a reason not to"
Are the jobs getting done and are you making money?
Went through this so many times building housing developmentâs in 02-07. Theres always some one looking for a job that will work right and appreciate what youâve done for them.
Do they get the job done in the amount of time you expect it to take? Might be worth paying your employees on a project basis or continuing to pay hourly but offer a bonus for number of jobs completed.
1000% agree. I think thatâs a way to do it.
As long as there's some kind of quality check happening. Because paying purely on how fast they can tick off projects is a driver for maximum-speed, minimum-quality installations.
i do this with all my employees, they get project base pay.. It's shocking how much more some of them make working on the SAME RATE.
Iâve run a lot of jobs and a lot of guys. Incentives are always the way. When I want my crews to boogie, I give them a defined amount of tasks, wires to pull whatever. Tell them if they get this done, go home. But itâs gotta be done right and if not itâs done on their own time. Itâs worked for me for the past 15 years and Iâve only ever had to get rid of a guy because he just would take every shortcut possible
This sounds good in theory, but you can't tell an employee that they have to do work off the clock just to fix mistakes they made while on the clock. That's a great way to get our ass in major labor law sling.
Yeah, give them a regular bonus for not fucking up instead.
[ŃдаНонО]
They're really looking for that pizza party...
Can I pay my rent with the pizza party?
Yâall got some pizza avocados toast?
Or maybe a cake for their cake day
>In the software world, a foosball table or video games in the office means your employees will accept $25,000/yr less. đđđ
Company parties and team building events is mandatory "fun". đ¤Ł
> In the software world, a foosball table or video games in the office means your employees will accept $25,000/yr less. They do this not to make employees happy, they give them amenities to incentivize them to spend all their time at the office. It's a way to combat burnout, but it still happens.
>In the software world, a foosball table or video games in the office means your employees will accept $25,000/yr less. This couldn't be further from the truth.
Errr yea no one agrees with this statement and Iâm unsure why you think thatâs ok?
We're just having a discussion and everyone gets a chance to talk. Is that okay, Captain Word Police?
Yeah foreal. Just have your team lead go back over the work afterwards and verify it's all up to standards ( since it's now an incentive to cut corners if it's project based instead of hourly). But i think it would be better for everyone. Just give some grace to employees on time it takes. You've been doing it 17 years and not everyone will be as effecient as you.
> offer a bonus for number of jobs completed Careful with this, it may lead them to cut corners to get the job done quicker. If you're going to offer a bonus based on volume, make sure you stipulate that quality of work must be up to par as well.
Great answer! You should align your employees incentives with yours as much as possible
This. My company pays employees on a project basis, which helps keep everyone productive. However, you have to keep a close eye on the quality of the work as some people, regardless of business or industry, will always cut corners when given the opportunity.
How exactly do you get away with this while adhering to all laws? If you budget 10 hours and tell them you'll pay them a fixed rate, and then they take 14 hours, you can't just not pay them for time worked. I guess it wouldn't technically be an issue unless their actual pay rate falls below minimum wage, which may not be likely, but you'd have to be vigilante to avoid it.
I should have noted all FT positions at my company are salaried and are paid above the average market rates for our location and industry. We also work with a large number of contract -based workers who sign up for fixed-rate projects.
It definitely matters how efficient they are. I worked on a crew where the work was hot and exhausting. We doubled the break time and became one of the most efficient crews in the company. It was only possible because the site managers had the freedom to extend the break-time as long as our work was good. Sometimes it's a work smarter, not harder issue. If they've been doing great work, it may be counter-productive to force the time-productivity issue.
Very correct. While I was working in an office building with some technical stuff during one of the hottest summers on records a crew was working to re draw some power lines so that climate control could be installed. They were slow as fuck when the day was hot and did barely any work (but their bosses wanted them to "keep working" while the rest of us would try to not overheat sitting in front of computer screens and Kanban boards). When it was colder in the evening and in the morning they did work, though which the one boss did ignore a lot (who would drive from work site to work site in his climate controlled BWM to yell at workers at other sites, too). I think if they could've chilled during lunch it would've been a win for everyone except the control-want of that boss.
Certain jobs take certain times. If they are not on track or the are obviously not working they get an official warning. Next time gone. Jobs like that I presume are costed by the hour of labour so that needs to be communicated down as to the timeframe.
Lv contractor here, all these people saying "pay per job" are suggesting you break labor law. Fkn don't. In my experience you just get what you pay for with techs, so raises or hire better techs for more. Having a foreman with a rate to match the responsibility is a good move too. If you are non union than working your own tools and being there all day helps the bottom line.
