It’s Time To Share A Good Year With Your Team

2017 is a good year for almost all of us in the glass industry. If you didn’t have a good year, click this note away and go back to work. The rest of you, read on!  Most companies share a good year with their employees. Some give gifts, and others give an extra week of vacation. The vast majority give holiday bonuses; nothing beats cash.  Read on and learn the best way to give this cash to your team.

Many companies give everyone two weeks’ pay. This year, you may give three weeks, or more!  This is, with no hesitation, the worst path to take.  The best people on your team get the same as the malingerers.  Most companies who give a standard bonus across the board based on regular wages find their best workers are looking for a job on January first, and then they get stuck with their second-class folks.

Wake up!  Give a better bonus to your better workers.  It’s not hard to figure out.  The hard part comes when you face the workers who get a smaller than average bonus and you explain to them what they can and should do to improve for next year.

First step.  How much total money do you want to give?  Let’s say you want to give two weeks wages.  Figure the gross number, taking your self, partners and family members out of the wage pool.  Let’s say you have $10,000 in your pool and you have ten employees. Rate your employees from ten to one, with ten being your best employee and one your weakest.  Give the three best people $1500 each.  Give the next two folks $1200 each.  The next three get $800 each, and the bottom two get $350 each.  The ones who got the most will run in and thank you.  Be ready when the bottom tier comes complaining.  Teach where they could have improved and what they need to do for next year.

If you can do that, you will constantly improve your company.  Whether you have ten or a hundred employees, the same concept applies.  Rate each of your departments; allocate them a larger or smaller piece of the pie.  Ask the managers to rate their employees using the same allocation concept.  Some managers will come back to you with everyone getting the same; they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.  That is a manager that needs retraining or replacing. 

Allocate your valuable commodity, cash, to those departments and people that helped the most in creating your profit.  The laggards improve or they will get another job where they can hide in the corners.  You come out ahead by turning over the weak links in your company. 

If you want to give a holiday gift to everyone, give each person a toaster oven.  By taking care of your performers, they will take care of you.