How many hours do you require of employees?
How many hours do you require of employees?
(OP)
I own and manage a ten person engineering firm. On the average, I work 60 hours a week at the office. My wife usually only sees me at work (she works there as well as my accountant). For those of you with engineering employees, how many hours do you require them to work? I feel that asking 50 hours a week from my employees is not too much; what do you think?





RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Your employees share none of the risk of business ownership. I doubt that any of them share any significant chance of additional reward, either.
The illegal conscription of non-managerial salaried professionals to work unpaid overtime went on for many years. Judicial review of the existing laws showed that engineers were not exempt, even though the practice was widespread (universal?). It was only recently that laws were changed to make this abuse legal, reclassifying engineers as "creative professionals" or some rot like that.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
"I average about 50 now." He gave a kind of smug, approving smile.
I quickly added, "And that's too much. I worked 100-hour weeks in graduate school, and that cured me of long hours for anybody except myself. I am looking for a 40-hour job, and am willing to do a little more to get things done. If you're expecting people to work those kinds of hours, it tells me that you don't have enough people."
They hired me anyway, and are paying me a very decent salary.
So far with this company I have willingly put in some outrageous hours for a couple of crisis situations. It wasn't pleasant, I did it anyway, and the situation was caused by Management's inability to act effectively. I communicated to management that this is the fastest way to make me leave the company. So far, this kind of silly nonsense has stopped, and I'm still here.
TygerDawg
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
If not, then more people need to be hired or someone needs to work more efficiently.
I don't expect any of my employees to regularly work more than 40 hours per week. Other than finishing a project or working on an emergency, no one should be expected to work more without compensation.
I respect my employees and I respect their time; I choose not to steal it.
Charlie
www.facsco.com
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
How do your medical and retirement benifets stack up as an offset to no growth in the direction of their choice.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
TygerDawg, asking for more time from an employee may not mean that I need more people; it can also mean that I don't make enough income on the hours he works to produce a net margin. He could be being paid more than he is producing at the salary I give him. Assuming that the salaries I pay are in line with other project managers' salaries, how many hours a week would you expect from him (for ex. at $60,000)? Also, I'm located in Fly-over country.
TheTick, what in your opinion is a significant chance of an additional award? Is sharing 19% of the net profits of the company between eight employees each year significant enough?
Thank you for all input!
Referee
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Get a life!
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Are you a business owner? Do you not know that business owners on the average, work much more than their employees? Did you know that CPAs also work these hours during a number of important months a year? In a small firm such as mine, the owner may clean the bathrooms, shovel the walks, fix the furnace, take the mail to the post office, and various other things that the other employees wouldn't deem worthy of their time. If I paid everyone else to do these overhead costs, the expenses would close the doors, the taxes would snow me under, and I would have to work for someone else. There ARE reasons to work as the boss...
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
I worked as a janitor through college. Now here I am, owning my own business, and I'm moping the floor and scrubbing the toilets... Good thing I'm experienced in that area...
Charlie
www.facsco.com
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
The fact remains that employees are not owners, and it is not realistic to expect employees to be driven by the same motivations as an owner. Learn to recognize what motivates individual employees. The whip is a poor choice. So is guilt. Even money has its limits.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Not everyone is motivated enough to open an engineering office no matter how small. I give you full credit for having enough confidence to do so. This position comes with much perks as well as risks and responsibilities. Employees don't have to share any of these responsibilities. Their only duty is to perform well enough to make you some profit and justify the paycheck you give them.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
I don't know... how much of an incentive is an extra $2 in an employee's pocket a month? How about $2k? If the net profit is significant, then 2.5% per employee can be an impressive incentive (to some), but if the net profit is minimal why should they bust their ass for you?
I'm at work before 8 and typically don't leave until 6:30-7 (as well as being a business owner on the side). I'm working these hours temporarily because the company needs the extra work to finish a project (several months long), but I would never choose to work such long hours day in and day out. As a business owner, I put in 60-80/week before I went back to the 8-5 deal for someone else, but I would never expect an employee to even come close to those kind of hours unless they were a partner.
Profit shring only gets you so much loyalty, and a burned out employee can easily tank an entire team.
