[shnez]

Just out of interest, what type of premium are foremen making above journeymen?

I have seen as little as 5% more on kijiji ads, but generally between 15-20% when searching the simplyhired (dot) com type sites.

What's it like out there. I'd like to know across Canada but Calgary more specifically as thats where i am.

Thanks:thumbsup:

 

[Kunolop]

Usually depends on the size of project your doing and amount if guys working under you. What are you expecting to do?

 

[jontar]

I'm an electrical foreman (supervisor), for a larger company at a multiple plant site (complex). I look after the E/I dept staff guys and contractors, and report directly to the maint superintendent.

Well I'am not about to talk about what the salary ranges are on a public form, I will say that they are usually higher then lead hands and sub foremans, and that they are higher then shift electricians, or electricians/FIGs. Our contractors make less then our guys.

There are several other money related benefits to foreman (production based bonuses, yearly travel to check out other operations, expense claims) along with other non-direct money benefits.

You can pick and choose your job tasking aswell. Example some process pump blew its load and the motor needs to be disconnected, guess I'm not doing that one. Its -30 out and a transmitter is froze up and needs to be changed, not doing that one either.

I also like the advantage of working directly with the Engineers on projects and doing planning/ scheduling/ written work procedures/ project costing etc.

One of the major **** parts is the 2am call ins. If the on shift electrician is behind and you can't get ahold of anyone else to go in and help, you are the poor guy that has to go in and deal with this ****.

A couple weeks ago, we had a medium sized compressor go down at 7pm saturday nite, the operators tried to bring it back online and failed, mechanical foreman decided it was electrical/instrumentation problem. I got called in, to discover that it was in fact mechanical. We went to start up the backup compressor, and the pig went down on several oil related faults everytime we tried to start it. I was out there until 1.30-2 am, on a call I should never have even been called in for.

 

[jontar]

When I worked for a contractor years ago, I ran jobs with up to 40 guys on them, the pay structure was no higher then when I ran jobs with 6-8 jobs on them.

If you work for contractors they are cheap and will tell you wonderful stories about how they pay you top dollar already. The extra foreman pay,it would have been around 5% higher then the 1st yr Jman that just wired the 350hp motor for 230volts and not 460volts.

There were other premiums of course, for if the project was on time, budget, if you saved them a dime or two, and then usually some type of Bonuses.

 

[Rochsolid]

We get an extra 4$ an hour, plus larger bonus.

Sent from my SGH-I337M using electriciantalk.com mobile app

 

[shnez]

Again i'm just interested to know.

Back in the UK i would say a good foreman would be on 15-20% more than the standard electrician onsite, and at least 10% more than the guys who could take your place if required.

I'm just wondering if the percentages in the real world are the same as what i'm seeing. I don't need to know a $$ amount.

Just a very general post.

 

[Rochsolid]

Roughly 12%

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[jontar]

It depends on "what your worth" to the company you work for as supervisor you get to have performance reviews from time to time, they are never scared to tell you all the things that your doing wrong. If they are quiet and don't say anything, your doing a good job or about to be fired.

The electricians running around the plant, in a project/ shutdown/ upgrader type year, can make probably more then me, because of the thousands of hours that they can work, especially around the commissioning part chasing problems.

If your going off a normal year, and not worried about the OT too much, your 15-20% is about right. You also get all the stress with that, and nobody cares about your personal life schedules when the plant goes down, ever been called in on holidays, I was when that compressor went down. Its best to leave the country, when you want to get away for a while.

The higher % sometimes doesn't seem worth it, other times it does.

 

[jontar]

Are you looking for the power, and glory, or the daily ass chewing????

 

[jontar]

Rate the following, it will let you know it your ready for Supervisor.

Two superintendents call you "upstairs" for a talk, one of them gets up and closes the door, "for a closed door meeting". How bad do you think that is. Its actually not that bad.

Two superintendents call you "upstairs", they forget to close the door, these ones are bad. They want to use you as an example, for others.

 

[ponyboy]

Rate the following, it will let you know it your ready for Supervisor. Two superintendents call you "upstairs" for a talk, one of them gets up and closes the door, "for a closed door meeting". How bad do you think that is. Its actually not that bad. Two superintendents call you "upstairs", they forget to close the door, these ones are bad. They want to use you as an example, for others.

