Rent-a-tech company improvements?

[Mike McFarlin]

If you could do one thing to improve a rent-a-tech company, what would it be?

[Gonzo]

the only contract company i've worked for is bartlett and i only have one complaint, per diem should never be pulled as they do if you miss or take time off..  per diem should be paid, period..  if your absenteeism is a problem then deal with it as appropriate but per diem is to cover our living expenses and those don't change because you've been sick.. that having been said, since i knew those were the terms when i took the jobs, i accepted it as a cost of doing business...

[vikingfan]

Direct deposit of payroll and perdiem with out any limitations such as I should not have to work a specific period of time to qualify for direct deposit it should be an acceptable benefit of employment.

[SloGlo]

my  improvement would be an acknowledgement of company loyalty.  for instance, after a year of loyal work to company "a", a paid stipend during unemployment periods would occur.  after five years of loyal work to company "a", a reduction in health care costs.  after ten years of loyal work to company "a", free booze 'n a motel room at da christmas party.

[Rennhack]

•   Inexpensive insurance that has insanely good coverage
•   Contribute to 401k
•   Travel pay that isn't capped, and pays hours of travel as well as miles at federal limits
•   Vacation time that is accrued weekly, and paid out as needed
•   Paid Holidays
•   All hours worked on holidays to be time and a half
•   Federal per diem rates that isn't lost on sick days
•   Paid sick days
•   $5/hr more for everyone

[UncaBuffalo]

my  improvement would be an acknowledgement of company loyalty...

I like this idea...maybe another incentive could be an increased employer-matching-on-401K with increased time with company...

[RRhoads]

one suggestion i would have is for example,
If you choose not to take the company insurance said company kicks in
some $$ weekly to help off set the cost of finding private insurance.
Seems to me that this would save $$ for the company while the employee
is employed & no cost of the Cobra when not working.

[HydroDave63]

•   Inexpensive insurance that has insanely good coverage
•   Contribute to 401k
•   Travel pay that isn't capped, and pays hours of travel as well as miles at federal limits
•   Vacation time that is accrued weekly, and paid out as needed
•   Paid Holidays
•   All hours worked on holidays to be time and a half
•   Federal per diem rates that isn't lost on sick days
•   Paid sick days
•   $5/hr more for everyone

But to put the rubber bootie on the other foot.....could we nuclear and business-savvy Nukeworkers actually operate such a business at a modest profit? If so, then it is easier to make it happen with your own company (did any coffee shops give 401(k) and health benefits before Starbucks?) and lead the way.

If we can't make money doing it this way ourselves, how would we expect any other company to do so?

[illegalsmile]

•   Inexpensive insurance that has insanely good coverage
•   Contribute to 401k
•   Travel pay that isn't capped, and pays hours of travel as well as miles at federal limits
•   Vacation time that is accrued weekly, and paid out as needed
•   Paid Holidays
•   All hours worked on holidays to be time and a half
•   Federal per diem rates that isn't lost on sick days
•   Paid sick days
•   $5/hr more for everyone

So when is Rennhack Nuclear Services, Inc taking applications? With policies like that you'd have more employees than you could ever put to work.

[Rennhack]

So when is Rennhack Nuclear Services, Inc taking applications? With policies like that you'd have more employees than you could ever put to work.

With policies like that, I'd never win a contract. 

Besides, Rennhack is not in the staff augmentation business.  I'm just here to help people.

[allforthenukie]

Direct deposit please.

[Old HP]

I would prefer going back to the days of recruiters that actually called and recruited people. Also as long as we are dreaming I actually liked having health insurance paid for by the company, profit sharing, stock options, prepaid plane tickets to the job and rental cars with gas expenses reimbursed weekly. We sure have made progress in the last 30 years haven't we?

[vikingfan]

1. lower health insurance premiums. maintained during layoff period also.
2. direct deposit of payroll and per diem into our checking accounts or company debit card accounts ( masterlee does this, as do some others).
3. paid travel at your rate for the travel time to and from each site plus 1 day perdiem and mileage.
4. accrued vacation hours.
5. rental cars that company bills to the site plus 1 tank of gas paid.

[RRhoads]

is anyone out there reading the posts on this thread i wonder?

[Atomic_Punk]

is anyone out there reading the posts on this thread i wonder?

I'm sure there are, but as long as outages keep getting staffed, there's no incentive for them to change the way they do business.

[Mike McFarlin]

Do away with all district managers and personnel that don't generate ANY money for the company. Then they could pay the techs a decent wage and  could afford their own insurance.

[diliigaf]

Do away with all district managers and personnel that don't generate ANY money for the company. Then they could pay the techs a decent wage and  could afford their own insurance.

                    Good point Spanky...

[RRhoads]

I'm sure there are, but as long as outages keep getting staffed, there's no incentive for them to change the way they do business.

yeah, i would agree with you on that.

[HydroDave63]

Would a Co-Op company of Nukeworker.com radtechs succeed, with input listed in this thread?

Let's get those candid replies and suggestions going!

[Mike McFarlin]

Yes, would have company loyality.

[hamsamich]

the biggest problem I would see with this would be unrealistic expectations from SOME technicians concerning pay and benefits.  I hear some people whining about stuff not realizing that money doesn't grow on trees.  Some gripes are legit but some make me cringe.  health care could be a deal breaker here.....think about it.

[BuddyThePug]

Definitely agree with you there. The COBRA bite comes from nearly all plans requiring that you are an employee receiving wages all year to keep benefits that the level you are currently paying (since the employer is only paying the huge portion we don't see, when you are earning wages).

You might have to finagle a deal where in the Co-Op plan, you are paying a lot of the whole year's health premium up front to cover all 12 month's of the tech's contribution share. It is still overhead to the Co-Op, so there would likely need to be a provision where the tech had to commit to a minimum of "x" number of outages/year which would cover the Co-Ops overhead.

Various things would be a trade-off. In order for the Co-Op to have low overhead, there wouldnt be many recruiters or other sweet voices on the phone, so some techs might feel insufficient lovins. A baseline year-round "real" health care plan is probably feasible, at the expense of rental cars or huge bonuses going away.

Profit sharing would be great....but in the places where I have worked that had it, a significant portion of your "compensation" was at risk depending on how the company did. How many techs would do the math and realize that the $3/hr they are giving up now for profit sharing, could be 0, or $3000 at year's end?

[hamsamich]

yes, i agree with buddy.  there are many good people out there, but the bad apples you would inevitably have in your barrel may spoil the lot.  this would require some type of control from a somewhat untouchable source, which would then negate the reason you would want the co-op in the first place.  it could work, but would require some luck and an ingenious system.

[Rennhack]

The union portion of the discussion has been split off, and can be found here:

http://www.nukeworker.com/forum/index.php/topic,9625.0.html

[Camella Black]

I would prefer going back to the days of recruiters that actually called and recruited people. Also as long as we are dreaming I actually liked having health insurance paid for by the company, profit sharing, stock options, prepaid plane tickets to the job and rental cars with gas expenses reimbursed weekly. We sure have made progress in the last 30 years haven't we?

Watch your karma rise my friend, this is the best post I've seen in a while. As far as recruiters are concerned sometimes they still call when they really need you; case in point this past month they called hubby and wanted to know would he go somewhere, he confirmed but now their overbooked...hmmm someone wasn't paying attention to what they were doing.

I liked the rental car and plane ticket idea. I remember thoe days fondly. My dad was site coord and the rental car place gave out green stamps for every car rented, man did I have a blast spending them!!!