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
When younger I worked at a company whose unwritten rule was "do what it takes", meaning long hours. The unspoken corollary to that was "if you don't have any thing to do, then take off". Fortunately, the work was amazingly fun and the co-workers were fantastic. Many late nights were spent. I didn't care that the salary was a bit less than I could have gotten at a less-fun job. I have fond memories of me & my co-worker looking at each other one afternoon, bored with nothing to do. We left at 230PM and spent the rest of the afternoon plowing through a couple of 12-packs. It was the kind of job where I couldn't wait to wake up in the morning because it meant I got to go to work.
I saw another organization, manufacturing, that was team-based and incentive-based. The assembly lines were all highly engineered, orchestrated, and timed. The people were actually running from station to station. It turned out that the incentive was 25%-30% of their base annual salary. All the laggards had been kicked off the respective teams by the team members. Those people were standing in line waiting for the gates to open every morning.
Then again I've seen places run by managers who looked at spreadsheets, but had no notion of the context of the numbers, nor of the way of producing those numbers or increasing/decreasing the numbers. Those were the places that laid down the edict of "## hours minimum expected per week". It was a hell-hole: unmotivated managers, poorly motivated troops, everybody spending their intelligence and talents trying to figure out ways to beat the system.
If you want the silver bullet answer, I'd say it is this: pay a fair (or better) salary for the time worked. Through culture, lay down the expectations of the number of hours that is acceptable to be successful in your business. Eliminate waste everywhere to reduce overhead costs. Do your job as a manager to create a positive workplace that allows talent to take root and flourish. And do your job as a manager and cull under-performing team members.
TygerDawg
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Have your people turn in their time accurately....if they were looking out the window for an hour, put down "looking out the window". That way you can accurately gage costs and help set their goals where they need to be to keep the company profitable.
As whyun said, some people are more efficient than others. If my people can get 8 hrs of work done in 2, they shouldn't have to sit there for the other 6 just so that I think everyone is working as hard as I am.
referee, if you look in the mirror or did a time study on yourself, I think you will find that your 60 hr week isn't all that efficient either.
I try to instill a culture where we get everything done in 40 hrs (standard work days). If we aren't, then we need to
1) get more efficient / organized
2) raise our rates
3) hire people
Work is not everything and that extra 42 days a year that you are working (20 hrs x 50 weeks / 24) takes a toll and is a hidden cost to your business.
ZCP
www.phoenix-engineer.com
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Reading between the lines I thought that your accountant may be seeing more of your wife than you do. Perhaps a comma should be in there somewhere, or perhaps not.....
corus
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Get in another business. We got enough in this business that want to rob people.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Oh and my wife IS my accountant! I know Exactly how much time I take to do things - she tells me how much, all the time ... sort of ADD ...
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
As for the 6 hours to do 2 hours of work. Well..., that guy needs a talk. If he/she doesn't improve after the talk, then it's time to show him/her the door.
-b
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
If you go that route (50-hour), the word will spread that you are a sweat shop, and when that happens, you will have a tough time finding engineers, especially during good times.
I, once took a pay cut to leave a place like yours.
Another time, I interviewed with a firm that had 44 hours minimum requirement in their company policy (talk about guts). Luckily, I asked for a copy after the interview.
These guys were desperate for a senior Engineer to come in, I turned them down cold and I did not tell them the real reason neither.
Once, I worked for a man whose wife was the secretary, boy, did I hate working there? you couldn't go to the bathroom without the wife knowing about it. Squaw should do accounting at home.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Something to consider, if any of your employees can document that you expect 50 hour weeks out of them you may be setting on a land mine. That proof may be witnesses to a conversation or even a copy of this thread.
Some state laws would make it easier than in others.
What they can do is sue you for all the back wages you "owe" them. It looks like ( from what you said here ) it would pretty easy for them to prove they were hired for 40 Hrs, worked 50 ( as a) matter of policy - not casually) and paid 40.
Once they hire a lawyer all your records oan be supeoned. If they find a pattern of you consistently underbidding jobs and completing them with "free" time you may wind up paying more than back wages.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Speaking as an employee, if I had a choice between 2 similar jobs, one that had me work 40 hrs & the other 50, which one do you think that I would take? In such a situation, you would end up with the kinds of employees that no one else wants and work for you because they have no choice. You can imagine the quality of the resulting work. Of course if you are better than your competitors in other ways, then the higher hours that you require could be a wash, from the point of the employees.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
corus
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
I think expecting them to work more than 40 hours a week is unreasonable. They are employees.