I can't relate to this at all. There are several foreman in our IE division serving multiple buildings. I am one of them, albeit the newest and youngest. There is no lead foreman, there is only us and we all report to the maintenance super and anyone above him. The foremen hardly work together or even see each other. There is no closed/open door meetings and no ones making an example out of anyone. Everyone is made fully aware of their duties and obligations and we fail together or we succeed together. Sure I know that I don't have to go on the roof when an exchanger freezes up in the winter, but they know that too, so I will sometimes. There's a couple different types of leaders, one of them is someone who only knows how to delegate down and hand out shít work.

 

[jontar]

Yes as said above I'm the Electrical Supervisor, technically the Foreman title, is a level below me, I still use the foreman title since being promoted. Old habits, I like Foreman over Supervisor. We don't carry a EI Superintendent at the site, currently.

The point isn't the individual rank structure of each plant /complex it varies by organization, along with the roles and responsibilities.

The Superintendents/Supervisors/Foreman/Sub-Foreman/Leadhands meet every morning during the week, and on the regularly scheduled maint/production meetings during the week.

Not every dept has each level of "foreman". I was the EI Foreman, I passed a couple rounds of reviews and was promoted to Supervisor (its just a pay structure thing). We ran without a Supervisor since the last guy was promoted, and until I filled the position. The foreman position sits empty right now, until filled probably in mid-July. As mentioned there is currently no EI Superintendent that role is currently covered by the Maint Superintendent, who was, promoted over.

Trust me the above statements are true, young foremans will eventually enjoy them. If you want to find out fast, go ESD the plant, let me know what kind of beautiful phrases were said to you, when they praised you.

 

[jontar]

Yes there are several types of leaders, I have taken several leasdership courses, I'm sent to them every 6 months. I have one more supervisor training course to complete, before lead into Superintendent 1 and 2. Once the last 3 are done, historically the supervisor, will when the time is right and has completed the requirements, be promoted to Superintendent.

Yes there are 3-4 more teirs of managers, I deal with them when asked/required to do so. Its not everyday, so I never mentioned them, I seen the one directly above the superintendents this morning in the morning meeting. I'll see the one above him tomorowo. Its not a huge deal, they are not scared to let you know if you they think you need to know something or correct something they saw.

I had a Devicenet problem in an MCC with an E3+, that one of the shift electricians reported, we accidently took down Train B, when online with RSNetworksforDevicenet checking the parameter settings and the Devicenet tree. The line shut in. It took us 45 minutes to get the problem solved and the line up and running. Trust me the meeting that followed the next day was an open door type.

I have personally had the enjoyment of sitting in a 4 of these open door type, they are super fun. Theres more to being a foreman / supervisor then the extra money. Yes the extra money can be nice, I stand by the statement it doesn't always seem like it through.

 

[jontar]

And just so you know, I never take the **** from upstairs and drag it down into the shop, no matter how bad it is.

 

[jontar]

Working in Alberta / Western Canada is not the laid back, way it is elsewhere, it high cost, high production, with big publicly traded companies. Its high pressure.

The original question was about the amounts of money that can be made as a foreman in Canada, especially Alberta. I included the work atmosphere, it would be different then in the UK where the original poster is located.

 

[ponyboy]

Yes there are several types of leaders, I have taken several leasdership courses, I'm sent to them every 6 months. I have one more supervisor training course to complete, before lead into Superintendent 1 and 2. Once the last 3 are done, historically the supervisor, will when the time is right and has completed the requirements, be promoted to Superintendent. Yes there are 3-4 more teirs of managers, I deal with them when asked/required to do so. Its not everyday, so I never mentioned them, I seen the one directly above the superintendents this morning in the morning meeting. I'll see the one above him tomorowo. Its not a huge deal, they are not scared to let you know if you they think you need to know something or correct something they saw. I had a Devicenet problem in an MCC with an E3+, that one of the shift electricians reported, we accidently took down Train B, when online with RSNetworksforDevicenet checking the parameter settings and the Devicenet tree. The line shut in. It took us 45 minutes to get the problem solved and the line up and running. Trust me the meeting that followed the next day was an open door type. I have personally had the enjoyment of sitting in a 4 of these open door type, they are super fun. Theres more to being a foreman / supervisor then the extra money. Yes the extra money can be nice, I stand by the statement it doesn't always seem like it through.

Your place seems far more structured than mine. I don't even know where you can promote to after foreman, that position doesn't exist yet here. The positive thing is we always have the opportunity to relocate to a better part of the country or the world. Although I've never seen anyone from IE transfer to an overseas plant, probably wouldn't make much sense