Piece Work

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Re: Piece Work

To be honest, all the piece rate companies typically have more problems. There appears to be a lack of supervision and even a lack of care that piece workers seem to exhibit? They never seem to be working for the same company for longer than a few months. That is not to say that all hourly companies do top notch work, it just seems to be a symptom of piece rate companies.

As a comparison, most companies that pay by the hour have company vehicles, enroll students in apprenticeship courses, and have supervisors or managers that can be reached to discuss issues and will generally contact us if they have any issues. On the other hand, the piece rate companies have guys running around in there own vehicles with no indication from whom or where they work, they never have students in the apprenticeship program, and you can never seem to contact anyone from the company.

I am not for or against any business plan or pay arrangement a company uses. This is simply a general observation from personal experience. :eek:
 
Re: Piece Work

Originally posted by charlie b:
If you are an employee, then you must necessarily be paid on either a salary or a wage basis.
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Let's assume the person is an employee. Can the period of time that the house is being built be a "salary"?

So let's say Pablo works for $16 per hour doing service calls, miscellaneous work. Then he agrees to trim a house by the opening. While he is trimming that house, is he salaried at $500 per house? A salary is generally an annual arrangement or fixed to some period of time, as in $22k/yr. Is it possible that this arrangement is a salary of $500/this house?

That seems like an odd arrangement for an otherwise hourly employee. Is there such a thing as a hybrid employee? :)

flyboy:
However, there really is no need to pay piece work in my opinion. I pay by the hour but watch, track and post billable efficiency of each employee.
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So do you see piecework as a substitute for management?
Bob Peterson:
Normally if you pay by piece work, you still have to pay OT. the government calculates this in a very odd way, so it is best if you do not allow employees to work more than 40 hours/week if they are on a piece work basis.
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Can you cite a source for this? It's the first I've heard that piecework still requires overtime pay.

Jim Walker:
You are there employee to cover the insurance and licensing but part of deal is you supply your own truck and tools,gas,ladders, ect.
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It sounds like it would make more sense to start your own company than to join in with such an outfit! Can't blame you for walking away! :)
 
Re: Piece Work

I can only see piece work resulting in sloppy, poor quality work. If the motivation is only money made per piece, there is no incentive whatsover to do a good job. I realize this is all obvious and self-evident, but it just sounds like a plain bad system to me. :(
 
Re: Piece Work

Safe to say that quality will go down hill on piece work.It's advantage is if your fast and good at what you do then you will earn more.We have all seen slackers on the job.I rather get tired of seeing guys that make half my pay and only do 1/4 of the work i do.If i was doing piece work i would have a reason to move fast as i can and work long days.But then the only thing your after is the money.Far as i know piece work is legal as long as you dont go over 40 hours.Thats not hard to figure out how to get around that."Jim how many hours did you work this week on the job #532 and #643" "39 hours boss"
 
The worst part is, you know damn well when its roghed in and passed, an electrician "a good one" has to go in and fix the disaster. It must be fairly common for a piece work house to fail roughin atleast once I would imagine.
 
I've had an older guy on the payroll who approached me about piecework. His take was like this -"I'm getting old and slow and some days are good and some days are lousy, if I try to keep up the pace I'm at I'll either get fired or quit. If I could do piecework I could work at my own pace and make good money or not depending on how I happen to feel that day." This is a very compelling case for piecework for the older guy. I'm considering it.
 
I`ve done and supervised piece workers for the last 20+ years here.A blanket statement that doing piece produces poor quality just isn`t true.I know many exceptional piece guys both rough and trim that do excellent work and they are super fast.By the same token I know alot of piece guys that I have feared turning on the breakers for fear of what might be found.LISTEN TO THE HOUSE HUMMMMMMMMM !!!!!!!!!!!!!

To overcome the hourly wage situation,the gross of the homes they did in a pay period is broken down into an hourly rate @ 40 hrs.Most guys take the trucks home so they can get an early start.So the company really has no actual knowledge if the did these houses in 20 hours or 40.From the gross taxes are taken out.From the Florida Labor Board : They must sign a payroll slip for the gross broken down into 40 hrs.Company still has to provide workers comp.

