Employees

[Frank Weston]

Andrew,

I have owned and operated small businesses for the last 15 years.  My
experience is that if you intend to hire a full time employee, you had
better plan on hiring another just to keep up with the paper work.  The
federal, state and local bookeeping requirements are so onerous it makes me
wonder how anyone can afford to have employees.  Further, you must consider
that by the time you finish paying all the taxes and fees and meeting all
the legal requirements associated with full time employees, every employee
will cost you about 1.5 times his actual hourly rate.  Worse yet, your
personal productivity will decrease with every employee you must manage.

The quality of an employee's work and his loyalty to you will be directly
proportionate to his compensation.  The get the best people, be prepared to
offer a share of ownership, comprehensive health care, adequate leave and
vacation, performance bonuses and a more than fair salary.  You can not
afford  to have less than  the best.

So, what to do?  Unless your company is positioned to jump to a personnel
level that compensates for the inefficiencies of managing full time
employees by attaining economy of scale, I suggest that you consider a
partnership, or else just continue to go it alone with part time help.

Frank Weston


-----Original Message-----
From: ANRPiano@AOL.COM <ANRPiano@AOL.COM>
To: pianotech@ptg.org <pianotech@ptg.org>
Date: Sunday, August 01, 1999 6:07 PM
Subject: Employees


>Dear list,
>
>Having built a rather sizable business without ever working at a store or
>someone else's shop I am at a loss as to how to work out certain aspects of
>my employee's compensation.  I am not looking for anything which will get
us
>into trouble, just some general guidelines or examples of other's
experience.
>
>As my shop work has grown I have hired people to fill whatever my needs
were
>there, but I no longer have the time to adequately service even a fraction
of
>my tuning customers.  I don't want to lose contact with all these people
>because they are a great source of work for the shop.  I have been
>considering hiring a full time tuner for quite some time but cannot figure
>out a compensation package.  Should I pay them a straight hourly rate or a
>commission or combination?  What kind of commission should I pay taking
into
>consideration the cost of scheduling, advertising, insurance, taxes, good
>will, the risk of losing a customer?
>
> I have never been involved in such a situation nor have I ever talked to
>anyone who has and have really no idea what to do.  I would appreciate any
>input.
>
>
>Andrew Remillard
>