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Technician Wages

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David

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello everyone. I am an installation supervisor for a large midwest
security company and I have some question.s First, are there any other
managers or supervisors here that are having problems hiring experienced
techs? If there are, is it due mostly to wages?
The reason I ask is I have been looking to add technicians to my staff but
I am stymied by the wage scale that my company has put together. They tell
me that it is compaetitive but when I make an offer to a prospective tech,
they either decline or quite often, just don't respond. I have been hiring
tech assistants in hopes that someday they will become more but I need some
techs that can hit the ground running.
That having been said, I am going into an operations managers meeting next
Tuesday and although I have compiled statistics from the Bureau of Labor as
well as others, I could use some real hard evidence that we are in fact not
competitve. What I would like to know is how long you have been in the
busines, where you are located and what you make an hour. According to my
bosses, we are in line with other SNA partners.
I made a promise to the other techs when I was promoted to this posistion
that I would not forget where I came from and would fight for them to my
fullest capacity. I am asking for your help, not for me, but for my
technicians and their families.
Thank you for any help you can give me.
David Knutsen
 
J

James B

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello everyone. I am  an installation supervisor for a large midwest
security company and I have some question.s First, are there any other
managers or supervisors here that are having problems hiring experienced
techs? If there are, is it due mostly to wages?
 The reason I ask is I have been looking to add technicians to my staff but
I am stymied by the wage scale that my company has put together. They tell
me that it is compaetitive but when I make an offer to a prospective tech,
they either decline or quite often, just don't respond. I have been hiring
tech assistants in hopes that someday they will become more but I need some
techs that can hit the ground running.
That having been said, I am going into an operations managers meeting next
Tuesday and although I have compiled statistics from the Bureau of Labor as
well as others, I could use some real hard evidence that we are in fact not
competitve. What I would like to know is how long you have been in the
busines, where you are located and what you make an hour. According to my
bosses, we are in line with other SNA partners.
I made a promise to the other techs when I was promoted to this posistion
that I would not forget where I came from and would fight for them to my
fullest capacity. I am asking for your help, not for me, but for my
technicians and their families.
Thank you for any help you can give me.
David Knutsen

David,

This sounds famillar to me, I also do the hiring for our
company and it is exremely competitive. I have had other companies
approach my techs on jobsites and offer them more money then we can
pay. It seems all the skilled technicians already have a job, and
there are not enogh "techs" to go around.

How large is the company you work for? The size of the company
seems to have a lot to do with the amount they pay their techs.

James
 
P

Petem

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hi David

Dont know about mid west but here in Quebec all technician are in a union

and the salary is:

for a 1st year tech (less then 2000 hour of experience) 14.75/hr and double
time for any amount of hour pass 8 hour a day

for a 2 year tech (more them 2000 less then 4000 hour of experience)
17.21/hr and overtime is the same

for a 3 year exp. tech (more then 4000 lest then 6000 hr of exp.) 20.89/hr
and overtime is the same

and for a qualified tech (after he pass an exam to proove his skill, and
made more then 6000 hr of experience) 24.58/hr and same stuff for overtime

also, they have a retirement plan wich consist of 18% of there yearly salary
paid by the boss at 60% and by him at 40%

and a medicare plan wich is one of the best plan in force in this province
(dental work at 90% paid. drugs paid 100%. glasses paid 100% and a lot
more..)

they also have short/long term salary insurance in case of accident

hope this help
 
J

Jim Rojas

Jan 1, 1970
0
Let's face it. How many techs out there are tired of getting screwed
over when their company folds, or sells out to a competitor?

Retirement plans are nice on paper, but not realistic in today's fast
paced world. By the time you are almost qualified to retire, many
companies are looking for ways to fire you based on non existant job
performance evaluations, or the mysterious "department cutbacks" excuse.

Pay each tech a flat rate per job or service call, this may equal to
double or even triple than the national hourly average. This encourages
production. A tech that installs 2 basic systems a day, should see a
$300+ per day payscale. Service techs should see 40 to 50 percent of the
bill, less parts. This way, there is no overtime worries, sick day
worries, etc. The techs are free to work as much as they want when they
want. Vacations can be scheduled at a drop of a hat.

Set them up with their own IRA, which stays with them for life. A 401K
is a poor way to save for retirement since it can lose value due to
current stock market activity. Social Security is a national disaster.
By the time you are old enough to collect it, it's not enough to live
on, let alone pay your normal household expenses with it.

Set them up with a 80/20 full healthcare plan. Group coverage, for a
typical family of 4 will run you $450 per month, which includes major
medical, and dental.

Have them supply their own tools. Afterall, if it belongs to them, they
will take better care of it.

Use white fleet style vehicles. Skip the $4000+ custom moving billboard
paint jobs. It's real tacky. Large print letters and a simple slogan is
more than enough. Who cares if your vehicle gets entered into SDM
magazine...really now.