I think having a job description stating that the position requires 50 hours a week, and that they will be paid 50 hours a week every week (regardless of how many hours they are actually required to work each individual week) is another matter. If they have to commit to 50 hours a week, they should be paid that - sort of like if you don't show up at the dentist, they still charge you.
"Do not worry about your problems with mathematics, I assure you mine are far greater."
Albert Einstein
Have you read FAQ731-376 to make the best use of Eng-Tips Forums?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
50-hours/week represent 500 hours a year (assuming the you give 2 weeks vacation).
That is 12.5 weeks, 3 months of free work. This means that one must work 15 months to earn a 12 month salary.
10 hours/week represent 25% of salary. For most people, this is a mortgage.
That's a Raw deal in anyone's book.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
As stated previously, those who put in the long hours do not necessarily produce the results, and vice versa. By all means set the expectations high in terms of productivity and then treat your workers with enough respect to let them decide how many extra hours they need to put in to achieve these goals.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
I have known people, hard (and good) workers, who left this company because they realized that that the way this company work wasn't right. There were (and to my knowledge still are) people at that company who work less than the 40 hours per week (that is considered by all as full-time) but still bill 40. Then my friend(s) who actually work over 40 had told me that management really scrutenized their over-time (paid as straight time anyway). Therefore, it was (much) easier to work 30-35 hours and bill 40 than it was to work 45-50 (and bill 45-50) hours. This is a problem (IMHO) with paying engineers over-time. This problem is only really compounded upon when at least one of two circumtances is true; and those are that management routinely (i.e. business model) expects its salaried employees to work overtime and/or that your hourly employees aren't really "professionals" and will "milk" hours out of a job just to get paid.
So if you are a business owner, which of the previous two is the lessor of two evils for you?
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
It's a 2 way street and it all has to work together. The employer must see to it that his committments to his client's are realistic and can be accommplished in the time frames set out for his employees (i.e. 40 hour work weeks). If they are then it is not too much to expect that his workers meet the schedule regardless how many hours they are in the office. We all know that the 8 hours you are in the office are not 100% effecient.
Greg Lamberson
Consultant - Upstream Energy
Website: www.oil-gas-consulting.com
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Is the employer relying on a single 50 hour week or continuous 50 hour weeks. I am presently salaried (i.e. no overtime paid), but I would voluntarily work more hours in a week a few weeks a year as major project deadlines approached. I however would NOT work 50 hours week-in week-out, unless of course I had some sort of ownership stake in the company (then I would probably work way more than 50).
So when an employer (or owner) is putting in a bid, they need to be aware of what their staff is willing to work. Engineering is a somewhat smaller field (i.e. more specialized) and as such word of mouth travels quickly. People hear about the firms that have crazy or unrealistic expectations - and people (at least who I know) usually try to avoid those firms.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
I actually find 50 hour weeks remarkably useless even in crunch-time except for the most drudge-like tasks at work.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
I had numerous job offers- and my old employer struggles to find engineers.
The funny thing is that the owner isn't even an engineer. I figure it must be hard to have an engineering firm without engineers. (He had only one full-time engineer and one part-time ready to retire when I left.)
I was told the old sob story of "I can't make a profit if engineers won't work for me for free." Anyone who says that and is honest about it will go out of business. My generation doesn't tolerate long hours with no compensation, and we can get jobs in other industries if we have to. For salaries around 40k/yr. for entry civil engineers I would be better off with the summer internships with the Nebraska Dept. of Roads that I had during college than the salary and 50 hr./wk. after college.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Now expecting people to work 40 billable hours and hence probably needing to be in the office a little longer is a different matter. To me my 40 hours includes things like trips to the stationary cupboard, staff meetings, reasonable toilet trips etc and yet often these aren't 'billable'. My 40 hours doesn't include personal phone calls, surfing the net, excessively long non work conversations with colleagues etc so I do these things on my lunch and/or 'work' a few extra hours to compensate.
In the UK I was salaried (officially no overtime) for 37 hours and regularly worked a few extra. In my last year there they had so much extra work that a few of us were actually paid for doing extra work. Initially it was an end of year bonus and when they still had too much work it was actually formalized overtime at time & half.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Why not hire a cleaning crew for the office. Our cleaning crew can clean our office (of 50 people) in less then an hour using 4 staff members. The total cost per cleaning is less the one billable hour yet it would take me way more then the 4 man hours it takes them. Why would I give up $600 in billings to save $100? Plus I never have to worry about have cleaning supplies around and I did not go to Grad School to clean toilets
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
My question is this - how do your firms manage this situation? It seems to me that by accepting every single proposal that comes our way that we are forcing ourselves into being short-handed and stretched too thin. I am wondering if it is possible, even desirable, to limit the work that you accept, based upon what you can handle and still keep a good rep. My thinking is that it would actually improve your word-of-mouth if potential clients know that we are committed to providing quality service and won't sacrifice their project for the next one that comes down the line. I would appreciate any insight from your experiences.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Dan - Owner

http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
This is the typical poor management that I have come to expect in the structural engineering industry.
