End of Year Bonus?

[Joe Marconi]

This has been a topic discussed before, but since we have so many new members, I would like to hear from shop owners to see how they handle bonuses for this time of the year.

 

I know that many businesses, not just repair shops have reduced the amount of bonus, and some have cut it out. Due to recent tough recession.

 

Do you give a bonus as a percentage of regular pay?

Do you give a flat bonus based on years at the job?

Do you give a bonus in gifts, or tool gift certificates?

Do you give a bonus as part of a retirement contribution?

Do you factor in performance, quality, comebacks, etc?

Do you give a bonus at all?

 

Any other thoughts with regard to bonus?

[Pjauto]

I only have two employees currently. I was thinking I'd give them both $200 each.

[weighit]

The last shop I owned I would give a weeks average pay to each employee 2 weeks before Christmas as the bonus. This included overtime, actual weekly pay divided by 52 equaled their bonus. If we had a great year I explained through their hard work, attention to detail, looking out for the waste and not having any damage, they got a Bonus on the bonus and got 2 weeks average pay. It did not happen every year, but many. The years it didn't happen they all knew why, someone screwed up and it cost everyone. It helped me as they as a group wanted to keep eyes on anyone that might cause them to loose the added bonus. It came out of the net from the company profits, but I figured it kept turnover to a minimum, I hated to train new people. They made more money with me than any of the competition and actually made it easy for me when I needed to add personnel. Explaining the pay and the bonus program let them know how we paid up front and what they could expect. Worked for me. I had 6 employees and that shop 10 years when i sold it. My oldest employee had 9.7 years with me, and the newest hire full time had 6.5 years. The 2 part time employees were the ones that changed out every so often over those years, not the full time guys. This pay was on top of their vacation pay that was based on 40 hours base pay per week.

[FROGFINDER]

All Giving is done with a grateful heart. A lot of giving takes place during the year.