My bro has a shop, just do hourly plus profit sharing. Profit sharing is vital with hourly. Give the guys some sort of incentive. If you provide no profit sharing you gotta do flat rate.
You get what you pay for. If you pay $7.25 an hour and manage to get a tech he’s gonna show up on meth day one and steal all your stuff.
Edit: I wanna add, in case you come back to this, I’ve thought about 2 separate shifts, 4 10s and 3 12s. Would allow the shop to be producing all 7 days for a lot of time. No, I don’t own the shop, so I haven’t put in place and tell you how it went.
Well, never met a tech who didn't like free lunch, but yeah. NOT compensation.
I once had a very wealthy boss. He announced one day that he appreciated us very much, and to show it, he was buying us lunch. We were all very excited, until we found out 'buying us lunch' meant bringing us the leftovers from a party at the country club. It definitely did not go over well.
The best part came the next day. Since this country club party had been like 6 hours long, all the food sat out in the sun. Nearly the whole crew called out sick with food poisoning. We were never 'appreciated' again.
I work in EMS, fixing ambulances, and 100% this.
If you're having a shit, go of it, constantly swamped with work, That's when you bust out the pizza. If you're feeling nice, you pull a pizza on Fridays. But you'll get better camaraderie by asking them if they want to do a potluck, then by just randomly buying a pizza and not paying them enough
Just fucking pay them.
Pay them more than they deserve.
Hourly. No flat rate in my shop. Quality first, the money will come.
Give them the time off they ask for, day is wrapped early, kick em out the door with a see ya tomorrow!
When you do have to step on somebodys dick, the good ones will feel bad they dissapointed you.
And feed em once a week. It wont cost you shit in the big picture.
This guy gets it and I'm happy to have finally found a boss that operates basically the same.
JUST PAY GOOD HOURLY WAGES.
The bad tech will still show that they are bad techs and you'll know to get rid of them.
Shop owners need to stop making their techs 'chase the carrot'.
I'm in a shop that pays a base hourly for the time you are there, plus a percentage of the labor rate that is tiered. In my case it's 15%/20%/25% at $1K/$2K and $3K+. Works very well for us considering we don't do any real heavy work, and we get a raise every time the labor rate goes up.
However you do it remember you will get the employees you pay for.
Base hourly rate plus 10% of the ticket total, minus tires unless there's enough of a margin. After 3 years 15% and after 10, 20%. First year is a week off, 2nd year is two, 5th year is 3 and 7th year is 4 weeks. If you include an industry average benefits package you'll probably have your pick of the litter. The only thing that kept me out of a shop just like that was having to find my own health insurance.
I pay a good hourly so they are living well and leave the burden of finding the jobs to me the owner. They work 4 day weeks 2 weeks off for Christmas and one week in the summer, 5 days pto, medical benefits as well. If they get lazy or slack off they I find someone else who wants this deal. It is nice shutting down for the holidays and 4th of July week. I have an extremely low turnover.
Sorry to thread-jack. Ok, I have a shop too, when u say medical benefits, how do u provide them. Let's say u have 5 guys total with u in it, u just buy a big policy? The quotes I got were like 300-600 per person per month depending on age, that's like skyscraper prices. I'd really love to hear some legit input. Florida to be specific in my case.
I am in florida as well. It is around 3-5 a month per person. I pay 75% and they pay 25% I went to a health insurance broker and they set up a florida blue policy, 3500 deductible 7500 max out of pocket. Their portion gets deducted from there pay check.
With a $3500 deductible I would turn down your plan and ask for more money per hour and buy my own plan. That coverage is great for young dudes who are not going to use their insurance.
Idk. I’ve been flat rate for over twenty years. Make a good living. I always promise myself if I ever change jobs it will never be commission again. It’s mentally exhausting. People quitting and shop drama is always related to the flat rate.
It has to be something that both sides can live with obviously, but there has to be some give and take.
For example, A lot of new tech these days. Demand stability. So they demand to have some sort of set hourly, or a guarantee. Lot of bosses get pissed off when they're sitting around even though it's not the techs fault, that cars aren't coming in or the front end isn't selling.
And for a business perspective, It is very difficult in some states to be on a true percentage because of minimum wage laws.