He should be charging more (say 10%) for his jobs and then demand will drop a little, he will also be able to pay his employees overtime.
Clients arent stupid, if it takes twice as long to get the job back then they can tell the company is overloaded.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
How do you all decide or calc ROI of individual staff engineers? I can imagine a theoretical way, but what do you REALLY do?
I'm a 1 engineer department in a company with 150+ manufacturing employees building a highly custom product.
I'm new on the job and at 7 years experience still farely new to profession.
The comment has been passed around under peoples breath that we don't need an engineer. At the same time shouted out that manufacturing needs to be delivered an engineered product to build instead of left ot figure it out themselves.
I can't tell if we are horribly understaffed, or if I just suck and they need somebody more skilled.
I feel really, really slow getting things done, and other people are giving me new task assuming the old ones are finished when they aren't. I'm putting in 50+ hours all year, and enjoy the time, but I'm still not keeping up. They paid a premium to get me from another company.
How do I figure out how much work is reasonable to ask of me? How do I set fair goals for myself taking my pay into account?
My Boss has consistently commented that I work too much, and at the same time complained that I'm failing to get things done.
I feel pinched. I want to know if I'm worth it, and if its worth it to get more help, or if my work really doesn't belong in this company.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
You are conscientious, thorough, try to do the best job possible on all projects,dont like to leave a stone unturned?
If this is you, then you may be trying too hard to do a perfect job every time.
1. If there is only one of you and many of them, stick to the engineering only and delegate any peripheral work back to them.
2. Figure out what needs to be perfect and what items could be less than perfect and still have an acceptable outcome.
3. Try to avoid attending meetings that are of no benefit to you.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
I do have a really hard time bridging the gap between complete analysis, which I don't know how to do, and wild guessing, which I can't defend against naysayers.
I do skip the meetings, coming from a previous company that was 5 days of meetings and 1.5 days of real work, thats a no brainer.
Everything we do can be less then perfect, as long as we aim on the safe for humans side. But I'm greedy and don't like to bleed money from wasted time and wasted materials.
Your first point is interesting, There is not much engineering only work here. But the traditional engineering task that come up scare me the most. I spend a lot of time trying to figure where to go to learn how to do elementary things my degree and my resume imply I should already know. So your right, my fidelity is off its mark, but I don't know what to do about it.
To answer the original post from Referree. IF you want me here 50 hours a week, you better have something more interesting for me to do then what I could do with the free time on my own. Money is transparent, and equity in a company that makes me tired and frustrated is hardly an incentive. When I left the last company I took a large stock portfolio with me. I dumped it as fast as the checks would cash, just owning the stock made me stressed. There is something pavloff there that doesn't show up on a spread sheet.
So, back to my first question? I'm empowered to hire someone if they will pay for themselves. Whats a practical way to figure out if its worth it?
Thanks for listening
Eric
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Hire a kid, fresh from uni. For six months he'll be completely useless, and will absorb more time than he saves. It'll pay off.
You must work with a fabricator or technician or maintenance guy? Make him your sidekick. He already knows a lot of the practical side, and twice I've had the pleasusre of seeing an hourly paid guy zoom up into (and through) the technical ranks, directly due to a bit of patience and trust and encouragement from me.
Hire an experienced CAD guy. Ideally 44.3-57.6 years old, with an interest in your industry, and a history of designing/building stuff in his own time.
Incidentally don't feel too guilty about having to learn stuff. That's the only thing that makes work interesting.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
If that’s 30, 40, 50 or more then they should work that number of hours.
Whatever number of hours are expected should be reflected in the employment contract and in the wages or compensation paid.
Personally I like working, 60 to 80 hour weeks are no big deal for me. (once had over 3,000 billable hours in 9 months) However I work in the field away from home and usually don’t have much of a life on the job site locations. When I’m working at home 40 to 50 is the norm.
