Man we spend a lot of money with these companies for parts. The lack of someone actually answering the phone when you are seeking tech support or you are having an issue... What the heck they just don't care anymore.. Leave a message at the beep and we will get back to you 5 days later still no call......

Rant over...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RacerVX54,

Have you tried to hire anyone?

We've had $48K to $60K to start inside phone and counter help just fail to show up after a few days....or hours.
MULTIPLES PER YEAR.

We try carry an hourly staff of 12-14 people.
One year we sent out 42 W-2's to people who were hired and left in a matter of hours to weeks.

We ain't gonna make it.

Glob you sure nailed it. The company I work for in their largest manufacturing plant, in 2022 hired over 500 people because of expansion. At the beginning of this year less than 20 of those are still employed.

quote:

Originally posted by Wooley:
Glob you sure nailed it. The company I work for in their largest manufacturing plant, in 2022 hired over 500 people because of expansion. At the beginning of this year less than 20 of those are still employed.

It is actually worse than that. Often when you hire someone no matter what you start them out at you lose money on them for a few months. You have to spend so much time (Money) training them and it is often 6 months or more before they are able to do much and start making you money.

The phone deal is a stupid waste of our time and they do not respect the customers. Who wants to listen to 4 minutes of stupid pick a number crap to get to talk to a human for a 10 second question? Who cares what the address and directions are? They are online with the phone number you just looked up to call them. Same with hours of operation.

I am old enough as some of you here are to remember when they had a human answer the phone. It was quite a concept that worked really well.

Good points made by Goob. I'll add. It costs to hire people. Some states have a minimum wage of up to $20/hr. As a business owner (sole proprietorship), if I wanted to grow the business and of course that would mean having to hire people to do a job, I am effectively putting my business in their hands. If I hire a secretary to do secretarial work and not much more, I'd have to pay them $20/hr for the wage-which is only part of the cost to keep them. Remember I have to pay insurance too on all employees. A $20/hr employee can easily cost me $28/hr and with a $28/hr employee I expect a lot more out of them than someone I could have hired for $12/hr a few years ago.

With higher expectations and higher costs, it gets more challenging to keep an entry-level employee, much less keeping them productive. Today's younger folks have an attention span about a millimeter long. If there is any "slack time", that cellphone is in their hand and they're on farse book or x or whatever adult site, playing around-on company time. So ya gotta keep them busy enough that they don't have time for that. Then you the manager, are the bad guy for overworking them, and they quit. To add insult to injury, these people know that they cam make up to $20/hr doing it somewhere else. You know, "the grass is greener on the other side of the fence".

on the flip side, if you get lucky and find someone who WANTS to work, and does a halfway decent job, you have to make sure that their efforts are rewarded. The job market is pretty competitive. When I say "rewarded" that doesn't necessarily mean in the form of a paycheck, sometimes all it takes is to stop em after work and say "hey, I see you're working your tail end off, and I appreciate your efforts". One of the things that stuck out in "my" working career was my old boss giving me a christmas card with no money in it. Handwritten on the inside of the card was this: "thank you for being an asset to the company". That meant a lot to me. Lot of folks would have just quit, I knew better and stayed-and succeeded beyond measure.

The above post is on point. I have 5 employees, my service writer is 77 years old. He isn't fast, but he shows up everyday and treats everyone well. There is a ton of value in his attendance. He does pretty well keeping friendly, having to weed through all the calls of people that want us to diagnose their car over the phone, or give them an estimate sight unseen, etc.

Yes, a lot of people (that don't want to work) see the signs for high paying factory work, and go from job to job looking for that easy money, but people like that always switch around. Speaking of which, I'm still waiting for one guy to come back from lunch, (it's been about a year)

COVID F’ed the whole world up….

quote:

...with a $28/hr employee I expect a lot more out of them than someone I could have hired for $12/hr a few years ago.

In reality you're hiring the same person, expectations be damned. $12/hr a few years ago would buy the same amount of groceries that $28 will buy today. We've all heard of the "miracle of compounding interest growth", unfortunately the same holds true for compounding inflation There can be no doubt inflation is out pacing wage growth. I believe they call that stagflation.

A friend of mine owns a successful trash company. He says no matter the amount of money he offers for a job, he attracts the same types of employees.

It’s hard to find good help, but finding someone to answer telephones is difficult. Their pay is higher than what you want it to be, they can run off customers if they don’t do a good job, and they can go find any other job making the same amount of money or more somewhere else

Wooley, hired 500 and only 20 are left? What happened?

quote:

Originally posted by racerdude2054:
A friend of mine owns a successful trash company. He says no matter the amount of money he offers for a job, he attracts the same types of employees.

It’s hard to find good help, but finding someone to answer telephones is difficult. Their pay is higher than what you want it to be, they can run off customers if they don’t do a good job, and they can go find any other job making the same amount of money or more somewhere else

Since before Covid this administration has ruined the workforce with free money so the brainiacs opened the border for more labor and Immicrat voters. Then comes the invasion of terrorists!
It will never be the same. Remember that when you vote!