Is piece worth it ????? That depends on several factors.The piece worker has to be efficent in what they do.Eliminate unessasary moves while working.Tract homes are usually pieced out.Same models wired the same exact way.Add in the extras.Acountability is a big issue.Missed wires are back charged to those that miss them.Red tags are out of there pocket.Doesn`t take to long to figure out who can piece and who can`t.
30 to 40 days later the tally is in.

As far as what kid of difference is the in pay from piece to hourly,there can be a huge difference at the end of a week.Rough piece workers usually fare better in that comparison.But I know a 3 man trim crew that will just plain out smoke any other crew I have ever encountered and the work is perfect.Also know a few piece rough crews that are just plain scary to watch.In a 2150 2 story at daybreak and by lunch they are moving into the next one.And they pass every time,work like a charm too.

So there can`t be a blanket statement that piece is better or worse.Depends on the guys doing it.
 
allenwayne, you hit it on the head. It's the individual. A well run and well setup piece work program will benefit everyone. A poorly run and poorly set up hourly rate plan, will hurt everyone. There is no one answer.

But, just to throw some fuel on the fire....

for all you anti-pieceworkites, here is food for thought. All these projects that you are on, where you are making your hourly rate, your boss bid those as piecework.

Everything installed on that job - from the service to the outlet- has an assembly price. Takes into account, material and labor. There is a set labor rate for your time in there. Now, he may pay you hourly, but he is billing piecework.

So, theoretically, based on opinions here, every installation should be shoddy and crappy because even if the guys installing are paid hourly, the owner isn't, so he shouldn't care how well it's done. Correct?
 
I'd also bet that a properly administered piecework company will knock the socks off your average hourly rate company. Less callbacks and less issues. Simply because in a properly administered piecework set up, there is accountability.

In your average hourly rate set up, the guy screws up (you still have to pay him for his time) and you have to pay him or someone else to go and fix it.

Piecework, they screw up, they fix it on their own time. Cuts down on silly mistakes quickly.
 
emahler said:
Piecework, they screw up, they fix it on their own time. Cuts down on silly mistakes quickly.
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I have no interest of fixing mistakes for free.

Paying me to fix my own or other employees mistakes is just one of the joys of owning a company. :) If I continue to cost the company money fire me.

I see this as a way for the owners to get all the benefits of running a business without taking the associated risks that go along with it.

If you can make that work for you great, I know I would not be interested in working under that system.

Marc said this

mdshunk said:
I personally find good electricians, and even good electrical laborers, too hard to come by to monkey with the pay like that, though. You give a guy a decent hourly wage, then he knows how to plan his budget and his life. There's enough stuff to worry about without spending an hour a day poking the calculator to try to figure out how much you're going to be making that paycheck.
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He is a man I would work for, to me it's not just about a job it's about mutual respect.

If an employer nickle and dimes me to death I am not going to have much respect or loyalty to them.....why would I?

On the other hand my current employer has alway taken good care of me, if I am out they might cover it. In return I go where they need me at any time of day with little to no notice.

To each their own, I am sure some guys love piece work.
 
Bob,

My point was that there are 2 sides and to make a blanket statement that piecework leads to shoddy work is wrong.

But the upside to piecework for an employee is this:

The better you are and the more productive you are, the more you make. Ever work on a site with someone who is the same pay grade, but only does half as much?

But there are upsides and downsides to both positions...that was my point
 
exactly...

I will add this, some people prefer to take a greater risk and hope for a greater reward. Some people prefer to take less risk, and are content with a lesser reward.

Neither is wrong, it's what makes the world go around. I personally prefer to take the risks. The thought of knowing that I am only going to make $X no matter how hard I work kills me. But that is the reason why I choose to do what I do. There is no right or wrong, there just is.

good luck
 
In answer to jims question. I do find more mistakes with piece workers. Here I believe that they get paid by the sq ft.

The problem is not always the quality, but when you give them a correction notice they don't get paid to come back and fix it. I once had to put a stop work notice on a job because the first six houses had corrections and had them for the next two times I went out and of course those corrections carried over to the next six houses (missing outlets, no straping in the attic, etc) that they didn't want to stop working on.

When I first started out I used to work six days a week, with Saturday just being a regular day and I never said much about it because my boss treated me pretty good (would buy tools when they wore out, put tires on my truck, etc), but he then decided that he was going to start paying me 1/2 time travel time, to which I agreed, but Saturdays were now time and a half and Sundays when we worked them were double time and anything over 8 in a day was overtime.