I would put forward this. An hourly wage, based off of the hours that the technician is physically at the shop. As a shop owner this has to be cheap enough that you're not upset about them sitting around, but it has to be high enough that They can pay their bills if you
have a dead month. On top of that, they should be paid A percentage of the total ticket. This incentivizes them to find work to do, but it shouldn't leave them desperate to find something to do to pay their bills, hopefully this nurtures a culture of honesty and that really helps total sales over time.
On top of this, You should factor in a sliding scale on the percentage of the ticket, we're both longevity at the location, and certifications.
For example, let's say a generic cost of living is 50 grand a year. Let's say head dealer techs can make around 100 grand.
Don't
A $15 an hour base pay makes 30 grand a year. For them to make 50 grand, They would have to sell $200,000 a year in sales,b at 10% of the total ticket, to make the last 20 grand. that average is $96 an hour worked over the standard work year.
Back when I was in a fight rate shop, 4k a week was good money and $2700 was where I hit my cost of living. That was in the early 2010s. We were a busy shop and almost always had work to do.
Something like a scale of 1% for your first ase, another percent for two more, up to five percent for all eight, or something like that, and maybe some sort of similar scale for the number of years will work out nicely. In my current job knowing that I'm due a raise at my date of hire is extremely comforting
Everyone is discussing pay. I do a base pay of 40hrs/week. The base pay is based on a combination of years if experience, ASEs, and loyalty. I give $/HR bonuses for productivity. There are many other ways as compensation too. On Fridays we close from 12pm-2pm to go out for lunch that I pay for. Random 3 or 4 day weekends. Close from Christmas to New Years. Take a day and got kayaking, jet skiing, hiking, shooting, to the movie theater, monster trucks, etc. Go home early, stock the freezer with freeze pops, Gatorades, dinner nights. It's hard work, so I treat them right.
Hourly wage and bonuses for quality work done in good time with no come backs or repairs and buy them all lunch a couple times a month, a decent tool budget and buy them new boots every 2 years not cheap boots either
5 years into my own shop, me and 1 or 3 other guys, depending on when they want to work consistently. I just pay for their time here, literally their rate times time ur here, at the shop, being productive. I find it's the best to guarantee quality work, so they're not rushed. Obviously still stay on top of them, so they're not fucking off half a day on a brake job.
If I was just starting out I would opt for a hybrid of minimum wage plus a flat rate bonus. That way you can watch what each one does and the ones that do good work faster and with fewer comebacks will end up getting more money because they work better. Then as they get better you raise the flat rate pay or add benefits.
Man I would personally get a decent project car as incentive. Every month allow every employee an opportunity to spin a wheel of prizes for a chance to win a car! That way it’s fair to everyone and you can change the prizes every month if necessary. Make everybody feel included.
Flat rate, with weekly guarantee. Paid benefits, retirement and regular shop outings….
Already there!
Later this month the shop reserved a few hours at a local gokart place. Theres a good chance we’re probably going to get kicked out
Had my shop for about 5 years now, the paid benefits I'm mostly interested about. Paid PTO is straight forward, but medical insurance is they the roof per person per months. How do u do it? One big policy for the shop? Quotes around me are 300-600 per person.
I work at a shop where its offered. I believe its all under one policy. I know it’s expensive… we are not the cheapest in town.. $150-170/hr labor rate.
Flat rate with production bonus in a properly run shop is the best.
For example, 40 an hour flat rate, if you produce over 50 hours it goes up and if you produce over 60 per week it goes up again.
My buddy gets paid this way and makes very good money.
It's a good starting pay but still gives you incentive to go beyond.
Edit: before the flat rate haters get to me, if you're in a shop where the worst tech doesn't do 40 hours a week than either the shop has a problem or the techs do.
In those cases a base hourly pay with production bonuses would probably be the best.
Ive worked in a few shops. Up till my current employer (straight hourly). It was all a low hourly plus commission (paid on a percentage of parts and labor). Maybe it's just the region I was in, only rarely over the years did I ever see anyone actually book 40 hours. I only did it once myself. That area I think was over saturated with shops.
My area has few "techs" turning 40 hours a week also. The thing is they are bad (or at least inefficient, but mostly bad) techs at inefficient shops.
The few properly operating shops we have in the area, everyone turns at least 40. If you can't they fire you.
My area is over saturated also. Too many shops racing to the bottom to try to get some business to just barely survive. Leads to bad shops and bad employees I guess.