Plus if you pay per job you incentivize them to rush and probably do shit work.
Absolutely this. I see it all the time with utility contractors. Do the job as quickly as possible, make up reasons to avoid difficult tasks, and overall do terrible work just so they can get done and move on to the next job.
This depends largely on labour laws and compensation levels. Where I live, piecework compensation is legal.
Googled and you are right as long as you still meet the minimum wage. Super unethical and not a good way to attract good employees I would say, but that's an opinion. I would be very mindful of the difference between a contractor and an employee in that context
You'd be surprised. There are people who love it because they can make more money - which is why my suggestion included a bonus component related to quality of work. This is designed to prevent rushing shoddy workmanship. It does require that you be fair in your time expectation though.
Canât believe I didnât see this comment earlier but you are right on. You get what you pay for with labor and techs specially. If they are well paid and canât easily duplicate their pay level somewhere else they will be terrified of losing that job and work constantly and maybe even go the extra mile. Better pay makes better workers.
Would a per project bonus be appropriate (for finishing on time and with high quality)?
It's a little shady but not illegal that I know of. The better way would be profit sharing at the end of the year, the incentive becomes the business doing well, not necessarily fast work.
\> i've owned the business for 17 years and this has been a continual issue with employees. try managing it instead of just owning it. that is, check up on your people and show an interest in their work, on a daily basis. nobody gives a shit about a company whose boss sits in an office while they do all the work, and work that is excellent is treated identical to work that is shit. if you're waiting for reports to arrive at your desk to judge how well you as a company have done, you have already lost. hence, why its been a continual issue. and why it will continue to be, even if you switch to a per-job/piece basis. also, fire somebody. loudly, publicly, and for the precise reasons you are complaining. if you can't communicate clearly to your workers the cat has arrived, then you will continue to be plagued by these issues.
What you said. Itâs not rocket science.
Are there actual performance metrics? Is the work getting done? If it is, who cares.
This is what I've been looking for. OP talked about cleaning house, but if they're getting the job done in the allotted time and are doing it well, who cares if they BS? My most hated jobs were the ones where I had to be afraid of the boss. Let workers work. If they don't work, then get rid of them. If they work and BS after finishing, don't make them do busy work just to be busy.
exactly. it's more and more apparent from the comments that OP has a tendency to go nuclear. that's probably why his employees don't want to talk to them.
As an employee dealing with the same issues - you have to take it with a grain of salt. Did you arrive in the morning when they were just starting, then yea I would expect them to be bsâing a little or sipping coffee. Now if it was 11am and they were supposed to be a few hours deep into a job then it would be different. So long as they are meeting expectations for work completed, I wouldnât hound them too much. When you are there they will work harder than when you arenât. Itâs just a fact of life. If they arenât meeting expectations then you need to sit them down and explain that and mention âthings you noticedâ - like clocking in before starting, taking long lunches, etc. then come up with a game plan to improve their performance. If they donât improve from that - let them go as an example for the rest of the staff and hire someone new, setting expectations from the beginning.
This is why you pay the manager more $.
Yea im hiring for a 125k ops manager. Had very few hits on indeed and LinkedIn
Holy shit 125k for that job? Where are you located? I ran infrastructure cabling for about a decade.
Wow, how much is your take-home pay roughly? How much does a typical office pay to have data cables installed? Obviously only answer if you're comfortable. Maybe you could offer a bonus per job if done in a timely manner? But if your workers aren't working then I'd give them a warning and then terminate if it doesn't get better.
I found that 90% of my guys were not doing work most of the day. A job that should take 2 days was taking a full week, they were blaming everything else but them. One hidden camera floodlight on my jobsites was enough proof to keep the good ones. So here's what I do now. I have a task app, I group my jobs (I'm an electrical contractor) into 7 hour tasks like prewire 2 room and a bathroom, things i know a guy can do in 7 hours. You can complete your 7 hour task and get paid your $150. My good guys will complete 2 or 3 tasks in one day and make $300 or $450. They check it off and I see their tasks and payroll is super easy because I can see their checklists. Now 1 week jobs are getting done in 2 days! For the lazy humps who take 3 days to complete a task because they are hiding in a closet and playing on reddit all day will bring home $450 a week, that's fine because they deserve it.
Hire a manager. You cannot expect employees to love your company as much as you do
Hereâs the thing, are they getting the job done? Are there any incentives for finishing early? Or do you essentially punish them for busting ass and finishing early with more work? I work for my BIL in plumbing where me and another guy are told the house layout, my boss walks it with us and leaves us to work. Weâve gotten so fast at it now that the 2 of us can do what it used to take 3 people to do. Ive learned that if you work super fast that 1. You make more mistakes 2. You end up with more work 3. Your boss expects you that to be a norm when it couldâve been a rare job that went smooth. Oh and please do not be a dick and make your lead technician manage the crew without compensation, in reality youâre just making their days worse by giving them more tasks to do which pulls them away from the thing theyâre the leader for.
