I worked for big companies in the 80’s and remember profit sharing and Christmas bonuses. Then we had a period of startups with stock options as a huge part of compensation – the idea was you worked 80 hour weeks for modest pay but if the company hit it big your options could be worth a lot. I suspect some people hit the jackpot and a lot more got the shaft.
My sense is that employees today are mostly focused on the short term. They have bills to pay, they want to know what income they can count on, they probably don’t want to roll the dice on profit sharing or a bonus or stock options. Also, Millennials and Gen XYZ I talk to seem to view employment as transactional, and they don’t necessarily identify with the company or the owners (thanks to companies like Amazon and owners like Bezos). So while I don’t have any hard facts, my guess is you’re doing the right thing already. If you’re inclined to tie compensation to company performance, I wouldn’t make it a large percentage, and I wouldn’t try to use it as an incentive for people to work insane hours or achieve impossible goals (like Elon Musk’s “extremely hardcore”). And I’d make it fairly short term, like monthly or something, so employees aren’t making their families scrimp in hopes of a windfall at the end of the quarter or year. If you do experience hard times, reduced hours might be a temporary solution at least for hourly employees. Realizing that with low unemployment, some of them might move elsewhere. The good news is that any part of your business tied to fiber projects is likely to have at least 5 good years coming. From: AF <af-boun...@af.afmug.com> On Behalf Of Chuck McCown via AF Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2024 12:16 PM To: af@af.afmug.com Cc: ch...@go-mtc.com Subject: [AFMUG] compensation for employees My latest pivot a couple of years ago to microtrenching blades, adding grout machines, then microtrenching saw attachments and now to a specialized type of vacuum excavator has gone extremely well. Almost no software involved. Just a little in a motion control PCB in the grout machine to control the hydrostatic transmission. This is by far my most profitable season I have ever had in 50 years of running some kind of hustle. And those years of the stinger and other related antennas and hardware were not bad at all. I am a bit more confident that these new “durable products” have more legs than the antennas that were radio specific. But having been through wax and wane of business, economy and product cycles for many decades, I am always reticent to ratchet up pay. I do give bonuses. I will always live in fear of not meeting payroll. Only happened once about 30 years ago, but that is a bad deal. And actually nobody was unpaid but I had to layoff everyone. But I digress. What would y’all suggest as a way to reward employees when things are going well? I give COLA plus modest merit increases every 6 months. I could give substantial merit increases but that plays into my phobia of things getting tight again. Maybe that is totally unfounded. I know when things started going well for Henry Ford he doubled pay and things got even better for him. I would like to do bonuses based on my bottom line income (I think), but how to distribute that evenly? Should everyone get the same amount? And how to relate that the size of the bonus is tied directly to how well the company is doing? Or should I just give really nice raises this go around? Or both? I guess if things slow down we can always trim staff or let attrition do it for us. I think you all can understand the reluctance to give raises as it is a one way street. You really cannot cut pay. I want employees to prosper and do better personally. I wonder if my fears are justified. I know some of you have worked for large companies at certain points in your life, how did they accomplish this. I know some of you have really prospered with your WISP/ISP, curious how you approached the whole sharing the wealth thing. Chuck McCown McCown Technology Corporation 8401 N Commerce Dr Lake Point, Utah 84074 801-250-9503 435-830-4306 cell www.mccowntech.com <http://www.mccowntech.com> www.microtrench-blades.com <http://www.microtrench-blades.com> www.terabitnetworks.com <http://www.terabitnetworks.com>
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