Do you offer benefits to your employees?

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plumbernj

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I would like to know if any of you owners offer health benefits to your employees and or familes and if so, what percentage do you pay for? 50% 100%
 

Master Plumber Mark

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health benefits..are an entitlement these days.....

I offered health benefits a while back....

to my employees..... that is a very stickey subject

usually you pay for them alone and they have to kick in
for ther family.....that is the first problem........

thinking that this would be looked at as a benefit, I paid
100 % for the employee only

usualy you had to have at least half the compnay in the program too....


to pay for their entire family with the plans I found would
have cost me another 200-500 per month per employee....

they never appreciated any of it, and still showed
up late for work, had to miss days here and there....

If you are going to offer health benefits and you are a small company , it will become a problem....and a financial burden with no reward or appreciatioin shown for what you shell out every month... they still whine and cry about working on Satruday once in a while.....

the first place that they find that offers 50c more an hour they will be gone
then all you can do is you can pat yourself on the back and tell yourself what a great
guy you were to pay out all that money for 9 months.....

The best approach is not to offer it........

its better off to find someone to work for you that
has insurance through their wifes policy and give them
more money up front in the their base pay...

if they dont like it , tell them to hit the road



k
 
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PEW

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We pay 100% of employee coverage, if the employee wants additional coverage for the family they pay for it. We will not pay for the spouse if he or she is has insurance available where they work.

It is to our advantage to have a healthy employee. Our plan has modest co-pays, no referrals, and Scripts.

About 7 years ago we went to a partial self funded insurance, administered by an outside party. It has, all around, worked out very well. Costs have been contained which benefits both us and the employee. However, that does not mean it is cheap!!

Our employees make or break the company, we value them!
 

Prashster

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I ain't a plumber - but I do own a small biz:

1) You can't discriminate - so if you want full cvg for yrself, then you gotta give it to the employees. However, unlike employees, my health cvg costs paid by company are taxed, so even if I reduce the subsidized % for the employees and myself, there's no net tax benefit I'm giving up.
2) We used to pay 100% employee AND family. Now we pay 90% (and are going down by 5% each year).
3) We offer an opt-out; we'll pay 100% of spouse's cost if they can get alternate coverage and cost of that is less than our cost of insuring.
 

PEW

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"my health cvg costs paid by company are taxed"

Lost me on that one, if the costs are paid by the company it is an expense to the company, not taxable to the employee.

Any additional cost to the employee, for family etc, should be pre-tax.

It is a sad fact that most employees, unless you really educate them (not easy), have no idea as to what the cost is to the company to provide health coverage.
 
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Prashster

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"my health cvg costs paid by company are taxed"
Lost me on that one, if the costs are paid by the company it is an expense to the company, not taxable to the employee.

At the end of the year, the amount of $$ the company pays for my health insurance is totalled and added back into my taxable income (perhaps not in total - but at least in large part). I'm not sure why, but my accountant/controller knows it to be true.
 

Chris75

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I'm an employee and my boss pays 100% of my insurance for me and my family, to him its worth it to keep me happy, for everyone else good luck... :D
 

Master Plumber Mark

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chris 75

chris...you got a very good deal....
and you should consider it a perk and
benefit worth around 600 per month...

Now, does this make you willing to work harder,
show up on time, and speak highly of your employers

and be willing to work when they really need you
in the dire emergency ????.....

or are they still dirty rotten s.o.b.ss????
 

TMB9862

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chris...you got a very good deal....
and you should consider it a perk and
benefit worth around 600 per month...

Now, does this make you willing to work harder,
show up on time, and speak highly of your employers

and be willing to work when they really need you
in the dire emergency ????.....

or are they still dirty rotten s.o.b.ss????
Mark, I don't know what kind of employees you have to make you so bitter. It's pretty normal for people to take days off, people do have things to do and can't be expected to work every weekday of their lives. So long as they give proper notice and don't do it excessively I don't see the problem. The only time I've ever taken off without notice was when a close family member died and I had to attend the funeral the next day. In that case I let my boss know the day before I wasn't coming in. Their are exceptional cases like that where it shouldn't be a problem not to give proper notice so long as they are infrequent. People do get sick as well. Do you really want them there coughing and sneezing in your customers houses anyway? So long as it isn't all the time and the illness isn't really a hangover what's the problem?

Everyone at my job is expected to be there fifteen minutes early. That is also a personal rule of mine which I have followed at all my jobs. That way if their is an accident or something you don't end up actually being late. I know many other people with the same philosophy. When guys decide to stop coming in fifteen minutes early they actually hear it from the other employees before they hear it from the boss.

Almost everyone is willing to come in on a Saturday if needed. Their are almost always have more volunteers then jobs when the opportunity to work on weekends presents itself. The same goes for emergencies. Everyone is willing to come in early, work late, or come in at strange hours if necessary unless they absolutely can not do it.

Our boss is pretty nice, no yelling, no trying to rip us off, no telling us we are stupid, no getting angry about stupid things, etc. It isn't the employees that are the problem every time. I know some companies that can't keep employees for more than a couple months and I know exactly why, not one can stand working for the guy.

I also don't know anyone that would leave their job for $0.50/hr. Now if another company is offering them another $10/hr with comparable benefits and you turn down their request for a raise can you really blame them for leaving.

