Company Policy (Comments Requested)

[no spin]

Hello Gentelman:

This is some of my new company policies. What is your opinion.

1) All workers paid 1 hr. for every ($x) amount of money earned for me. (Total gross-cost of goods sold) for that day. (Used this sytem the last 2 years and it has worked out great)

2) All construction jobs as well as misc. maint. on machines will have a dollar amount associated to it ( I call it points) They will earn 1 hour pay ofr every 34 point gained. (No matter what the situation) When I earn money so do they.

3) Employees can earn extra bonus hours(last year it was roughly 5-7 hours extra per week)

4)Employees responsible for the care of the equipment. Any damaged equipment or breakdown due to neglect will come out of the workers pay. (No screaming or ranting and raving on my part). Any questionable damage will be apid for by the company.

5) Wrk randomly inspected and points dedcuted (pay) for jobs not completed in a professional manner. Meaning that 100% of the job was not completed
properly.


6) NO increase in pay form the previoius year. ( The more points you earn in a day the more money you will earn)

Why do companies increase wages when the company is not increasing their profits?

7) Company will provide English classes at a reasonable hour for all interested employees. Company pays for all classes. Learn more English, and then I can pay you more.

INcidentally I myself will be taking more Spanish classes.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks,

Rob

[SCW]

What's the hourly rate--equivalent to the normal hourly rate for their position?

[chriscampbell]

i like that it is performance based driven but like he said above what is the advantage for them working for you. Is the pay that much better that it is worth the hassle for them?

[Scaper-S2k]

I think #1 is actually illegal. And maybe a few more are?

If they work 1 hour, they get paid for 1 hour, or the equivelant salary base, unless based on percent sales.

I don't think you can say "If you make me $50, I pay you for 1 hour."

You can say "If you make me $50, I pay you 20%". But you can't convert YOUR gross $$ into THEIR hourly time.



I'm not trying to sound like a jerk, but I think you should look through your state labor laws because if it IS illegal, you will owe huge amounts of back pay if you ever get an audit.

[Dong Gee Vee]

please erich no more drinky and drive and no more tax leins onyou please

[clclawn]

The first problem i see is they will figure out how much money they make you. igure out a way to pay them based on peice work without them knowing what you make. Second, remember they have to make min wage regardles of what they get accomplished.

Also erich is in the ball park. One way to do it leagaly(sp) is you get paid either 10 bucks for mrs jones lawn or say you get 1 hour for mrs jones lawn. As far as landscape jobs, have a preset hour(s) allowed for that job. then pay them based on the allowance.

Just rework some of your stuff.

[Scaper-S2k]

Dong, I have probably had a total of 5 (five) drinks in my entire life combined. And half of them were before I got my drivers license. So to say I was driving drunk is simply not true.

I have had tax liens. But not any that hold. Here's why. When we went from Sole Pro, to S-corp the state of Ohio didn't give me a new ID number, but my Federal EIN was new. So I paid both. BUT, the Federal ID for the Inc didn't match the State ID for the Sole Pro, they thought I wasn't paying one. And of course, vice versa.

Basically Federal payments were going to the Inc and State was going to Sole Pro. So state thought I wasn't paying Federal. And Federal thought I wasn't paying State.....because the EIN weren't matching up.

I've been going through it for 4 years now. It's a mess trying to deal with different people each time I call the offices. Matter of fact, 1.5 months ago I got a refund of $1200 because they charged me a penalty that was not justified.


The even greater beauty is that the Federal and State Unemployment goes off the same ID numbers, and are jointly combined in percents. So each year I get letter from Fed and State saying "You owe XXX dollars." I just fax them the correct EIN identification and they make the changes. But even that still happens each year.

My understanding is that it's not horribly unusual when you go from Sole Pro to Inc. But then again, that's coming from the person that incorporated me!

[RRS]

Sounds like a pain in the azz for sure.

[Scaper-S2k]

Not too bad, more just time consuming....and a little humorous at times. I've posted the actual IRS letters on another message board for fun. I'll talk to one lady for 1.5 hours, she works on the computer for the whole time and says "okay, this should fix it." But then 6 months later it's like nothing has changed.

I think the problem is real hard to fix and would take one person DAYS. And what IRS employeey is really going to spend the time to do it?

It's very simple, but then again, very complex to actually fix.

Example:

Sole Pro: Fed # 31-222222 State # 52-666666 (no problems)


My current Inc should have TWO completely different numbers now. But it has this....

Inc: Fed # 31-234567 (good) But State # 52-666666 (same as Sole Pro before).


So Fed # 31-234567 sees I paid, but didn't pay for the matching state.

But the old state # gets paid up, and it wonders why no payment was made to the old Fed # that it matches too!!!!

It's kind of funny really.


Very simple, just flip the state number. But OHHHHHH, how hard it must be on all the records.



The last 'Big Guy' I spoke with said it might be better to simply re-start the corp and get ALL new numbers and cancel out the old. But another guy says that may cause problems down the road. Imagine trying to explain to a lender that you had a biz, but changed all record #'s. So I just don't know what to do as of now. I'm not really sweating it though.



I'm not sure how clear that all is, not sure I can explain it any better without another 2 pages! But I'll save it for another thread, so this thread started can get his question answered.

[Phil Nilsson]

Comments Requested ...

Make a second copy of it in Spanish

[Stephen M.]

Whatever your policies are, please have them reviewed by a good employment lawyer. Otherwise, you could be caught between a very big rock and a very hard spot.

[no spin]

Gentleman:

To answer some of the questions posted.

(1) The hourly rate is better than the average landscape Co. wages. Previous year employees earned on average 7-8 bonus hours per week per employee.

(2) They are paid according to "points" earned, not dollars earned.

(3) Yes Phil, a copy is translated into Spanish and read to all employees in a meeting. Each and every employee is encouraged to speak to me in the event they have any questions or complaints reagrding the "Company Policy" for up to two weeks.

I thank you all for your comments. Erich, you did bring up a good point and I do appreciate it.

Take CAre,

Rob