Ruth King, HVACR Business Editorial Advisory Board Member, offers her advice on this month’s question regarding compensation discussions.
Although I ask technicians to keep their pay rates to themselves, I often find that there is discussion in which someone ends up feeling underappreciated and underpaid. Is there a way to discourage discussion of hourly wages?
Take all of the technicians through the exercise which shows them exactly what they are being paid and what the company is paying for.
So, in addition to their hourly rate, the company pays hourly for payroll taxes, health insurance, worker’s compensation, vacations, sick days, retirement benefits, training, their truck insurance, gas and maintenance, inventory, etc.
Then you have to add an hourly rate for all of the overhead costs (divided by the number of field workers).