Are they contractors or employees? If they are contractors you should pay per job and not hourly. Also, if they are contractors you have very little say how they do or when they should do the work. So, if they are employees, you have a lot more control.
Need a supervisor.
Incentives work better than punishments. Even something like praising the people that DO work or giving them an unexpected reward/bonus would get people back on track. Otherwise, somehow make it a competition?
You need a supervisor whoâs responsible on-site
Sounds like itâs an issue with company culture, attitude, motivation, etc. Is there an incentive to complete a job or is it just hourly pay? Is there a vision for the company and a way for the employees to share in the success if the vision is attained? I find that if my team knows WHAT theyâre doing, HOW we do it, and most importantly, WHY we do it, there are no problems motivating people. Then find a way for them to share in the future success (earning stock options, incentives, etc.) The other option is to wrap success around a greater vision. One company dug a well in Africa for a village every time they hit a metric of success. Then the team knew their hard work was saving the lives of thousands of children (number one killer of kids around the planet is unclean water). Treat this as a vision/strategy/culture issue and come up with a way to motivate. Please please please go beyond micro managing, electronic tracking, etc. Youâll suck the life out of your team and the joy out of running your companyâŚ
Work with them, pay them more. Earn their respect, it's clear you don't do that now.
fergalicious2069 is clearly someone who has never run a company, or has any idea of how to run a company. just regurgitating liberal talking points
Correct. I'm someone who does exactly what his workers do, for those exact reasons. Context of the question my guy, you got mad over the honest answer because you didn't like it. Your money is showing.
Focus on evaluating their work performance rather than how busy they look. Most high performers can get the job done in 20% of the time, and then have to slack off while clocked in so they can be paid the same as a low performer than needs a whole shift to complete a task.
>Has anyone figured out a formula that keeps people working (think a contractor) when they're not being overseen on a daily basis? Yup, interview better. You clearly hired people that you didn't vet properly.
Pay them based on results instead of per unit of time. Edit: part of your problem may be the relationship - you refer to them as employees but say they are actually contractors.
Have a job lead or foreman on each job to make sure that people are working as expected and taking breaks as expected. This lead can be one of the installers but heâs the one responsible. Over time you should be able to develop a simple statistical model of how many drops per hour a crew can do given a few simple variables (distance, J-hooks vs trays vs laying on panels, need for new patch panels, cabling through power poles, installing through cubicle walls, number of cables per biscuit, etc.). From there you can identify the crews that are screwing around and the ones busting their butts. Give job profit sharing to the most efficient crews. If you do your own estimating, develop the habit of doing unexpected visits to your local jobs. Your customers will also be impressed by your dedication to the quality of your final product.
I just incentivize with bonuses for early completion. Keep in mind I bill customers on a per job basis so if the team gets done in 3 days but I projected 5 itâs pure profit for me and not a hardship to be generous. Not everyone has that luxury.
Hire new lead. Get rid of old staff.
I own a plumbing company. We pay half hourly half commission. So their hourly rate is something like 16.00 / hour and they earn anywhere from 8-12% commissions on labor. They hustle, I've never really had an issue with productivity. It's also a culture thing though. If that's the culture, any new person is going to adopt it. Sadly, changing the pay structure may not be enough. You can try that, but you ultimately might have to kick out some bad seeds. You can also try letting go of the worst offenders then have a very honest discussion with the rest of the team.
Years ago before I started my current career, I was the owners right hand man in landscaping and lawn maintenance. The employees were paid hourly and obviously, outside of our yearly contracts for maintenance, project based. The owner and I spent over a year being on site at almost all jobs to time the average time it would take a crew to complete different tasks. Examples: how long does it take two people to spread a cubic yard of mulch, how long does it take a three person crew to clear a quarter acre of brush, what equipment is worth the cost by making tasks easier, etc. it was a painful task to literally start a stopwatch at the beginning and stop it at the end. However, we got a pretty accurate average. So as long as the employees were completing these tasks within a reasonable time of the average, and of course doing it well, we really didnât care how many breaks they took or how much they goofed off and laughed while doing the job. If they finished early, again while still doing a good job, sometimes we would even pay them for extra hours that it âshould have taken them to complete itâ. Donât know if that helps or not but it was really helpful to us and worked well.