Get everyone in the company a Nextel military grade cell phone, so
there's no excuse why you can't gat a hold of anyone if a problem
arises. They now offer unlimited talking plans for $119 a month, it's
less if you group a bunch of phones together. Now everyone can speak to
their families and loved ones without having to worry about excessive
monthly usage charges. That's right, chuck the ICOM 2 way radios.

Make sure every tech dresses the same. This is extremely important to
customers. Even a long haired southern boy wearing jeans (no holes
please), a company shirt and hat looks good to a customer if he dresses
like he is there to work, not to drink beer and shoot pool.

If I left anything out, let me know.


Jim Rojas
 
P

Petem

Jan 1, 1970
0
Jim i am all with you

But here the retirement plan is not controled by the big boss

we have a organisim called CCQ (www.ccq.org) that is in charg of everything
related to construction business, they collect the cash for the retirement
plan, for the medicare plan , vacation (12.5% of pay check) the boss need to
give a report and the cash every month and you can check online if he is
been screwing you, and if he do the ccq can go and open all his booking and
pay you by force...

and thats for all construction business, electricity to plumbing ect..

I know an electrician that got his retirement plan last year , and left at
55 with 4000$ a month, taxe paid...not bad...and that plan will be indexed
and will last till he die, then his wife will have half of it till she die

with that in view maybe you will find that our plan is not that bad...

and one other thing, here we are not attached to a company we can switch
when ever we want all of our stuff follow us, the boss damn know it and they
are not playing games with us
 
T

tourman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Now that is just too. too funny!!!! :)

Les

RHC: One thing it may be hard for you guys south of the border to
understand is that Canada is quite a different country in many ways
than the States. Everything up here is regulated, overregulated and
regulated some more, by government agencies and bureaucrats who
supposedly are acting in the citizens best interests. Many times it
works out well; just as many other instances it does not. The basic
difference between the two countries boils down to this !! Americans
believe in "freedom" at most any price. Canadians are far more
interested in "order and good government". This ingrained philosophy
of life is part of everything we do and how we think (not me for damn
sure, but most other Canadians) and explains away many of the things
that we have to do that you undoubtably think are stupid.

No one up here truly "goes it alone". After you've done with the
normal bureaucracy regulating business of all sorts, you then have to
contend with Revenue Canada who wants a far too large a percentage of
your profits. At a certain point in business, it simply doesn't pay to
make too much because you end up working for the government. There is
one day in June of each month ( I've forgotten the exact date) which
marks the day you stop paying the government and actually start
working for yourself.

It's a bitch......
 
J

Jim Rojas

Jan 1, 1970
0
Feel free to have a tea party. We here in the states had a big one in
the 1700's...it worked wonders towards our independence. We substituted
one evil with our own evil. At least we can voted ours out of office
every few years.

Or you can kill all the politicians, but before you do that, you have to
first kill all the lawyers...then you will truly be free.


Jim Rojas
 
T

tourman

Jan 1, 1970
0
Feel free to have a tea party. We here in the states had a big one in
the 1700's...it worked wonders towards our independence. We substituted
one evil with our own evil. At least we can voted ours out of office
every few years.

Or you can kill all the politicians, but before you do that, you have to
first kill all the lawyers...then you will truly be free.

Jim Rojas

RHC: Starting with Brinks lawyers for sure, right?.....:((

We could never have the equivalent of your Boston Tea Party up here.
No one would bother coming.....they're all too busy drinking beer and
watching hockey for anything of that magnitude....
 
J

Jim Rojas

Jan 1, 1970
0
I joined forces with APX alarm to takeover the rest of the Brinks
accounts...it shouldn't take long.

Jim Rojas
 
D

David

Jan 1, 1970
0
This sounds famillar to me, I also do the hiring for our
company and it is exremely competitive. I have had other companies
approach my techs on jobsites and offer them more money then we can
pay. It seems all the skilled technicians already have a job, and
there are not enogh "techs" to go around.
How large is the company you work for? The size of the company
seems to have a lot to do with the amount they pay their techs.

James:

In my branch alone, we have about 29 techs. We run the gamut from basic
guard service to access control and offsite video monitoring. We also have
our own central station. All totaled, we have well over 3500 employees. We
have pretty good benefits, insurance, 401k, the techs get a truck to drive
to and from work which has a gas card in it and we take care of all
maintenance. They supply their own hand tools and drills but we supply the
pipe benders, fish tapes large masonry drills, push pull rods, etc. There
are two installation teams in our branch, one is residential and small
commercial. Mine is mid to large commercial. My team does a lot of high
profile jobs such as access, cctv, fire and burg sometimes all four or a
combination of them on the same job. I'm really getting tired of hiring
people with no experience and having to take years to bring them up to the
point where they can tackle these jobs on their own. I was hoping that I
could get some good information to take to the gm meeting so I could start
making some decent offers to people.
Thanks for your input.
David
 
G

G. Morgan

Jan 1, 1970
0
ABLE_1 said:
Now that is just too. too funny!!!! :)

Apparently, the CCQ turns out to be the most intelligent life form in Quebec.
Not bad for a single cell organism. ;-)
 
R

Red

Jan 1, 1970
0
There is no apprentice program within the industry, and it's probably
too late to get one going.