All I want to do is get the job done so I can go home and be better positioned for getting the next one. While this philosophy works for me as a one man consulting firm, it was also the philosophy that I used when an employee.
And yes I was paid for all the hours in both situations.
Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng
Construction Project Management
From conception to completion
www.kitsonengineering.com
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Trust your own instinct. It will be a different world for the next generation. I believe my professional challenge is to make engineering an exciting proposition as a career. I think there is still a world of change yet to come anyone obsessed with hours will not be winners. I only have to remember how I came to the profession in the days of slide rules, razor blades on film, calligraphy competitions and lunchtime boozing, crikey did we work crazy hours! We loved it, it was the team. Compared to todays endless silent sea of computers, hermetically sealed cubicles and sanitised water, the 40 hours are a struggle!
Your question, is when have you arrived? When can you step off and just do straight time? You never will arrive and you will never do straight time, you're not a clock worker, you're goal-driven. Your experiences are invaluable and will go a long way to learning how to develop people.
When I engage engineers, I emphasise the training, the expectations and the development work. Money and hours are secondary. If these are the key requirements with little interest in the greater issues then it is not the best match.
Referee, I have learned now that as much as engineering problems are still interesting, I have to spend more time with people and team-building. Focus on a vision and sell it. Pay them for for the hours regardless and measure the productivity, work with them to increase the value using their ideas, not yours. If they own the solution, they'll look after it. With my team of engineers they learn I work for them, not them for me and they know it. People are your greatest assets, they'll take care of the hours, if you have a vision.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
With that in mind, I have put in a couple 70 hour work weeks here and there. Most of the time I am around 50. I am straight time for all of my hours. If I was salaried and or not compensated for my overtime, I wouldnt care to work the extra time. But I'm getting paid for it.
I wonder if the standard in the A/E industry is how we do it. They explicitly state that we are expected to work an average of 48 hours /week and pay us straight time (as professionals, engineers) for any OT over 40. It doesnt work out too bad, I guess.. I mean I know I'm making more than some and less than others and I don't mind putting in the extra time because I figure Im learning more. But for people with families and other big commitments... There's no way. I don't really understand expecting 50 hour workweeks from people with no ownership, either. Not for me... Once I get married etc.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
I only asked an engineer to come in on Saturday twice in 19 years and I paid him for it.
I know who is doing their job and will eliminate the unproductive ones; fortunately I have had pretty good luck finding engineers who put in a good work week. I always tell them that if they do their best during the week we will not have to work overtime.
Seven years ago I quit the Saturday work and 4 years ago I quit working on Fridays. Recently I adjusted the engineers schedule so they could have a 3 day weekend on alternate weeks but still keep 80 hours/2 weeks.
It's a difficult balance but I would not expect 50 hours from a salaried employee.
Randy
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
You need to be really careful and check on the state laws in the US. Although highly educated, most engineers fall under the category of non-management workers. That means they technically need to get paid OT for anything over 40 hours (not including set lunch breaks).
For example, if I required engineers to be in the office or on site by 9am every day (M-F) and my employee handbook/agreement says they get an hour for lunch, then they better be out the door by 6pm everyday of the week or cut the week short as soon as they hit 40 hrs or you may be looking at a lawsuit on your hands. States such as NJ require that you keep signed or verifiable timesheets for all non-management employees for just that reason. Even if they are on salary. Salary versus hourly does not hide them from the non-management positions they hold even as skilled workers.
Be safe and check with your state labor laws. I ran a 10 person consulting shop for 7 years and knew exactly what everyone did all day every day for that reason. Now I make sure my coaching clients do the same. Some of them got nailed before I came aboard and didn't understand why. A very big business disruption and hole in your wallet.
Hope that helps.
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
htt
And here's New Jersey:
http://www.nj.gov/labor/lsse/forms/mw-220.pdf
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
RE: How many hours do you require of employees?
Sometimes business owners mistake a technician for an engineer or give a tech the title of "engineer". Either one of those issues spells trouble if requiring OT past 40 hours and not paying for it.
With that said and staying on topic, expecting a true engineering professional to work over 40 hours a week WHEN NEEDED is something to be expected since most work is project related and therefore time dependent.
To regularly expect more than 40 hours of work from someone is not a good practice as a business owner but it should be spelled out in employment docs that it may be necessary to get the job done. It keeps people aware & happy. It doesn't hurt to give paid days off after a job well done that required lots of weekly hours to complete the project.