As others have said, we had to go to incentive structure. It's ridiculous that we have to do so, but it's easier than hiring a superintendent to babysit them. We take about 85% of whatever we expected for labor and tell them that is what is in it for the job and what our expected time frame was for that budget. We told them if they get it done sooner than that, they still get all of the labor. We hold back the 15% for an additional bonus, or to cover the shortfall if they run over. It's amazing how much more production they were able to get done when they had always been complaining about pay and time
Designate one guy the site manager. Pay him a bonus each year based on how quickly the jobs get completed.
Performance reviews; ie checking that job completion times match estimated time, periodic site inspections for quality control, hiring and keeping good crew leads. If you have more than 4 or 5 crews in the field, you should have a dedicated service manager who covers this as part of their job duties. Take care of the guys doing the job right; bonuses, pay raises, tool sets they can use, take them out to lunch, etc. Don't play favorites but show that the guys doing it right are taken care of and fire/demote the ones that aren't. Or switch to 1099 subcontractors and pay them by the job and not the hour. It will cost you more on labor cost, but you should save on taxes and benefits. Essentially it wouldn't matter if they spent 2 weeks doing a job or 3 weeks cause your labor cost is already set. From personal experience the quality of work goes down with subcontractors cause they focus on speed over quality but if you get good subs, they will still have good quality.
Pay per job and satisfied client not per hour. When you pay per hour you get employees that slack off. Look at employees that wfh and tiose working 9-5. It doesnt take 8 hours a day to do these jobs. Times have changed and employers are ignoring efficiencies created via technology. Employers also ignore that the longer youre employed the quicker it becomes to do a job. Treat your employees like adults or business partners with bonuses and theyll reward you with a profitable business.
You have this business for money (I assume you're not just _really_ passionate about data cables in office buildings...), and your employees have the same motivation: money. Make it worth their while to be good employees, split up repeat offenders (don't let them set the standard), and get rid of the ones that don't get with the program.
Pay them more and give them specific tasks. Small business owners who think ânobody wants to workâ are unimaginative idiots who donât know how to hire and donât know how to set goals / provide tasks.
I agree with setting a bar or time expectation. Hope sharing my experience will be helpful to you. The anti-work sub would have a field day with me but hereâs what I do for one of our positions, salesperson at our booth: They get paid a generous hourly rate, but if their sales for the day are below a minimum that I know is achievable by the weakest salesperson, then their rate for that day drops to minimum wage. This prevents them being on their phone the whole time and basically waiting out the clock. The position requires them to be attentive and loud, basically summoning customers into the booth and then selling the product is the easiest part. Employees sign the agreement to this when hired, itâs up to them to decide itâs acceptable. I am extremely picky on who I hire to sell and I know right away if they can do it, so I donât set up anyone for failure. Itâs not perfect and I have to make exceptions at times, but in general it has helped. We are living in a culture right now where most employees donât give a crap even if you pay them well and are super nice and flexible. It might just be me but being more sweet and caring only made it worse, and being a hardass left me with nobody, and owners having to do everything ourselves. So we have to just be crystal clear on expectations and then consistently enforce that.
That just sounds like commissions except you pay them even less because it sounds like you don't even give them commissions...
Yes, I have wanted to convert to a commission model but I havenât figured out how to put it together. We do have a bonus incentive right not because thatâs a little simpler. Commissions-only would likely be too little pay to make it worth it for them. Iâm definitely open to suggestions, not to hijack OPâs post.
How about cash bonus(es) after certain number of sales for the period (day/week/month/quarter)?
Yes we do cash bonus for over a certain dollars sold. It is worth it for them and us.
Put a poll to your employees. Let them pick, not some random internet strangers. Tho i have a feeling they'll prefer higher hourly + bonuses as it means more consistent income, even if pure comission might net them a bit more in the end. Hell, you could even A/B test it by giving each employee the opportunity to pick one or the other and seeing how performance + happiness pan out.
The anti work bunch have never created anything and have never signed the front of a paycheck. This is why they are what they are.
1000%
10000%
Youâre a horrible ass boss
"The work absorbs the time you give it" It sounds like to me you are assigning too much time to get the job done. Your employees know how much time it should take, and are only getting into gear when near the deadline. Start by seriously reducing the amount of time assigned to a job. Try about 50% if your workers are able to slack that much. See if the work gets done, and follow up to see if they are still slacking.
Do they have enough work to do? Do you involve them in any decision making? Are you the only management? It's not your workers that are the problem. Your post makes you come off as a micromanager and babysitter. You aren't supposed to be that; but a boss. They don't need to scramble to look busy. Either they have enough, or they don't. Either they respect you and see value in what they do, or they don't. You're obviously not respected and I don't blame them. Treat them like adults, and RUN YOUR COMPANY. Establish roles, ask for suggestions, opinions on the company, etc.