I am an employee, obviously. I get half of my health insurance paid for so I know exactly what it costs them, and yes I do work harder knowing that I am getting it. The way to look at it is it's essentially an extra couple bucks an hour I'm getting. Offering health insurance will also cut down on workman's comp claims, most guys will just lay out the twenty dollar co-pay instead of filling out all the paperwork for workman's comp. Now if they get hit with a $600 bill, they're probably going to claim it.
 
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Chris75

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chris...you got a very good deal....
and you should consider it a perk and
benefit worth around 600 per month...

Now, does this make you willing to work harder,
show up on time, and speak highly of your employers

and be willing to work when they really need you
in the dire emergency ????.....

or are they still dirty rotten s.o.b.ss????


My benefits cost my boss $12,000 a year, its just his way of keeping me... I dont need to work harder, I make my boss money, if I didnt why would he keep me? I look at it this way, he needs me as much as I need him, my wages and benefits vs my knowledge and skills are the glue that makes it work...
 

Chris75

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Everyone at my job is expected to be there fifteen minutes early. That is also a personal rule of mine which I have followed at all my jobs. That way if their is an accident or something you don't end up actually being late. I know many other people with the same philosophy. When guys decide to stop coming in fifteen minutes early they actually hear it from the other employees before they hear it from the boss.

Thats fine to show up early, but dont expect me to start working till the whistle goes off... :D
 

Master Plumber Mark

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looking at things from different sides of the table

their is really no bitterness,
I just know what to expcet for doing a good deed...


example....Like one fellow that I had working for me decided to sell
drugs out of his "take home" plumbing truck, ....that was sweet..

Of course it was completely my fault for not drug
testing every few months , I suppose... I did not have eyes in
the back of my head.....

one rotten apple spoils the whole bunch ..... I guess....

the thing that annoyed me more about this was after he was fired,
others that worked for me came up and said
they had an idea that it was going on and getting bad
....but did not want to snitch on him......

that was my problem to figure out.....
even though I was paying for their heath insurance,
and paying them well...
their is some sort of "unwritten code of ethics" among losers here I dont understand .......

This fellow could have killed a family of 5 while driveing in my truck high on
meth, ruined a lot of lives , and it probably would have cost me everything,

.......and no one working here cares to tip me off......???

its like they are little kids telling the teacher on each other,


anyway they are all gone now...


the only advice I give you is to be loyal to
the fellow that signs your pay check and pays
you those very good benefits,..... watch his back for him.....

if a rotten apple comes along someday ,
they can and will spoil that relationship forever if
you keep silent about things going on right under your nose.


rotten apples have a tendency to rub their stink off on everybody
eventually .......

especially if you expect your boss to have e.s.p .....
 
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TMB9862

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This thread would have more clarity if the responders were limited to business owners only.

That's why the spectators at the football game never call the shots.
Why? So long as business owners and employees identify themselves as such I think you get a much better picture.

As for selling drugs out of a work van, nothing that bad really goes on here. Something that bad he'd probably be ratted out pretty quickly. For smaller things typically the employees tell him it is going to stop immediately before ratting him out. If it didn't stop, or he didn't seem serious in saying it was going to stop then yeah, the boss would find out.
 

Cookie

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Kind of funny about people's attitudes with benefits. I have worked for very large corporations where benefits are given as an enticement to obtain the cream of the crop.
 

PEW

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Prashster,

I was speaking to employees.

You must be a partner / owner in an S corp where you will get hit for a % but, a non member employee is not charged with additional income.
 

Master Plumber Mark

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Cookie its not an incentive, its considered an entitlement......

Kind of funny about people's attitudes with benefits. I have worked for very large corporations where benefits are given as an enticement to obtain the cream of the crop.


trust me Cookie, that is what I thought would happen..

but the exact opposite happenned to me back in the roaring 80 + 90s

At one time I had a money purchase plan for a few employees
that had a substantial amount of cash built up over less than 5 years

one fellow quit, took a 40 % penalty on the money and bought
himself a new bass boat with the remainder..

I broke this major blue collar rule......

RULE #1 blue collar people want to see the benefits at the end of every week on their pay checks....
...


Basically it is something that they simply expect or demand
to get them to show up in the morning, or they will go elsewhere...

it is not considered a perk

and forget about profit sharing.....LOL......
thats just a paperwork nightmare with no rewards
what-so-ever.....
 

SRdenny

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As a UA contractor, all I have to do is send a check to the hall every month. What they do with the money is their business.
 

Cookie

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I was just stating a fact of what I know to be true with my line of work and from what I saw with some others, too. The bennies are an enticement to pick their companies over others. Especially, if they matched funds, profit sharing like you said, and health, time off, etc. The perks are a huge part for me, I can only speak for myself, I guess. By the way, once we also cashed in money and lost that 40% to taxes, we bought a house. lol. But, I got to honest, I am we glad, we have been living in it for about 13, 15 years now, and I can't help but think, if we stored it away until, retirement, well, I would be the only one using it. So, my motto is, yeah, save for a rainy day, save some for when you are old, but, I sure am going to enjoy some now, too. I applaud that guy, hmm, a bass boat, I love to fish. I want to sit on Golden Pond someday.
 
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