Salary Negotiation

3-5 year ramp up time for a new hire? Ouch. I thought the 6 months to a year ramp up time for a good sysadmin was nearly intolerable.

Thanks for the insight!

Evelys said:

3-5 year ramp up time for a new hire? Ouch. I thought the 6 months to a year ramp up time for a good sysadmin was nearly intolerable.

Thanks for the insight!

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In our industry, people don"t go to school first to get trained, and then look for employment. They either get trained on the job, or they get a mixture of on the job training and schooling. So, for a guy to get fully trained, its like the same amount of time as getting a college degree, except they do it on the company dollar. You have to have one guy that is fully trained per crew, or you don"t work. For the smaller companies that only have one crew, if the guy who is fully trained decides he wants a $5 an hour raise, and doesn"t get it. He leaves, and it shuts the company down until they can find someone else.

My guys know this, so there"s a yin-yang between who has the power. They do try to push the boundaries and at times, there"s a constant power struggle. For example, we pride ourselves on being professional, and doing some major commercial contracts, as well as residential. We are actually working a on wildlife museum, and we are the sole company that does all the work for a smaller city in the area. Just this week, a crew leader of mine decides he"s going to cut his hair into a mohawk. I tell him, that given our corporate clients, the last thing we need is for him to be in charge, and knock at the door looking like Mr. T. I told him don"t show up to work with the mohawk, and he says he"ll shave it.

Lo and behold, he shows up to work the next day with a mohawk. In my industry, companies spend an average of $250k to get someone fully trained, so you lose a guy that"s fully trained, and you have to spend that all over again, or look for someone who can do it (which can be risky).

I sent his ass home to cut it, and told him if he didn"t he was fired. He says he"s going to quit. I tell him if he wants to trade his high dollar job for a $10 haircut, go right ahead. He did decide to cut it, and 30 minutes later he comes back. Talk about trying to keep a poker face - I was ready to take a dump in my pants and was sweating like a hooker in church.

Its like this alot for the trades when you get someone to "master" level. They know they can piss in your cheerios if you want. A friend of mine who owns a plumbing business says the same thing. When you get a guy fully trained and they can hold to your high standards, they have power over you and they know it.

I might let the guys get away with some b.s., but not if its in front of the customer. The customer is King, and anything that is customer facing has to be on point.

Evelys said:

3-5 year ramp up time for a new hire? Ouch. I thought the 6 months to a year ramp up time for a good sysadmin was nearly intolerable.

Thanks for the insight!

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Try training a decent construction estimator. Every company, trade, and specialty have different methods, software packages etc. so it"s entirely training and experience. It can take upwards of a decade for an estimator to get really good at it.

Cad said:

In this thread, you learn why you don"t want to work for someone like Lyrical. While I"m sure he runs a good business, (no offense Lyrcial, although I"m sure you"ll take some) he sounds like a fucking douchenozzle boss.

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How does a parasitic lawyer call anyone a douchenozzle?

Ask my people if I"m a good boss or not. If I"m a douchenozzle, why is it that we constantly have a mass influx of people that come from our competitors, and yet no one has left the company of their own volition. They are paid double what the competition pays. And since landscaping is highly seasonal, I add hours to their checks when no one else does this in the industry. They work ten hours a week in the winter, but they get paid 35 hours.

The last few people that I cut because they were behaving like asses (doing things like not showing up to work and not calling in, or leaving the job for no reason during their shift multiple times) called me up crying and begging for their jobs back.

With me, you"ll make more money than other places, but you"ll work harder than any other places. And I"ve never laid anyone off because business got slow. If a guy is honest and hard working, I will dig deep in my pockets to ensure that they have a job.

Running your own business successfully, especially in these times, requires you to be tough, and at times, totally ruthless. But hey, I am going to net 26k this month, and my people are going to be paid well. What you call douche nozzle, I call doing what it takes to make sure my team is fed. They haven"t really been touched by this recession, and its because we run super efficient, we give customers what they want, and we do it faster.