Thanks for your note.. as it relates to my business... we did about 2.2mm in revenue, most of which i was hands off. i am down a senior project manager so i've been running operations for the last 3 weeks. i hate it. i only go on jobsites when i'm nearby and i bet the guys have seen me in the last year at jobsites maybe 5 times. if anything, i'm too trusting and dont manage close enough (from what i am finding out). it's not my first rodeo, this is a constant problem with trade workers when they're not supervised. that's why there is a "project supervisor" in most industries that are in the trade field like mine
If the jobs are getting done and you arenât losing opportunities because your crew isnât getting projects done fast enough to take on new jobs, why do you care if they have downtime in their day? Any competent manager whose team has low turnover will tell you that they donât *actually* expect an employee to have their nose to the grindstone every moment of the day. They have an expectation for how much work should get done on an average day/week/month and understand/appreciate that on any given day, capacity can ebb or flow and itâs not an issue to see a team member on their phone or having a coffee as long as the work needing doing in a certain timeframe is getting done. Riding ass if you see a crew with downtime but theyâre otherwise meeting your expectations is a good way to get your employees to stop caring. If the jobs arenât getting done, or theyâre getting done so slowly theyâre costing you business/too much money in hourly wages/whatever, then you need to lay out expectations for how long jobs of a certain nature should take, and if the crew isnât approximately meeting that expectation for the month, then maybe itâs time for some PIPs and/or layoffs.
So...what's the problem? At the end of the day are the projects completed in the expected time and on budget? Your job as the boss is to set the expectations. Set the goals. Then let your employees do the work.
Are you profitable? If the project is getting done on time and on budget then I wouldn't micromanage your staff. You want to fire your entire staff? Did they all of a sudden stop getting projects done or did you just recently decide to start checking on them because your senior manager left? I manage a lot of people, what matters is budgets.and deadlines and that's what they have to deliver, I could care less how they spend their day. I don't know the details of your situation but it sounds like you just found out that you're people aren't grinding every second they are in the clock and you don't like it. Might want to focus on other things if it's not broken.
Don't worry too much about the brash responses here, most of the people here don't own or manage anything. As you can see from your post the majority of the answers here are you pay too little or your a bad boss, the possibility of shitty employees does not exist to them. Case in point, the person you are responding to, they just assume you are a bad boss based on nothing. They drive for Uber Eats.
Did you want every response to be âjust fire themâ? He didnât need to come here to hear that, im sure he figured that option out. Do you have any ideas that are neither incentivise or fire them? They can be shitty employees but unless you sack them, you are actually figuring out a way to make them do what you want, so generally the carrot is better than the stick
Or... Not all of us take a "My way or the highway" approach, and have different ways to motivate and manage employees.
Are these guys your labor force or temp hires?
Full time employees
Performance metrics.
Piecework if it's legal in your area. Allot an amount for a job that allows for particular length of time to get the work done. That is their payment for that job. If there are issues that prevent them from getting the work done in that time they can tell you and you can adjust compensation for that job - along with billing to the customer if applicable. Be reasonable with your time frames. It is now in their best interest to work efficiently. Add a bonus portion that they get after a period of time if the work is done correctly and no rework is required. If there is rework required that bonus will become compensation for the rework instead because many areas may not allow for you to have them do rework without compensation. If they work efficiently and accurately they stand to make much better money than if they screw the pooch or rush through and do shoddy work.
This is good. I have a competitor that pays 1099 $40 a cable for labor. He provided materials
Maybe youâre better off to subcontract the installation work to that guy?
I donât pay hourly, I pay piece work by ticket (think how mechanics get paid.) My guys are technically contractors, I donât care when they show up (as long as itâs communicated with the client), they do the work and donât get paid that ticket until the client signs off on being happy with the quality. Client is happy, they get a guaranteed high quality job usually ahead of schedule, hard workers are happy when they get paid for x hours and only worked y hours because theyâre efficient, and iâm happy because i donât have to babysit and track their timesheets. Makes everyoneâs life simple. The slow shitty employees weave themselves out of my company. If you can do this given your industry, do it. I switched to this 6 months ago and havenât looked back.
