PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
(OP)
Our PME consulting company is going salary for the engineers, who used to be hourly.
I have read various threads indicating the pro's and con's of salary vs hourly for engineers and there are merits to both; from both an employee and employer perspective.
I have been told that in the US, paying PME engineers hourly is not a typical occurance.
The last two companies I worked for in the last 15 years were hourly.
So, just to get a feel from the members of this community, I want to know, if you work for a PME consulting company, are you hourly or salary?
I have read various threads indicating the pro's and con's of salary vs hourly for engineers and there are merits to both; from both an employee and employer perspective.
I have been told that in the US, paying PME engineers hourly is not a typical occurance.
The last two companies I worked for in the last 15 years were hourly.
So, just to get a feel from the members of this community, I want to know, if you work for a PME consulting company, are you hourly or salary?





RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
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RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
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Greg Locock
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RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
in bad times, employers want everyone on hourly so they can reduce labor costs without laying people off. The result is everyone works 32 hour weeks except when there is a deadline and then everyone works 60 hour weeks. The salaried folks just get furloughed.
there is no net benefit for the employee is there?
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
I'll shorten it.
We are engineers. It is a PROFESSION not a trade. When we work hourly, we subvert the professional status in many ways. In my opinion, engineers should be on salary, should work the amount of time required to show professionalism and a commitment to the profession, and should not bitch about being paid for 40 hours but working 50. I've been doing it for 36 years, I'm proud to be an engineer, I've always been on salary (except for the last 7 years of running my own business), I've always been underpaid if compared to an "hourly worker", but I think engineering is important to the public good and should be considered and treated as such.
Jumping off soapbox.
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
If your boss came up to you and said you were going to work 55 hours a week all year on your current 40 hour salary, what would you think?
I have been contracting for the past 6 months. It sure was nice in the summer when the project was slow and I could work on some other projects. Now it's nice when I have worked 7 days a week on this project to keep it on target.
With the newer management practices I'm not sure if your thoughts "We are engineers. It is a PROFESSION not a trade." hold up. My wife works as a speech pathologist, paid hourly. Is her career a trade or profession??? To be a speech pathologist these days you need a doctorate, FYI.
Tim
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
Yes I am a professionnal, but I am still a employee is a corporation and paid that way too !!!. I don't have the freedom of other liberal profession.
I don't have to gift my employer with free work time.
Here in canada, as a professionnal, the client is in fact by definition "my employer" and not their clients !
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
I am salaried, work more then 40 hours a week, log my hours in every day.
The good news is my company bills our customer for every hour I work, regardless if I get paid for it or not.
It is a win situation for my company.
Maybe if I work real hard and show my professionalism, my company will reward me with a baseball cap, or a jacket 2 sizes too big with the company logo on it.
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
to answer the original post, I have been both hourly and salaried and then back to hourly over the last 25 years. Never had any choice in the matter and the choice of method was always determined by my employer to benefit them in some way. Recently got switched back to hourly and I feel it also benefitted me as I was able to remain working unlike other salaried folks who are currently unemployed.
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
I would think exactly the same as I have done for the past 36 years...My salary is what it is and I'll work the hours I need to for the benefit of all. 55 to 60 hours a week was normal and stayed that way for many years. My choice. When I was on a salary working for a corporation, I worked as needed. With that came a lot of freedom to do what I wanted and there was no quibbling if I wanted to leave work at 3 to go to my child's baseball game or some other function...or if I just wanted to leave. I was usually at the top of my salary range and got promoted to responsible and rewarding technical positions throughout my career. Part of that was because I put a lot of effort into the project, part of it was because I made the effort to learn more about the technical aspects of my job and stay ahead of the next guy and the competition, part of it was because I enjoy the challenge of taking on new stuff...but none of it was because I whined when I had to work extra hours.
I now enjoy the benefit of charging a nice hourly rate to do consulting. I get to keep the amount I bill, except I now have to pay my own insurance of all types, I pay for my office and every other expense necessary to run a business. What's left I keep.
When I was in a corporation, before I started my first company, I had the same reservations about salaries, billing rates, and corporate profits that all "staff" level engineers have. As I came to understand more about what goes into developing billing rates and ultimately the salaries of the billing professionals, I developed an appreciation for all the minutia of expenses and how the revenue must be sufficient cover those expenses and add a little profit on top of that.
Many staff level engineers see their salaries, see the billing rates and think there is a great disparity between the two and that the difference between them goes straight to the owner's pocket. Not so. Not even close. A well run engineering firm will yield after-tax profit of usually less than 10 percent. A small engineering firm can sometimes make more profit and individual practitioners can often make nice profits...but there's a lot more personal risk for each.
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
My other experience was with a small structural consulting company. We worked 6 days a week at the office and were expected to work out of our briefcases (before laptops) nights and Sundays. No holiday on Good Friday as this was a day "when we can gain on the Architects that are taking the day off".
No thank you! 14 of my 39 years were salaried. The last 12 have been hourly and I have much more freedom to make plans for the weekends and through the upcoming months etc.
Take your bonus and divide by your hours over 2080 and see how badly you are getting screwed. Or take your total compensation and divide by your total hours. I did and I would never work as a salaried employee again.
gjc
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
I don't know how this all works out with the labor laws and such, and frankly, it seems like a pretty sweet deal for all involved, so I'm not complaining. Note that an hour charged over 40 is more profitable for the company, since they base their overheads on a 40-hour week.
I put in many extra hours for training, travel and working from home, so I don't feel a bit bad about this setup.
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
The boss got annoyed at seeing people slip in 5 or 10 mins late and announced the henceforth he was making everybody hourly.
So we all turned our timecards in that week which included the overtime.
The next week we were back on salary.
B.E.
"A free people ought not only be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
-George Washington, President of the United States----
RE: PME Consulting Engineers - Hourly or Salary
Mike McCann
MMC Engineering
http://mmcengineering.tripod.com