Walk in my shoes, try running a successful business when everyone else is losing their ass, and employees are getting pay cuts, and only getting half their normal check. We cannot get off task and go off the reservation. The inmates are not running the asylum.

Douchenozzle or not, of my 30 competitors in my market, we are #1 in size because we are paranoid about doing the job the best, and at a competitive price. And we have higher trained employees and the best equipment there is.

Business is tough.

Cad said:

You"re addressing the business aspects. Like I said, I"m sure you run a good business. Also like I said, you sound like a douche. You didn"t say anything to refute that. It"s okay - running a good business is fine. I"m just expressing my opinion here when I say I"d rather work for someone who didn"t treat me like a child. I know you"re going to chime in with stories about how you "have" to herd your guys like children because they do X, Y, Z, etc. And I"m sure every tyrannical boss and megalomaniac asshat manager feels the same, that people just CANT get by without their guidance, constantly.

Run your business how you like, obviously sounds like you"re doing well. Just my comments from reading about your style.

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They aren"t herded. Each crew needs to do at least $2,000 a day, and as long as they are polite, customer focused and honest, I don"t care how they do it. They have their parameters, as long as they stay in parameters, they can do what they want. I run loose-tight, and I haven"t seen half the guys in the last two days. But you can bet I monitor the performance indicators and put my foot in their ass if they are off.

I am not like my competitor up the street who stands over them, and yells at them all day as they work.

I am not going to explain myself to someone who doesn"t know me, but I guarantee you, no one has left me voluntarily, because their paycheck would be half at the competition. My competitors seem to be focused on taking as much off their guys" checks as they can. They pay the guys eight hours for a fourteen hour day, or just yank out c-notes out of weekly checks indiscriminantly. Many of the guys that work for me remark that I"m the only guy who never shorted their check. I get calls all day from the other guys" employees begging me to take them on, because they know if they work an honest day, they get an honest day"s wages. Old fashioned, I know.

What you fail to see is that if these guys are getting much higher than market wages, they must be very productive. My competitors think 1k to 1.5k a day is good. We have to do 2k a day to justify their wages, 1.5k a day would mean we lost money per crew.

A couple comments:

1) Negotiating with an employer by having another offer in hand (and letting your current employer know about the offer) is a dangerous way to try to accomplish salary increases. Even if you do succeed, your employer may end up feeling threatened and cheated because you "blackmailed" them into providing a higher salary, and down the road when there are future promotion decisions or decisions involving you (such as perhaps a layoff) then these actions may reflect negatively if you decide to stay with the employer. It may also show that you are not a team player and not loyal. If you feel you are being underpaid then I suggest talking to your boss and not mention specific wages, but instead focus on the fact that you feel you contribute more than your current wages and feel you should be better compensated for the effort. If your boss doesn"t immediately agree then you can ask him or her what you feel would be necessary to acheive more compensation. Either way you can leave with a positive, by either initiating a non-threatening conversation or receiving feedback on what"s necessary to reach the next level. If you are a valued employee you will likely be successful and most likely your boss will implicity understand that if you don"t get more compensation you may quit, yet at the same time you don"t have to become negative/threatening with your boss. Some companies also have cycles on when pay increases (non-standard) occur and a boss may be limited to make changes until the next cycle is open, therefore he/she may agree with you but be unable to do much until the next available opportunity.

2) In my position I have worked with HR in making employment offers for individuals. Generally HR departments must demonstrate consistency and equality in pay so there are some systems (such as SIRS) used to provide some sort of consistency. I"m sure all HR departments are different, but here is some "insider" information based on what my company did: 1) employees are classified into bands, generally based on experience. You see these bands by seeing positions with the same title and a different number (I, II, III, IV) or classifications with "higher sounding names" but the same basic job title. These bands then offer a pay range for these individuals based on experience/qualifications and provides a general level of standardization. When making offers, the HR individual had a range to work with -- HR would always start out making offers at the bottom of the range but had flexibility to present offers within the approved range. Exceeding the range would require higher level HR approval and would be difficult. I would *never* accept an initial offer and would always politely ask for more money. If you are in the position that you really need the job (or there are a lot of applicants) then I would tread very carefully but generally you can find a way to say you are interested in the position (even at the base range) but to make it a definite deal for both of you then mention you are highly interested but seeking more money.