Mike, most of them quit during or right after orientation and training after they found out they were actually going to have to at least be at work on time. Others were let go because they couldn’t complete training for the jobs they were hired for.

Back in the late 70’s (Carter Inflation) the shop I worked in was an employee revolving door and “Take this Job and Shove it” was a popular song on the radio. Four yrs later you couldn’t buy a job and the tune was changed to “Wish I had a job to shove”.

Find someone under 70 who can pass a drug screen.

A lot of very good points here.
Yes, Covid did mess up a lot. I believe it was paid for and created by corrupt Government (China and Democrats) and accidentally released.

I do not believe Welfare is the answer and do not think Government paychecks for Covid was the answer. Government needs to stay out of it and should not have created COVID in first place.

Good workers are hard to find now and our Colleges are not teaching children to work, they are teaching them gender equality, race baiting and other useless dung. Our generation was taught if you want something you have to get your tail up and get it to work everyday and make sure you are worth the money you are paid. If not you will be fired and for good reason.

"...with a $28/hr employee I expect a lot more out of them than someone I could have hired for $12/hr a few years ago."

And that is also true but you are not going to get it. And Inflation is WAY MORE than what they are telling us. Gas prices have DOUBLED. Interest rates have TRIPLED. Insurance is DOUBLE. Most food is almost DOUBLE. Credit card debt is highest in American history by far.
So what the employee gets with his $28 an hour is not much more than they were getting at $18 an hour. The employer is not getting as much for his money either. American Deficit is record high. We are now on the verge of World War 3 because of the decisions from Biden Administration. We are paying Trillions of dollars for the wars Biden started and it may get much worse.
Before ObamaCare we all had good health insurance at a low cost. Who can say that now? Who can afford health insurance now? And now if you go to the doctor they will not help you. They do the bait and switch for more money. Now they will look at you, send you to another doctor for tests, then schedule you to go back to get the results and send you somewhere else for more tests. Each time you have to pay Deductibles and Copays and it costs you way more money than before the Ballsack Obama stuck Obamacare up us.
One of first things Biden did was to stop all Sanctions against Iran. They immediately started selling 30 BILLION in oil to CHINA. That gave Iran 30 billion dollars to the largest sponsor of Islamic terrorists more money and it also helped fund the CHINA war and economic machine.

China Joe is owned by China and can never put those sanctions back on Iran no matter what they do he can not go against China who is laundering money for Biden Crime family.

We all know what changed and why this has happened. Some of us told you it would happen 4 years ago. Some still do not believe it or refuse to see it.

quote:

Originally posted by M802138:
Some states have a minimum wage of up to $20/hr.

The highest State minimum wage is Washington, at $16.28/hr. The District of Columbia is $17/hr. The average State minimum wage is $10.82. 43 of the 50 State have a minimum wage under $15/hr.

Otherwise, good points all around.

quote:

Originally posted by Culry1:
Gas prices have DOUBLED. Interest rates have TRIPLED. Insurance is DOUBLE. Most food is almost DOUBLE.

Gas prices have only doubled from the time during the pandemic when Governors shut down their States, imploded the economy, and destroyed fuel demand. The national average for the year in 2019 was $2.64/gal. In 2023, it was $3.22, and increase of 22%. It sucks, but that average was even higher in 2008, and 2011-2014.

My home insurance company tried doubling my rate recently. Instead, I did some shopping and I'm now paying HALF of what I WAS paying for Home (almost 1/4 of what they wanted to charge me!), and now paying HALF what I was on Auto as well. You've got to watch these people just like with cable, internet, or anything else. They'll keep creeping up the bill, hoping you won't notice. It's a PITA to stay on top of them all, but worth it in the long run. Paying 1/4 of what I was on SiriusXM now, too.

quote:

The highest State minimum wage is Washington, at $16.28/hr. The District of Columbia is $17/hr. The average State minimum wage is $10.82. 43 of the 50 State have a minimum wage under $15/hr.

These California workers that are still employed got a raise today……

California minimum wage

The gas price thing is worth reviewing with a clear set of glasses - because since the pandemic - the US has pressured international oil producers to cut their supply to protect domestic producers.

quote:

Originally posted by Goob:
Find someone under 70 who can pass a drug screen.

And a criminal background check. D*mn if that isn't sad. Almost makes me wish I were still in the available workforce pool. Take care. Tom Worthington

IMO - we will see the rise and fall of many companies in the next decade because of failure by management or ownership to address their employee base and wages.

I've ran a lot of businesses in my time, not perfectly, but I know how to retain employees and the cost to a company that can't.

There are a lot of excuses posted on this thread that just don't hold water. They're excuses and don't fix the problem of hiring or employee retention.

You better know who your competition is for your employee base and what it take to compete with them.

Best of luck to all companies and employers who compete in this arena.

SL...