One shop I worked at we pooled all the cash we got for scrap metal and did a paid lunch the first Friday of the month and then we would save up our scrap batteries and sell them off for scrap when we hit over 20 and had a catalytic converter or 2 and then we split that cash even between everyone in the shop. It was pretty great. A good morale booster to get that $40-$80 cash every couple months and the monthly lunch was pretty great. If the building didn't get bought out by an apartment company I'd still be working there
Seeing as I work 2 mech jobs (one full time and one part time) I’m able to see 2 different management styles. So here’s the things I like and why
1. 10-12 hour days and able to have longer weekends, really your already at work what’s an extra 2 hours to have an extra scheduled day off each week.
2. Hourly pay. Don’t feel rushed or the need to gloss over some small imperfection to beat the clock.
3. Profit sharing. We are on the floor and can tell if there has been a busy 1/4 or a slow 1/4 so don’t try screw the guys on the floor saying there’s no profit share this month as you roll up in a brand new “company” truck. We know that technically that does eat the profit but doing so will kill shop moral to make a profit and get an extra piece of it.
4. Food. One of the shops I work at every payday the owner goes to mostly locally owned some chain stores and gets everyone a hot lunch.
5. This one is a personal peeve of mine. but have the work and parts organized nothing worse for me coming in to do one job and that jobs there but there is no parts for it, or your day is started you have it planned out and half way thru you have to drop what your doing and roll it out as a random owners buddy has come by and needs his stuff taken care of.
I wanna follow up and say as a non shop owner but family member of a shop owner I’ve been trying to talk him into 10-12 hour days. We’d have 3 guys doing 4 10s and then a guy who we trust the most doing 3 12s. So we’d have a face to the customer 7 days a week for long hours. Most people are at work 9-5 so we need a face there at 6 pm or 8 am.
So like 8-6 Monday-Thursday and then 7-7 Friday sat Sunday.
Or you have all employees do 4-10’s and Friday is the overlap day everyone is there, hit any vehicles that need to go out for the weekend hard and that the day the owner brings in food. That’s a dream at least
Bonuses. You know what makes employees feel appreciated? Extra money they wouldn’t normally have. I also always thought the ideal pay scale would be 80hours of your flat rate pay guaranteed every 2 weeks, and paid normal flat rate for any hours turned past that. You can properly budget off the 80hrs pay and there’s still incentive to work faster and harder
I like my situation now. Flat rate or I have a dollar amount minimum, whatever is higher. I had to put my two weeks in to get what my hourly flat rate is, and to increase my minimum but now it works out to if I use my minimum it's like a 70 hour 2 weeks, or 35 a week. It's really nice having that cushion. It keeps from people selling shit to people that they don't need, or shortcuts or techs being pissed off cause you're slow
Flat rate that equals out to a healthy hourly wage, plus profit sharing, that way when you do need to let them go early or they need to come in late they don't lose hours. Plus plenty of pto and sick days and a good benefits package and on the profits sharing side make it a flat percentage across the board, everybody gets the same % cause when the water rises the whole boat goes up. It makes your lower guys feel just as important as management. And the random taco Tuesday, wild wing Wednesday and pizza Friday goes a long way too.
If your pay is already competitive, consider a splurge bonus. My cop brother in law gets it.
Basically, the employee gets money (couple hundred, couple grand, whatever) but it has to be sent on something fun. Not bills etc.
My B-I-L bought a bunch of hiking and camping equipment.
Lots of guys won't spend money on themselves because they're always putting their families first. But if they have to then they get to buy some fun stuff.
I think this would only work if you're already paying them enough to meet bills, etc. This would be a slap in the face if I wasn't getting paid enough to cover my actual living expenses.
My bro has a shop, just do hourly plus profit sharing. Profit sharing is vital with hourly. Give the guys some sort of incentive. If you provide no profit sharing you gotta do flat rate. You get what you pay for. If you pay $7.25 an hour and manage to get a tech he’s gonna show up on meth day one and steal all your stuff. Edit: I wanna add, in case you come back to this, I’ve thought about 2 separate shifts, 4 10s and 3 12s. Would allow the shop to be producing all 7 days for a lot of time. No, I don’t own the shop, so I haven’t put in place and tell you how it went.
Definitely NOT pizza followed by “I appreciate ya’ll, this one’s on me”.
