I think a lot of it will be the personalities involved. If they like working for you, don't like change, and avoid taking chances, some guys will just roll with it and everyone will be happy. Of course the first 50 hour week they put in they might be reconsidering. There's a reason most people pay more for more work.

Most people will figure out they're making less before too long, and if you're saving $4k a year they're making less. You're offering a pay cut.

There's no longer an incentive to work longer. If everyone's on salary, nobody is going to want to be the one that stays late and doesn't get paid for it. That could cause some resentment between the troops, as well as between them and you.

I don't see any easy way to make the transition. If you offer less pay when things get busy, and ask your employees that stuck out the slow time want to make some overtime to catch up on bills, to take a pay cut, how's that going to go over?

Of course if there's no overtime, I bet things start to get done faster in the busy season. If it's guys working faster, that's OK. If it's corners being cut, that could be a problem.

There's a system called "comp time" - I don't know if it's used in the trades. I don't know if you've heard of it, it's used a lot in public accountanting companies. Their work load is seasonal and they are usually salaried. Rather than pay overtime, they bank comp time - they earn time off they can use in the not-busy season. They bank 1.5 hours of comp time for every hour they work, so it isn't a total ripoff. With comp time at least there's still some incentive to put in long hours when you're salaried.

I would not be surprised if there are laws in some states to ensure that comp time doesn't evaporate if the company folds, or if someone quits, or restrict its use in the trades, but I don't know.

 

How about comp time?

Let them bank the overtime hours and use them to make up for the slow weeks. Just make sure to give them back the time and a half hours for straight time. In other words if a guy works two hours OT give him three hours straight time when he is short.

I used to work for an industrial contractor. We would go to work on a Friday night and work until Sunday to swap out a product line. Anything over eight hours the government takes anyway. So I would bank anything over eight hours.

Now if I get a lot of OT I call the office and change my dependents to 10 for the week. It all works out the same at the end of the year, and at least you have something to show for the OT.

Something doesn't sound right about the choice of a 35 hour work week, or loosing $4000 a year and getting 40 hours?

 

Splats, we must have been typing at the same time!

 

Great minds think alike. :laughing: I also lost my allen wrenches this morning, any idea what I did with them?

 

I'm not trying to tell you anything, or change your mind, (you gotta go with your gut). However, I have a couple of comments.


Your premise (I think), is that you don't want to lay somebody off. I'm guessing if you dropped a guy you would have enough work ?

Well, when you change up the system (comp time, salary, whatever), there is always going to be somebody who develops an attitude (in my limited experience). Fast forward, and you are going to lose someone anyway (and could cost you more than the 4k eventually).

If and when things get hopping, all the guys are going to have a case of the azz when they are being asked to do 50 or 60 and they don't get OT anymore.

If people are getting paid what they are worth, and treated fairly, and they have incentive to perform above and beyond (benefits, work environment, raises, bonuses) then nothing I said applies, and you will mostly have a good work force (except for the ones that need to go).

Clearly you are planning ahead, so it goes without saying that you are going to think it through before you do anything (a good thing), so I guess what I'm saying is you have to consider thinning the herd as part of the solution (like it or not).

just my 02

 

I'm not sure that it's legally acceptable. I worked as a salaried employee briefly and they still had to pay overtime.

 

I'd never work salary as an electrician. I had an employer try to do that and I simply said that I would look for other opportunities.

Even now as an electrical designer I work hourly. Some weeks I get more, some weeks I get less. I'm fine with not getting 40 some week, but I understand some people like having consistency.

 

Excellent responses!

I have good guys. I pay them well....as they are good guys. I am going to offer them 40 hours a week at their regular pay. To avoid them taking off too many days a year, I'm going to offer 5 days of sick time with a note for return. I don't want them at work when they are sick. But I don't want them taking advantage either. I also will allow them to choose salary or regular time once a year if they found they didn't like it.

Seem fair?

 

I've worked through several months of part time pay checks, mostly due to the weather.
Frankly this has been the first time in my career that I wasn't exactly an inside electrician.

First off and depending on your State laws which I think don't apply, due to the “right to work”
aspects of things. You could guarantee less than 40 hours and if they make that OK and if they don't
well they don't. Other people now work both minimum and maximum allowable hours.

Frankly, how can you state any amount with service work? To keep them at a job, you could build in a reward percent against the difference of a project to use as a base for a year end bonus that they will build on over the year. This could also work for off hours or emergency calls.

Depending on how your looking at the pay stubs and shuffling numbers your dealings with 1 dollar an hour equating to 1K to a salary. Now that's straight up 2080 hours. If your base model hour are
difference I would still think you could insert the correct numbers to work to your favor?


Good Point Wild...

 

Just keep in mind, "happy employees are productive employees", unhappy ones.....not so much.
I used to work for a guy who paid 8 hrs. even if we worked 5. And if we had to stay a little late occasionally, we still put 8 on the time sheet, because we were happy. There were only 3 of us, but still.

 

If your employees don't like slow spells they should get out of construction.

 

Employee here,

The industry I am in is very seasonal, we work a lot of OT from January to May, then have most of the summer off with a dozen emergency service calls(more OT).

I bank everything over 40 hours a week. And use all the banked hours for my summer. I just started 2016 with 126 hrs in the bank still.

There is one guy in the company(8guys) that is on salary. He is getting special treatment as the boss's son, but he will not work any OT, because he knows is isn't getting any extra.

The rest of us don't like it..
stuck in a cement boat for 3 days while he's at home. Shows up Monday in his flip flops to tell us how his weekend was. HA!

 

Isn't banking hours illegal?

I have a friend who is a service electrician and he is on salary. He boss whines when he only works 25 hours a week and my friend whines when he works 60 hour weeks.

Keep in mind when work starts to pick up and there is consistent 50-60 work weeks for months on end that your employees will start to dread their salary arrangement.

 

I am not sure if banking hours is illegal.

I remember a coworker telling me his brother on the police force gets comp time. I thought he told me the police force did not want to pay overtime. So if has to work an hour late he has to take off an hour. That should be illegal.

How about working four tens. You loose out on two hours of overtime every day to have a three day weekend. Sounds like comp time more than banked hours. At least when you bank hours you get the overtime back as one and a half hours of straight time.

When I would bank hours 29 years ago, I would have to take the hours or the money by the end of the year. I thought that was to keep the bosses paperwork in order.

 

How about working four tens. You loose out on two hours of overtime every day to have a three day weekend. Sounds like banked hours.

Personally I don't see a problem with that, not that many places define overtime as going over 8 hours in a shift, most see it as going over 40 in a week.

When I would bank hours 29 years ago, I would have to take the hours or the money by the end of the year. I thought that was to keep the bosses paperwork in order.

I'd bet that's half of it, the bean counters would have to carry those banked hours as a liability, like debt, but interest free. (When you bank time, it's basically an interest free loan to the employer!)

The other half, I'd bet, is because they know if they make a use-it-or-lose-it policy, some people are going to lose it, and the employer is going to make out like a bandit. If they wait until the last minute, they won't ask for two weeks off out of then blue, and if they do it probably won't be approved.

 

When I worked service, we were paid on ticket time.
If I got 8 I was paid 8. If I billed out 10 straight time hours, I was paid those hours. If I turned in 35 hours, was paid 35 hours.
If in turned in 6 hours straight and was called out after hours, I billed OT and was paid OT.
The incentive was to do a good job and not burn through billable work.
The quality of work improved overall with making sure panels were labeled, jobsite was cleaned before leaving, the offer to look for change another ballast was always a possibility. Not that we were milking a job, just being aware.