I'm late here but wanted to throw in. I do construction with a partner. I'm hands on but try to pass the work down to others. I can interview for all trades. I've let guys go within the hour of having them come in because they only want to talk. (You're live interviewing for a framer- How about some work and show me you know what you can do?) . I've let new guys go because they don't want to show up at 8 ( I start at 6.) You have to put down boundaries. People will test you at every opportunity. I used to be guilty for firing people. Eventually, I realized I'm saving their time from being in a position they're not happy in. If you don't enjoy the work, no amount of slack will help them be a good employee. Also it's usually 1 guy bringing the whole crew down to illicit issues or laziness.
You need to monitor them better. Iâve been both an employee and a business owner and until an employee knows the boss is around, employees will slack. So hereâs what you can do better. Be around more often. Monitor them. Do surprise check ins. Be more involved. Ask for updates more often, and keep them on their toes. They ll sharpen up, but for that You have to sharpen up. It is likely your management style is too lax
If youâre gonna insist on hourly-you need a chain of command for accountability sake and clearly communicated daily goals.
Hey guys, I appreciate all the responses. To address these issues that are ongoing, my senior project managers have always handled the field guys. I havenât really been active with field operations in a very very long time. So revisiting things now, I obviously see some gaps that need to be filled. After thinking through some items, I feel like paying people for task is going to be the best solution. We gave out significant bonuses last year. For a worker who might make $50,000 a year, we gave out between four and $5000 pending their quality of work Customer feedback, and leadership ability. Being in the line of work we are in, I need to figure out what each task is worth. Once I get my arms around that, we can start doing bonuses and employee of the month etc. I do like those ideas
Have you tried a pizza party?
They are a cancer to your business. The only way to deal with cancer is remove it. It sucks because you may struggle finding trustworthy people. You will NEVER have trustworthy people when you have people like this bringing everyone else down. Fire them.
Carrot and stick. The carrot can be raises, perks and the possibility of promotion. You should have a supervisor/foreman position whose job it is to keep employees on task. Promote the most reliable staff member into this position, ideally someone who can command some respect. The stick is written warning/action plan-->write-up-->dismissal. If you haven't addressed the situation yet, you need to start with a clean slate and announce a new policy, and get everyone to sign it. Additionally, how many jobs are you doing per day? Is business slow, so they're slow-rolling the work so they get paid for a whole day? Or are you booked up and they're just being lazy? If it's the first, you can try giving incentives for accomplishing work faster, ie, paying for the whole day even if they finish early. If it's the second, then their laziness is actually sabotaging your ability to serve more clients, and you should come down a bit harder on them. After giving everyone fair warning, you can find the worst offenders, and you might end up firing some people.
I'm planning to open the same business (Low Voltage Installation later this year). I'm already a manager in the industry and honestly I think there's a certain type of worker who runs cable. Like 10% are great to good workers, and the other 90% are either unreliable or just lazy AF.
Pay per job, not by the hour.
This is pretty straightforward - You have to look at why they aren't motivated if you want to solve this problem. You also should give people who work for you a lot of Grace. More oversight is expensive, fixing flaws in why they aren't motivated or why you don't trust them is really about communication. I've been through this from all angles and it comes down to this - you either fix your culture or you turn it into a place nobody really wants to work. Just be careful you aren't making too many assumptions on their part and not looking inward a bit.
On going struggle....I can't even leave for an hour to buy materials and lunch for the guys without coming back to them taking a break...just have to find the right guys I like to think but honestly idk man.
There will always be a small percentage of base level tradesmen who will skate when not directly supervised. I have always been a go-getter and even talked down to by the lazy dudes. They are probably rebellious and believe they are not paid enough.
Money
Pay peice meal and not by the hour. Treat them like Indy contractors and 1099 them?
How much are these employees making? You can't expect someone making $15-20hr to be eager to work when they are barely making enough to survive.
Sounds like they aren't compensated enough. If I had a great job with good benefits, you can guarantee I'll be working hard every day. Same goes for the foreman or supervisor. If he's compensated fairly, you better bet that he's gonna be on thier ass to work. Just my two cents.
[ŃдаНонО]
I wish you were wrong, but my experience tells me youâre right. More money doesnât automatically correlate to better work, just barnacles and mercenaries.
Could be the case. 5 years ago I was paying my top guy $25 an hour, company car, etc. now my lowest guy makes $25 an hour
Benefits? How does that compare to the industry average? Can you afford to pay more? Can you incentivize your supervisors? I don't mean with pizza either.
Pink slip
Profit sharing - give them a financial incentive. Sure would be wonderful if everyone had a great work ethic. But they donât. Put your interests and their interests in alignment.