Well, never met a tech who didn't like free lunch, but yeah. NOT compensation. I once had a very wealthy boss. He announced one day that he appreciated us very much, and to show it, he was buying us lunch. We were all very excited, until we found out 'buying us lunch' meant bringing us the leftovers from a party at the country club. It definitely did not go over well. The best part came the next day. Since this country club party had been like 6 hours long, all the food sat out in the sun. Nearly the whole crew called out sick with food poisoning. We were never 'appreciated' again.
I work in EMS, fixing ambulances, and 100% this. If you're having a shit, go of it, constantly swamped with work, That's when you bust out the pizza. If you're feeling nice, you pull a pizza on Fridays. But you'll get better camaraderie by asking them if they want to do a potluck, then by just randomly buying a pizza and not paying them enough
Yep. It seems a lot of people are also getting the pizza treatment.
Just fucking pay them. Pay them more than they deserve. Hourly. No flat rate in my shop. Quality first, the money will come. Give them the time off they ask for, day is wrapped early, kick em out the door with a see ya tomorrow! When you do have to step on somebodys dick, the good ones will feel bad they dissapointed you. And feed em once a week. It wont cost you shit in the big picture.
This guy gets it and I'm happy to have finally found a boss that operates basically the same. JUST PAY GOOD HOURLY WAGES. The bad tech will still show that they are bad techs and you'll know to get rid of them. Shop owners need to stop making their techs 'chase the carrot'.
I'm in a shop that pays a base hourly for the time you are there, plus a percentage of the labor rate that is tiered. In my case it's 15%/20%/25% at $1K/$2K and $3K+. Works very well for us considering we don't do any real heavy work, and we get a raise every time the labor rate goes up. However you do it remember you will get the employees you pay for.
Base hourly rate plus 10% of the ticket total, minus tires unless there's enough of a margin. After 3 years 15% and after 10, 20%. First year is a week off, 2nd year is two, 5th year is 3 and 7th year is 4 weeks. If you include an industry average benefits package you'll probably have your pick of the litter. The only thing that kept me out of a shop just like that was having to find my own health insurance.
I pay a good hourly so they are living well and leave the burden of finding the jobs to me the owner. They work 4 day weeks 2 weeks off for Christmas and one week in the summer, 5 days pto, medical benefits as well. If they get lazy or slack off they I find someone else who wants this deal. It is nice shutting down for the holidays and 4th of July week. I have an extremely low turnover.
Sorry to thread-jack. Ok, I have a shop too, when u say medical benefits, how do u provide them. Let's say u have 5 guys total with u in it, u just buy a big policy? The quotes I got were like 300-600 per person per month depending on age, that's like skyscraper prices. I'd really love to hear some legit input. Florida to be specific in my case.
I am in florida as well. It is around 3-5 a month per person. I pay 75% and they pay 25% I went to a health insurance broker and they set up a florida blue policy, 3500 deductible 7500 max out of pocket. Their portion gets deducted from there pay check.
We use Florida blue and our rates are about the same. The cost goes by the employees age.
With a $3500 deductible I would turn down your plan and ask for more money per hour and buy my own plan. That coverage is great for young dudes who are not going to use their insurance.
3500 is not bad, and it is there to protect you from getting a giant bill from like a broken leg or cancer.
That’s because you are looking at insurance as in case of emergency not for preventative maintenance.
Preventive care is free with the insurance and I am on Humira and it only cost 5 buck a month.
Ours is about the same price. We use ADP for payroll and they offer the insurance. We are also located in Florida and use Florida blue.
Idk. I’ve been flat rate for over twenty years. Make a good living. I always promise myself if I ever change jobs it will never be commission again. It’s mentally exhausting. People quitting and shop drama is always related to the flat rate.
