Employees sick days, vacation, personal days etc..

I use temps now. But in the past when I've had employees I never paid for a sick day. Shelly used to work for Citibank. She was there for quite a few years and built up a big 4 months of sick/personal/vacation/etc days. She used that 3 months to start her business in 1999 and never looked back. That's the kind of loyalty sick days will get you.

If you've got enough net income to offer sick and personal days wouldn't it be more logical to up the hourly wages and skip those traps? I had one employee for about 4 years who never took a day off and never called in sick. He worked in an area by himself and came in even when he had the flu. Why? Because he was 20 years old and I was paying him $22 per hour in "by the piece" work and when he didn't work, he didn't get paid. He only left when I sold the business and the new owners wanted to cut his pay. Higher wages are the best insurance against high turnover in my experience.

That's just my experience. Yours may be different.
 
I am with William. We have a definite sick policy, with 6 personal days. The personal days can be banked, or used for what ever the employee feels the need to use them for. If they are sick, it is a sick day, if they are on vacation, it is a vacation day, if they want to use it while they are on jury duty, that is their choice. If it is just a day too beautiful to work, guess what...The only thing I will say no to is if it is a beautiful day, and they are the second one to call in. If it is vacation, it needs to be prescheduled. Sick can't be helped, but I will ask for a Doctors note if there is a trend.
The advantage is, they can bank them, and if they want to use 12 the next year, and they have them saved, they can. Screwy, but it works.
 
Does sick/vacation day mean they get paid or is that a separate determination?

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I don't offer vacation or sick time. Vacation is for the slow times and they collect unemployment so I guess I'm paying

My foreman I take care of him pretty well. I give him full medical through a personal plan. I would pay him probably for sick days, but he never takes any time off, he has only had 2 sick days in over 6 years.. His Dad just passed away a couple months ago and he was taking 3 days off I paid him for those 3 days, but he took an extra 2 days off to help his Mom and I did not pay.

My other guys I have given 2 of them half days when they were on Jury Duty for 2 & 3 days

No company program though
 
Scott Stone said:
I am with William. We have a definite sick policy, with 6 personal days. The personal days can be banked, or used for what ever the employee feels the need to use them for. If they are sick, it is a sick day, if they are on vacation, it is a vacation day, if they want to use it while they are on jury duty, that is their choice. If it is just a day too beautiful to work, guess what...The only thing I will say no to is if it is a beautiful day, and they are the second one to call in. If it is vacation, it needs to be prescheduled. Sick can't be helped, but I will ask for a Doctors note if there is a trend.
The advantage is, they can bank them, and if they want to use 12 the next year, and they have them saved, they can. Screwy, but it works.
Click to expand...

I did give vacation days. I had to have at least two weeks notice. I ran a tight ship and if they didn't like it they gave no indication of it. Maybe they were just scared to say anything. But I only had one employee quit over 6 years. That one was a young girl who went on to college.

When you're anal about efficiency like I am employees that don't show up for ANY reason are a liability. That's why I like working with Temps now. Most of the time I get as many as I need from the same group of guys I've been using for a few years so they already know the ropes. When I get a useless new one I can call the shop and they bring me another guy out immediately and take back the worthless one. I know that won't work for you guys who are doing jobs that require more training, but all we need is one guy who knows what he's doing on site directing everybody else.

On the flip side, lots of people quit working for my wife, Shelly. She paid them fairly, but not a good margin above average like I did with my business. She also let them get away with murder. They ran the show. They would call in sick and give the stupidest excuses for not coming to work. She didn't tow the line like me. I didn't interfere because it was her thing. She was constantly training new people.

I don't understand paying someone when they aren't working unless it's something they've earned like vacation time. Even if a guy is sick for 3 or 4 days he can still make it up later without being paid for sitting at home. I guess it's been so long since I've had a job I just don't get it.
 
We pay out a percentage of each invoice in labor. We have two crews of two and then a fifth guy. When everyone shows up, the fifth guy will join the crew that will likely "need" him the most. The fifth guy has proven to pull his weight and when the percentage is split and compared to hours, the hourly doesn't change much to compensate him. All of the guys are good friends and do a good job of working for each other (not just the company).
I'm in a college town and we typically hire students. That makes our turnover average 3 years. But, no past employee has started up a competing business in our service area.
I find that paying well really makes the difference. With their percentage cut, if they aren't making over $15 an hour, they aren't performing well enough and we try to encourage them to improve or give them a gentle boot so they don't bring down the team.
With our system, if you don't work, you don't get paid. If you need time off, let your crew and scheduler know in advance. If you have a sudden emergency, let everyone know. I've had very few problems with scheduling and no shows, because there are always at least 2 people who want the money! It hasn't been a problem yet, but I try to watch out for "overtime" issues.
 
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