The way I see it(practical experience, not vaporware) is that too many
of the big box companies need just to put bodies on the job, so they
hire the very minimally experienced, really knowing little to nothing.
The starting pay is shit, but they quickly advance in $'s and all the
benefits of a big corp are offered as standard procedure. That's the
beginning of the spoiling.

The company trainers, if they're even a bit qualified, try to put
together a plan to teach the younglings. Many of these trainers are
unfortunately merely book techs! I personally know of a former
national trainer who was hired right out of the Navy flight program
when he retired. Never installed an alarm, maybe even never knew to
remember his password. Big companies and CFO's running business.

Operations managers may try, but they can can't spend every minute
training every tech. The minute production starts to slip, the branch
manager jumps his ass and that's the end of any desires for quality.

Now that's where it gets greasy.

If the quality is not cared for (and please, no bullshit about the
company being qualified for the NBFAA quality program, that's a farce)
then the rank and file start caring less and less. The ones that do
care are taken out of the field and made managers so that stunts his
skill level and he quickly learns to bend over for that paycheck and
status.

Finally, when a tech is either canned or made to quit because he's a
total dork, he goes to any one of the supply houses, spends 15 minutes
hanging around and gets hired by some little guy who just needs the
help and is willing to match the stupid salary the bum was getting but
didn't deserve. Still the same tech, with the same habits due to his
incredible rote learning of the past. Still does as he pleases, fucks
things up and drives the company truck wherever he pleases.

Just interviewed a candidate who had 10 years experience and is making
$24.00 an hour + bene's, pay stub verified. I handed the guy three
resistors and the color chart. Couldn't tell me the values.

He won't get the job even for helper's pay not because he wasn't able
to read a resistor, but because in 10 years he never saw the need to
advance himself just an iota.

We have seen the enemy and it is us.
 
J

Jim Rojas

Jan 1, 1970
0
Any info on the settlement? I still can't find one Brinks account I
monitor or helped to takeover in the past. Maybe APX can give me some
pointers.

Have you noticed that Brinks doesn't have the balls to go after ADT or
anyone else there own size? I have been told by many ADT authorized
dealers that they takeover hundreds of ex-Brinks customers each and
every month. And I am more than sure ADT doesn't give a shit about
Brinks PSA when it comes to their numbers game.

Jim Rojas
 
T

tourman

Jan 1, 1970
0
I have been told by many ADT authorized
dealers that they takeover hundreds of ex-Brinks customers each and
every month.
Jim Rojas

RHC: Jeez...you mean after people have been stupid enough to allow
themselves to get stung by Brinks the first time, they then repeat
their error over again with ADT !!!!!!
 
J

Jim Rojas

Jan 1, 1970
0
That's the same thing. If the customer breaks the Brinks PSA and signs
up with ADT, there is no difference whatsoever. Even if new equipment is
installed.

Replacing the Brinks system violates their PSA with their customer. ADT
is guilty of that every single day. I personally have yet to do this
even with all the downloads I do on a weekly basis.

Brink's authorized dealers are the real threat. With over 100+
authorized dealers that can break ties with Brinks at anytime. This is a
problem Brinks is avoiding to speak of publicly. I really could give a
rats ass either way.

Jim Rojas
 
J

Jim Rojas

Jan 1, 1970
0
I am sure even Monitronics gets dealers that fall out of bed, then
mysteriously many of the accounts they signed up end up cancelling
prematurely or cancel right when the obligation is ended. It's how many
dealer survive these days. It is what happens when you sell your soul
for a quick buck.

Jim Rojas
 
J

Jim Rojas

Jan 1, 1970
0
Slick authorized dealers will swap and take back accounts with friendly
competitors. This is an old game many play.

Jim Rojas
 
I

I brive a dus

Jan 1, 1970
0
Oh like 100+ dealers would do that? You could make that case about any
dealer network however it doesn't happen nor will it. Brinks's isn't
speaking publicly because there is nothing to speak about. <

Mark you wouldn't care to guess why the Monkster saw a huge drop in
accounts that were originally installed by Patriot, and then 3 years
later see those customer names in the Monkster system but after being
placed online by another dealer, would you? If you don't believe
dealers flip accounts at the end of the original term you're dead
wrong.
Jim may have gone off the deep end (trust me Jim you did. You're out
where the buses don't run right now) but he's not wrong on this, nor
is he wrong on the commercials.
 
R

Red

Jan 1, 1970
0
That's because they just may have to spend some money. Yours wasn't
even a good lunch bill.
 
R

Red

Jan 1, 1970
0
That's because when your dealers go they don't want to be found again!
 
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