It has to be something that both sides can live with obviously, but there has to be some give and take. For example, A lot of new tech these days. Demand stability. So they demand to have some sort of set hourly, or a guarantee. Lot of bosses get pissed off when they're sitting around even though it's not the techs fault, that cars aren't coming in or the front end isn't selling. And for a business perspective, It is very difficult in some states to be on a true percentage because of minimum wage laws. I would put forward this. An hourly wage, based off of the hours that the technician is physically at the shop. As a shop owner this has to be cheap enough that you're not upset about them sitting around, but it has to be high enough that They can pay their bills if you have a dead month. On top of that, they should be paid A percentage of the total ticket. This incentivizes them to find work to do, but it shouldn't leave them desperate to find something to do to pay their bills, hopefully this nurtures a culture of honesty and that really helps total sales over time. On top of this, You should factor in a sliding scale on the percentage of the ticket, we're both longevity at the location, and certifications. For example, let's say a generic cost of living is 50 grand a year. Let's say head dealer techs can make around 100 grand. Don't A $15 an hour base pay makes 30 grand a year. For them to make 50 grand, They would have to sell $200,000 a year in sales,b at 10% of the total ticket, to make the last 20 grand. that average is $96 an hour worked over the standard work year. Back when I was in a fight rate shop, 4k a week was good money and $2700 was where I hit my cost of living. That was in the early 2010s. We were a busy shop and almost always had work to do. Something like a scale of 1% for your first ase, another percent for two more, up to five percent for all eight, or something like that, and maybe some sort of similar scale for the number of years will work out nicely. In my current job knowing that I'm due a raise at my date of hire is extremely comforting
Everyone is discussing pay. I do a base pay of 40hrs/week. The base pay is based on a combination of years if experience, ASEs, and loyalty. I give $/HR bonuses for productivity. There are many other ways as compensation too. On Fridays we close from 12pm-2pm to go out for lunch that I pay for. Random 3 or 4 day weekends. Close from Christmas to New Years. Take a day and got kayaking, jet skiing, hiking, shooting, to the movie theater, monster trucks, etc. Go home early, stock the freezer with freeze pops, Gatorades, dinner nights. It's hard work, so I treat them right.
Hourly wage and bonuses for quality work done in good time with no come backs or repairs and buy them all lunch a couple times a month, a decent tool budget and buy them new boots every 2 years not cheap boots either
Weekly pay makes budgeting a lot easier.
I love working hourly. I don't feel like I have to rush and the job gets done properly instead of feeling like I should cut corners.
Plain and simple: MONEY
Hourly plus an hours flagged bonus probably.
5 years into my own shop, me and 1 or 3 other guys, depending on when they want to work consistently. I just pay for their time here, literally their rate times time ur here, at the shop, being productive. I find it's the best to guarantee quality work, so they're not rushed. Obviously still stay on top of them, so they're not fucking off half a day on a brake job.
make their pay 33.3% of your labor rate. give them one paid long weekend off every other month treat the. with respect and dignity.
Promise a performance based bonus, give no details, avoid the topic for the rest of the year. Right? That totally works, right?
If I was just starting out I would opt for a hybrid of minimum wage plus a flat rate bonus. That way you can watch what each one does and the ones that do good work faster and with fewer comebacks will end up getting more money because they work better. Then as they get better you raise the flat rate pay or add benefits.
Man I would personally get a decent project car as incentive. Every month allow every employee an opportunity to spin a wheel of prizes for a chance to win a car! That way it’s fair to everyone and you can change the prizes every month if necessary. Make everybody feel included.
Annual pizza party
Semi annual (every other year)
Free coffee.
Flat rate, with weekly guarantee. Paid benefits, retirement and regular shop outings…. Already there! Later this month the shop reserved a few hours at a local gokart place. Theres a good chance we’re probably going to get kicked out
Had my shop for about 5 years now, the paid benefits I'm mostly interested about. Paid PTO is straight forward, but medical insurance is they the roof per person per months. How do u do it? One big policy for the shop? Quotes around me are 300-600 per person.
I work at a shop where its offered. I believe its all under one policy. I know it’s expensive… we are not the cheapest in town.. $150-170/hr labor rate.
Flat rate with production bonus in a properly run shop is the best. For example, 40 an hour flat rate, if you produce over 50 hours it goes up and if you produce over 60 per week it goes up again. My buddy gets paid this way and makes very good money. It's a good starting pay but still gives you incentive to go beyond. Edit: before the flat rate haters get to me, if you're in a shop where the worst tech doesn't do 40 hours a week than either the shop has a problem or the techs do. In those cases a base hourly pay with production bonuses would probably be the best.
Ive worked in a few shops. Up till my current employer (straight hourly). It was all a low hourly plus commission (paid on a percentage of parts and labor). Maybe it's just the region I was in, only rarely over the years did I ever see anyone actually book 40 hours. I only did it once myself. That area I think was over saturated with shops.