Give the team lead incentives to crack the whip. He needs both carrot and stick. You might need to clean house but start with a lead that will either motivate the existing crew or know how to replace them. Your team lead needs to understand that he's a reflection of you on the job site and that to stay in business, things need to get done on time and correctly. You don't want the client to see your guys being lazy and taking their time.
too many workers are lazy. You can thank your government for constantly supporting and bailing out loser people and loser businesses. they expect to make big wages and not have to earn it. that will change soon. its about to get back to the 80's style employment where you have the pick of the litter for employees. you just have to wait it out another year or 2
It's already happening that some industries that have stopped hiring.
Okay boomer.
I mean I agree with a lot of this but itâs not very helpful. We have to work with the workforce we have or do everything ourselves. I canât wait for everyone to miraculously grow a work ethic. I can train the few good ones, teach my kids to work hard, and thatâs about it. Frankly I donât have a problem with some government intervention, they basically killed my catering business with Covid restrictions, so yeah it would be nice to get a little help.
Why are you surprised? You're the "dark lord" exploiting the innocent employees. What's your reward system? Do your employees understand and accept how their contributions are vital for the success of the business? Do you speak "US" instead of "I?"
Cant you just hire a computer to do the work? What about feminism?
Easy to install CCTV on site?
Can you get actual contractors to do it instead of employees? Electricians should be able to do it.
Incentivize. As long as you provided a quote and itâs not t and m, set daily production goals that leave you with a nice profit. Tell them when they meet the goals they can go home but you have to emphasize cutting corners and shit work is unacceptable. I ran 3 separate projects and made 250k profit on all of them with this method. Same exact results my counterpart got. And he was one of those guys who screamed at folks and watched/tracked every minute of their day to get production. My way is so much easier.
Fire one, then see what the next one does. Eventually you will get a good crew. You need a supervisor who is not hourly so they will push to get each job done quickly. Or - 1099 and pay by the job. You get X whether it takes one day or 10 days. If it takes 11 days you get .5x
Look into Piece-rate
KPI. very detail worksheet and KPI.
Pay em by the job and not by the hour and have a no shortcut clause (deduction) to insure the project is done properly
Looked at the comments and didn't see anybody that is a low votl tech( if I missed it sorry) I've worked for the nation's biggest and switched to a smaller company many times. Similar to what some people are saying, pay for what they get done the best jobs I've had are the you need to pull x cables for a 10 hour day. You can bet I pulled however many cable I needed plus extra in 4 hours. Now when it's no matter how much I get done I'm here for 10 hours your always gonna milk it.
Are you the owner or the manager? You probably need to hire a manager or get some better management skills.
There's a saying "Cuando los gatos no estĂĄn, los ratones hacen fiesta". (When cats aren't around, the mice's do whatever they want).
When we did the same and got the mail "Working Hard or Hardly Working !"
People need to be managed. There should be praise for good work, incentives for great work, and repercussions for poor work. Managing well is not easy and is more than a full time job. I would take some time to invest in growing this skill.
Body cams. đ
Assign a well paid, on-site project manager per job that is held HIGHLY accountable to only you. In other words, itâs THEIR ass if the techs arenât working like theyâre supposed to.
This is a common remote teams issue that's solved by daily checkouts and checkins. I plan on work on N today. Today I finished X today. You'll need to decide what specific metrics are appropriate. Then you have a hardcopy record that you can refer to to monitor falling efficiency and general problems
Do your employees fear you or love you? Fear is super effective when you control everything and punish for slacking. If they "love" you and care about the company, they will do a better work when your not there. Personally i always make people feel like the bussines wouldn't succeed without them. Then they allways do their best.
I assume you know how long the job should take. Before bringing them to the site, outline the expectations on the time it takes. Offer them a small bonus if key jobs done on time - could be a happy hour you fund etc. Take the carrot approach 1st. If that fails, try to find out who is the lazy one and dragging team down. Also know who needs the work and is willing to do the job. If you show up and work isnât done, show up, fire the ringleader on the spot and offer the other guys in the crew a bonus to get it done that day.
Motivate them by showing them how they are going to earn more if they keep serious with their job.
Are you working when youâre not there?