The only piece work I ever did was putting in smoke detectors when they became mandatory in apartments in Los Angeles. I was getting $10 a smoke detector back in the early 80's and on a good day I could put in 20 or so. Til I ran into my first lath and plaster job and I got in 3 that day.
 
cowboy, don't get me wrong, there are a ton of pieceworkers out there (i'd venture to say especially on residential new construction sites) who should be shot on site. But, I'd place a wager on the fact that most of them were once horrible hourly employees who got fired so often for their shoddy work, that they only place they could catch on was with a piecework outfit.

edited to add - every one man operation out there is a pieceworker for himself.
 
iwire said:
I have no interest of fixing mistakes for free.

Paying me to fix my own or other employees mistakes is just one of the joys of owning a company. :) If I continue to cost the company money fire me.

I see this as a way for the owners to get all the benefits of running a business without taking the associated risks that go along with it.

If you can make that work for you great, I know I would not be interested in working under that system.
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The best place I ever worked where employees were rewarded for doing a good job was a crewboat builder by the name of Halter Marine. If we came in ahead of schedule and under budget, we got a share of the money we saved the buyer. If not, well, we didn't.

You best believe that we were very careful what we did. It's amazing how much better people work when they have the proper incentive.
 
tallgirl said:
You best believe that we were very careful what we did. It's amazing how much better people work when they have the proper incentive.
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Did I say otherwise?

It happens that I get bonus money based on job profit but that is in addition to my hourly. :cool:
 
emahler said:
I'd also bet that a properly administered piecework company will knock the socks off your average hourly rate company. Less callbacks and less issues. Simply because in a properly administered piecework set up, there is accountability.
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I wouldn't know - I worked for a company with bad administration.

In their setup, they would pay a lump sum based on a percentage of the labor allotted, that was weighted according to the employee's hourly wage. If Joe Journeyman makes $20/hr and Ace Apprentice makes $10/hr, then Joe gets 2/3's of the money and Ace gets 1/3. Sounds equitable, right?

Well, it would be if you could see the math that generated your paycheck. With that system, they couldn't show us numbers because then we'd learn what the other guy on our team was making. I'm pretty sure they probably used that curtain to hide other shady dealings as well, I don't know. Given their 3-month odyssey in adding up less than 60 hours vacation time, I wouldn't be surprised to hear it.

This distrust is solely due to the fact that the numbers could not be given to explain paychecks. When checks came up short, a simple "You're moving too slow" was about the only firm answer you could count on.

With hourly, performance can still be managed, by whatever benchmark the employer cares to set. They just need to manage performance. There is piece of mind for the employee, knowing that the 40 hours you worked last week will equal 40 hours on this week's check. That fosters trust. Length of service fosters loyalty. Loyal employees (who know they are under watch) will perform.

Piecework is a lazy-man's performance tool, IMO.

emahler said:
In your average hourly rate set up, the guy screws up (you still have to pay him for his time) and you have to pay him or someone else to go and fix it.

Piecework, they screw up, they fix it on their own time. Cuts down on silly mistakes quickly.
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That was probably their theory, but when the rough guy quits before trim-time, who's left without a chair when the music stops? There were at least four instances I can recall of people screwing up, and then getting either fired or quitting before they could be forced to fix their mistakes.

Another fact is, time will be paid to the employee regardless of what the company policy is. Some employees started running a credit line of sorts, billing time to other houses to keep from getting gypped on a warranty call. The system was self-defeating, IMO. I hope they sink.

I enjoy working for an employer I can trust. I try to do my best daily to stay employed. :)
 
emahler, I don't disagree with you at all. The only thing piece work does is make the employee responsible for how much he gets paid and not the employer.

Meaning simply I'm paying you for 8 hours and most days only really get 6. With piece work, of course, the more you do the more you make.

They guys that take pride in what they do will always take that pride, nothing ever gets done half a**. I've met workers that I thought owned the company until I realized that they were just doing a great job, but I have also met the guys that seem to be on break no matter when I show up at the job.

Our company used to have a term because of just one guy, "whatever you do don't Mike it up".
 
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