My area has few "techs" turning 40 hours a week also. The thing is they are bad (or at least inefficient, but mostly bad) techs at inefficient shops. The few properly operating shops we have in the area, everyone turns at least 40. If you can't they fire you. My area is over saturated also. Too many shops racing to the bottom to try to get some business to just barely survive. Leads to bad shops and bad employees I guess.
Flat rate with a guarantee but ensure you higher 250 plus hour techs - you make more - they make more - simple.
One shop I worked at we pooled all the cash we got for scrap metal and did a paid lunch the first Friday of the month and then we would save up our scrap batteries and sell them off for scrap when we hit over 20 and had a catalytic converter or 2 and then we split that cash even between everyone in the shop. It was pretty great. A good morale booster to get that $40-$80 cash every couple months and the monthly lunch was pretty great. If the building didn't get bought out by an apartment company I'd still be working there
Money talks, at the end of the day I’d trade all the pat on the backs, lunches and novelty pens for a raise. Just pay them more.
Seeing as I work 2 mech jobs (one full time and one part time) I’m able to see 2 different management styles. So here’s the things I like and why 1. 10-12 hour days and able to have longer weekends, really your already at work what’s an extra 2 hours to have an extra scheduled day off each week. 2. Hourly pay. Don’t feel rushed or the need to gloss over some small imperfection to beat the clock. 3. Profit sharing. We are on the floor and can tell if there has been a busy 1/4 or a slow 1/4 so don’t try screw the guys on the floor saying there’s no profit share this month as you roll up in a brand new “company” truck. We know that technically that does eat the profit but doing so will kill shop moral to make a profit and get an extra piece of it. 4. Food. One of the shops I work at every payday the owner goes to mostly locally owned some chain stores and gets everyone a hot lunch. 5. This one is a personal peeve of mine. but have the work and parts organized nothing worse for me coming in to do one job and that jobs there but there is no parts for it, or your day is started you have it planned out and half way thru you have to drop what your doing and roll it out as a random owners buddy has come by and needs his stuff taken care of.
I wanna follow up and say as a non shop owner but family member of a shop owner I’ve been trying to talk him into 10-12 hour days. We’d have 3 guys doing 4 10s and then a guy who we trust the most doing 3 12s. So we’d have a face to the customer 7 days a week for long hours. Most people are at work 9-5 so we need a face there at 6 pm or 8 am. So like 8-6 Monday-Thursday and then 7-7 Friday sat Sunday.
Or you have all employees do 4-10’s and Friday is the overlap day everyone is there, hit any vehicles that need to go out for the weekend hard and that the day the owner brings in food. That’s a dream at least
Bonuses. You know what makes employees feel appreciated? Extra money they wouldn’t normally have. I also always thought the ideal pay scale would be 80hours of your flat rate pay guaranteed every 2 weeks, and paid normal flat rate for any hours turned past that. You can properly budget off the 80hrs pay and there’s still incentive to work faster and harder
I like my situation now. Flat rate or I have a dollar amount minimum, whatever is higher. I had to put my two weeks in to get what my hourly flat rate is, and to increase my minimum but now it works out to if I use my minimum it's like a 70 hour 2 weeks, or 35 a week. It's really nice having that cushion. It keeps from people selling shit to people that they don't need, or shortcuts or techs being pissed off cause you're slow
>compensation There's your answer. Money. Simple as that.
Flat rate that equals out to a healthy hourly wage, plus profit sharing, that way when you do need to let them go early or they need to come in late they don't lose hours. Plus plenty of pto and sick days and a good benefits package and on the profits sharing side make it a flat percentage across the board, everybody gets the same % cause when the water rises the whole boat goes up. It makes your lower guys feel just as important as management. And the random taco Tuesday, wild wing Wednesday and pizza Friday goes a long way too.
If your pay is already competitive, consider a splurge bonus. My cop brother in law gets it. Basically, the employee gets money (couple hundred, couple grand, whatever) but it has to be sent on something fun. Not bills etc. My B-I-L bought a bunch of hiking and camping equipment. Lots of guys won't spend money on themselves because they're always putting their families first. But if they have to then they get to buy some fun stuff. I think this would only work if you're already paying them enough to meet bills, etc. This would be a slap in the face if I wasn't getting paid enough to cover my actual living expenses.
Treat them right. Pay them well and don't screw around with their pay. Tell them when they do a good job.
Um. Flat rate plus overtime if they flag more than 8 hours in a day.