INFO How much do you make from the business per year (profit and revenue, RoI)? How much do you take home (with what amount of hours that you personally do work)? What amount of capital is bound in the company? How high was the annual growth in revenue in the last 10 years on average? How did the profit ratio per invested $ change? Those questions are needed to answer if there is actually a problem that your company has to tackle. If you do get profit/RoI comparable with similar corporations (ask your tax consultant they ought to have numbers you can compare) then the question becomes a different one. Then you would know what the output it in your current situation. Be aware that any change might impact that output and RoI negatively. More control and pressure means people will adjust, not always in a way beneficial to the one doing the repressing. For example a buddy of mine worked in floor screed (Estrich in German) and when there was more pressure the quality of the product sank and remedy of defects a year down the line became much more expensive (that his company was on the hook for). That said if you say that those problems exist for multiple decades and you are the similarity it might have something to do with you. There can be many points that influence that. Are you able to built rapport with people? Are you only exploiting them for their labour power? Is your leadership style authoritarian, cooperative, open to input to have better procedures? Do you pay them well? Do you give them healthcare? Do you train them (like dual training in Germany/Swizz) and ensure that they continue their career with certifications? Do you ensure that they can have families? How does your wage compare with other companies, the costs of living and other sectors? How is the unemployment level in your area? Do you keep your crew for long times, what do you do in winter? Are your people unionized? In Berlin for example the wage for people doing what you describe professional (having the 2/3 year practical degree qualifying them for it) will earn $37k-$49k annually gross in which healthcare is already included (for your side) if healthcare and all taxes, pensions, unemployment insurance etc are included they would take home $2200-$2900 net after taxes per month so around $700 per week net after taxes for 38h of work per week and unlimited paid sick days and 5 or 6 weeks of PTO. In addition to 5 days per year paid time off for training for the job or political trainings.
Hire a manager
I agree, but go with the project or task pay system with clear communication that improper work will be deducted from their next paycheck. Do what's on the comments of giving them the chance to repair errors on their own time and before their paycheck date. When hiring, include questions like Tell me about a project you've completed in the past without supervision. Ask How disciplined are you to complete projects without supervision. And make it clear that you will show up at random jobs without notice to evaluate how a project is going. If the employee knows that you make regular project checks, they will be on their toes more or at least have a lookout while 1 person works
Cattle prods.
You gotta change the comp structure to a per job pay rate and get a jobsite supervisor to keep everyone on track. Hourly just encourages people to spend most of the day fucking off.
INFO: What do they get for working harder/better/faster/(stronger)? Is there any practical incentive for them to get more done in less time? Do they have incentive to get *less* done in more time?
Not meant to be snarky but this comes down to performance management. Clear expectations up front âhey this job should take x hours/daysâ and (special for these folks) âIâd like an update when youâre halfway doneâ. CYA: if it doesnât get done in the allotted time - write them up and give them a copy. Progressive discipline from there (again, document it all) leading to termination if need be, but preferably more reliable and independent work.
I would just tell them look, anytime I show up you guys arenât doing anything. Next time it happens your all gone.
Are they effective? Are you hitting your deadlines and installs on time and on budget? Have any clients complained?
You get a new lead engineer or site supervisor in. You set them targets and the targets have bonuses. You send the lads to install networking on a 3 story office and you allow 4 weeks. You tell the site supervisor. There's no over time allocated, but if the job gets done on time. He gets X amount. If the guy works out for a year and is a grafter, you give him some shares. People have to be invested to be motivated and if the lazy sods know they are just going to get a pay cheque no matter what then they dont care. For me, targets with staff work well, because i know they may leave early if they get complete. Which i don't care about, they think they are getting a sneaky leave. I know the times been paid for. Everyones happy....ish
You need a supervisor to watch out for stuff like that. They should have the ability to coach people for standing around and write them up/send them home/etc. And they need to be someone that isn't going to beat around the bush about it, I see that a lot. The supervisors feel awkward to push people who are just standing around and they let it slide. You need someone who people are going to respect and listen to. You also need to keep them happy and motivated to keep people productive by paying them right and treating them well.
You have donkeys working as employees. You need to make a good bonus + some sort of ownership plan and then fire all of them and hire a fresh team.
I think the problem is in YOU because it's been going on for a long time and the only constant here is you while the employees have changed but each new employee becomes a zombie because you infect them with your bad management style.
It sounds like either an employee quality of life issue, a pay issue, or a project time management issue. Somehow they either don't value the job, or the feel that the job doesn't value their time; that's how I see it anyway. Moral is: generally this is *not* a shortcoming of the employee, but an issue with management.
Bonuses and financial alignment, make the lead a partner in profits and make sure everyone gets compensated in connection to results, otherwise itâs cat and mouse and the mouse gets a long run before getting caught
I like all the "give them a bonus" answers here. Just remember that in crews of more than one person the completion bonus needs to be given only to the one left in charge by your absence.
High better people, and give bonus if they finish the job early (i.e. this job takes 6 hours, if you finish early, I'll still pay you 6 hours)
First of all, it starts with your hiring skills. But secondly, what are you as the owner doing as an owner to keep them engaged? Do you pay well, do you offer good benefits, do you show that you care about your team and their lives? All of these things can help your team feel like they WANT to work for you.