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 >
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