Christmas Bonuses - Darned If You Do...
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Roofguy
We put 2 $100 bills in with each employee's paycheck last Friday. Not a lot, I realize, but my brother got just a $20 Walmart gift card after 20 years at a trucking company.
Lo & behold we find that 2 of them complained because they thought it should have been much more. The 2 that complained got $200 ea and have worked for us 1 year and the other for 3 months.
All of our employees but 1 makes $4-7/hr more than our competitors pay, and when the weather is bad we make sure they make enough hours to not starve. They are treated very well by industry standards in our area but it's never enough.
PerfectRoofing
Over there it's at least on an average very good. Mostly no employer provides so many paid leaves to their workers. This happens in many company and organisations as well. As the more the employees are hired the less bonuses they are offered. So this is really good rather than other companies.
Alba
Vaa Fakaosifolau Said: $200 isnt much these days, thats about half our weekly grocery bill. Do employees get holiday pay over there? Most workers here get a least 2 weeks holiday pay at Christmas and 2 weeks off work. That can amount to a few thousand $, which is an amount they can actually do something with. Not sure if it is just because our Summer holidays coincide with Christmas, but it is good timing for some as Christmas as can be an expensive time of yearThat's pretty good over there. From my experience the employers that don't provide paid vacation and paid holidays to their employees, granted they had a good year give out a Christmas bonus from $300 to $1000 to the roofers and $2500-$5000 to the foremen and superintendents . the ones that provide paid vacation don't usually give out Christmas bonuses. The larger the number of the employees the smaller the amount of the bonuses.
Roofguy
I'd guess that 2 roofers out if 10 give Christmas bonuses around here. We give our guys on average 5-15 hours per week doing "keep busy makes hours" work like sweeping the floor, in the wintertime so they don't starve when it's snowy or too cold to work. That's in a addition to the actual roofing hours they work.
Our top guy draws $21.50/hr with most of the others making $17-18/hr. That is way higher than other roofing contractors pay for laborers around here.
My dad told me 30+ years ago that no matter how much you pay laborers, most of them will think you're cheating them. They may not say it to your face, but to their friends over beers, you're a POS.