3) based on my experience reviewing payroll data in an audit/review function there are LOTS of inequalities (despite said HR attempt at equality mentioned above). Trust me when I say you will likely be happier NOT knowing what the other person makes, especially the poor performers. Experience often carries a lot more weight than it should, especially in large companies. I have seen situations for salaried workers where a new, young employee may accomplish twice the volume of work as a twenty year old employee but the twenty year old employee makes 50-80% more in annual salary. Even though that experience might not mean much (generally the thought is more experience employees would perform better due to the experience, but this is definitely not always the case), the inequality stays. THe other issue with sharing pay information is that someone will always think they are better than the other person for YYY reason and sharing payroll information would make everyone unhappy, it would be a lose-lose scenario (in a salary environment). Unfortunately published pay equality can also be an issue -- refer to US civil service and many unions, where people are compensated based on years of experience and defined pay bands *and not based on performance*. You then know how much that poor performer makes and most people are going to work towards the lowest common denominator because they know they get paid the same.

Eomer said:

Try training a decent construction estimator. Every company, trade, and specialty have different methods, software packages etc. so it"s entirely training and experience. It can take upwards of a decade for an estimator to get really good at it.

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And I bet they screw with you once they get good and trained, eh? They know it takes that long to train them, and you aren"t going to easily fire them.

I"m really failing to see in what manner Lyrical is acting that is causing you to feel he"s a douche. You say he treats his employees like children. Is that really all you have? (Not that I agree, I don"t at all).

Cad said:

You"re justifying the way you act by pointing to the business. It"s fine, really.

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I have no idea what the hell your point is anymore. The ends justifies the means and my people thank me for keeping them well fed while the economy is in the dumper. Thats all that matters.

OneofOne said:

I"m really failing to see in what manner Lyrical is acting that is causing you to feel he"s a douche. You say he treats his employees like children. Is that really all you have? (Not that I agree, I don"t at all).

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He"s a douchenozzle lawyer, they love to argue just for the sake of arguing.

best negotiating tool is another offer in hand that you"re willing to take.

the whole "its a new policy" thing is bs. recruiters and hr get paid to bring on high value people at the lowest cost possible to the company.

its how companies make money. which isn"t evil. companies have to make money (profit, not revenue). its why they continue to exist. if i can get you in at 40 an hour and a guy that can do almost what you do that will be acceptable for 35 an hour it helps me bring on people that i might only be able to barely cover at cost.

personally, i dont give a rats ass what anyone else earns. i care about how much i earn. and what lyrical said could be right. you might think you and your buddy are equal, maybe you arent.

eomer - i seriously hope you can find estimators who can do all that crap by hand. software"s a nice sanity check but when i do that shit id much rather do it by hand in excel. makes incorporating bids a fuckton easier.

no company brings on people and goes "im going to pay the maximum i can for this person." do you only negotiate price on a car because youre greedy or down on your luck?

its not about doom and gloom or the economy.

like businesses aren"t charity. they dont exist just to give you a paycheck. the overly generous company where everyone is a special snowflake and gets paid the same amount regardless of contribution or value isn"t going to stay in business very long. because they likely will be more expensive than their competition or be unable to be profitable. then all those people wont have jobs.

people are a cost and they need to be treated as such from a salary perspective. because the smart business owner knows thats the way to look out for the health of the entire company and make sure ALL the people stay employed.

thats why an alternative, higher offer is the best bargaining chip. because thats proof positive of perceived value. and ostensibly it would be from a competitor in the same space who is presumed to be rational and profitable so the offer should be one that allows that trend to continue.

I would be very hesitant to bring up pay early on at your stay with a company in this economy. Not only can they turn you down if they think you won"t leave, but it will also paint a negative image in the manager"s mind which could impact the timing of future raises. Obviously this is not true for every company, and you might have backup options easily available (in which case go for it). Also don"t know what kind of position it is, so this might not be the case at all.